Carter, Louis A(ugustus)

By: Earl P. Stover

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Carter, Louis A(ugustus)

1876–1941
African American army chaplain who became the first black regular army chaplain promoted to colonel.

Louis Carter was born on February 20, 1876, in Auburn, Alabama. He attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, from 1895 to 1897, and Selma University, in Selma, Alabama, from 1897 to 1900, but he did not graduate from either institution. From 1901 to 1904 he attended the Virginia Union University Theological School, in Richmond, Virginia, as a special student, graduating with a bachelor of divinity degree. From his ordination in Auburn in 1899 to his enlistment in the Army in 1910, Carter served several pastorates in Alabama, Virginia, and Tennessee. His popularity and success as a pastor was characterized as phenomenal. As pastor of the 1,500-member First Baptist Church of Knoxville, he was active in the black Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and was said to have done more to encourage young men to participate in YMCA activities than any other clergyman in that city. Guadalupe College of Texas awarded him a doctor of divinity degree in 1907. Carter married Mary B. Moss, a member of his congregation, in 1909.

In 1910 Carter applied for an appointment as chaplain of one of the four regular army regiments for blacks. For this appointment he had references from two members of the United States House of Representatives, the mayor and a former mayor of Knoxville, the president of the East Tennessee Banker's Association, several attorneys, and many ministers. In April of that year he became the eighth black pastor to be appointed a regular army chaplain and served on continuous active duty for thirty years. During that time he became the only chaplain to serve with all four regular army black regiments: the Twenty-Fourth Infantry, the Twenty-Fifth Infantry, the Ninth Cavalry, and the Tenth Cavalry.

On entering the army, Carter quickly concluded that personal contact with the enlisted men was the key to winning their confidence and respect, and to helping him understand their attitudes, behavior, and problems. He attributed whatever success he had in his army ministry to personal contact—in hospitals and guardhouses, in garrison and the field, in barracks and homes, and at places of recreation and worship. Aside from his traditional chaplain duties, he occasionally served as post schoolmaster and librarian. He promoted sports, entertainment such as minstrel and vaudeville shows, literary societies, and debating clubs. He started special programs such as Letter Writing Week during the week before Mothers' Day, and Man's Night, which consisted of a short, spirited, and convincing talk by surgeons, clergymen, businessmen, and other professionals. He advanced racial pride and an interest in black studies by making available in the libraries books about black soldiers and the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis. He presented impressive programs during regimental anniversaries that recounted the military successes of the black soldier on the frontier and in the Philippines, Cuba, and Mexico. He was known by his commanders as a forceful public speaker and preacher who attracted large congregations and as a good influence on the enlisted men.

When the Tenth Cavalry moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in 1913, the troopers were allowed to wear their weapons off the post. One trooper went into a Douglas bar to get a drink, and a white cowboy provoked him by making racial slurs. This provocation resulted in a gunfight, and the trooper killed his adversary. Carter went throughout the regiment to raise funds for a good lawyer, and the trooper was freed on the basis of self-defense.

After arriving in the Philippines in 1915, the men of the Ninth Cavalry in ranks below staff sergeant found no army housing available for their families. Carter managed to persuade the Camp Stotsenburg commander to set aside an area within the camp for married men to build houses at their own expense. A habitable bamboo hut for two could be built for $200, less if the men did most of the work, but with their low pay they found it difficult to raise the money. Carter again came to their aid by persuading the quartermaster to assume “certain financial responsibilities” outside army regulations for their housing projects, and the men repaid the money in installments. In a few months a village sprang up and was named after its “patron saint,” Chaplain Carter.

Both Carter and the men of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry admired and supported The Crisis for its “manly stand for the advancement of … the Negro race.” However, on one occasion, Carter took issue with its editor W. E. B. Du Bois, who said the United States could get more funds for health, education, and social uplift “by taxing the rich and by spending less for silly battleships and for the salaries of impudent army officers.” Carter wrote that the Twenty-Fifth Infantry was “doing as much for the advancement of the Negro race as any University in the country” and that Du Bois was lessening his influence by sponsoring “such pacifist-bolshevik doctrines.” Du Bois had the last word by repeating that battleships were silly and dangerous and by saying most—but not all—army officers were impudent because of their bad attitude toward black soldiers during World War I (1914–1918). He admitted his pacifism and stated he was a Bolshevik if being one was striving “to organize Industry for public service rather than for private profit.” Du Bois also requested Carter's sympathy and the regiment's support for The Crisis and the NAACP, “even with this knowledge of my personal aims and attitudes.” This apparently ended the exchange.

The army awarded Carter the Mexican Border Service Medal, World War I Victory Medal, and Expert Badge with Pistol Bar. In 1926 Western University of Kansas awarded him his second doctor of divinity degree. On April 29, 1936, he became the first regular army black chaplain to be promoted to colonel. Carter Street at Fort Huachuca was also named after him. Upon his retirement in February 1940 he lived briefly in Los Angeles before he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he died in a Veterans' Hospital on July 16, 1941. He was buried in the Fort Huachuca Cemetery.

Principal sources on Carter's life include Richard Johnson's “My Life in the Army” (Entry No. 199, Special Bibliographic Series No. 6, Manuscript Holdings of the United States Army Military Research Collection, Carlisle, Pennsylvania) and The Crisis (vol. 34, nos. 5 and 7). Other principal sources are an interview with Sergeant William P. Banks (Retired), May 10, 1973, West Point, New York; Louis A. Carter AGO Document File No. 1549808, Record Group 94, National Archives; and Louis A. Carter file, Fort Huachuca Museum, Fort Huachuca.

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