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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Assaults in unknown circumstances (3)

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Assaults on whites (1/29)
Assaults on women (1/5)
Assaults on blacks (1/12)
Injured in assaults (3/53)

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Assaults on whites (29) 41 plain 2020-08-07T18:53:46+00:00
At least twenty-nine whites were assaulted during the disorder, in addition to nine white police officers. This violence has been overlooked in most scholarship on the disorder, following the lead of the report of the MCCH, which mentions assaults only obliquely, in emphasizing attacks on property: “In fact, the distinguishing feature of this outbreak was that it was an attack upon property and not upon persons. In the beginning, to be sure, the resentment was expressed against whites—but whites who owned stores and who, while exploiting Negroes, denied them an opportunity to work” (11).

Newspapers, tell a different story, particularly the New York Evening Journal, a Hearst afternoon paper that sought out and gave prominence to whites assaulted by blacks, reporting four assaults that do not appear in any other source. [Several papers reported clashes between bands of blacks and whites, in line with patterns from earlier racial disorders, but none offered details and there are no reports of blacks injured in those circumstances]. Violence against whites took place throughout the disorder (perhaps fading by 2 AM, around three hours before the final events of the disorder) and across a wide area centered on 125th Street. Assaults on whites are thus woven into the disorder, not so marginal as to distinguish the disorder from outbreaks earlier in the century.

White men and women on the street, newspaper reporters and photographers, storeowners, and passengers in vehicles traveling through Harlem all allegedly suffered injuries at the hands of black assailants.

Crowds threw stones and rocks at whites. The occupants of vehicles traveling through the neighborhood became targets, with Patricia O'Rourke hit in her car and Joseph Rinaldi in a Boston-bound bus. In other cases, whites standing apart, observing crowds came under attack, including a newspaper photographer Ebbs Breuer and his assistant Joseph Martin, and security guard James Wrigley. Others appeared at the hospital with similar injuries resulting from flying glass and rocks that they did not report as assaults, that did not result from efforts to injure them but from the attacks on property.

The remaining assaults involved attacks by individuals or groups, targeting whites apparently observing the crowd like those hit by objects or whites walking Harlem’s streets, either around the entertainments of 125th Street or near the areas where whites lived north of 116th Street. Almost all those attacks took the form of beatings, with only two men stabbed, Edward Genest and Morris Werner. Attacks on Betty Willcox, B. Z. Kondoul, and Timothy Murphy only ended when police officers intervened, while William Ken was saved by black co-workers.

In addition to whites on the streets, white storeowners also appear among those assaulted, but in very small numbers not as the focus of violence as the MCCH report claimed. Herman Young;s resulted from glass from a smashed window rather than a direct attack. Max Newman was attacked as he closed their stores, as was Joseph Sarnelli, with his assailants also attempting to rob him.

Four women appear among the whites assaulted in Harlem. Two of the women attacked were in cars, Patricia O'Rourke driving through Harlem, Betty Willcox while parked. Alice Gordon was assaulted by a group on the street; Elizabeth Nadish was reported simply as having been “beaten”.

Attacks on whites occurred throughout the disorder (perhaps fading by 2 AM, around three hours before the final events of the disorder - information about timing is missing for 13/29 assaults), but were more geographically contained than in race riots in the north earlier in the twentieth century: other than man and storekeeper attacked north of 145th Street, most attacks occurred around 125th Street, with a small number further south, around the stores on 116th Street. The first reported assaults came early in the disorder as the crowd on 125th Street clashed with police and began smashing windows. William Kitlitz was allegedly assaulted by James Smitten around 8.30 PM and Timothy Murphy and Maurice Spellman by different groups of men around 9 PM, and Morris Werner around 9.30 PM. All these men lived west of Harlem, relatively close to where they were attacked, so were likely regular visitors to 125th Street, to shop, seek entertainment or access public transport, on this evening caught up in the disorder. Around 11 PM a small cluster of assaults took place on or near 7th Avenue north of 116th St, as crowds moved away from 125th Street into an area where whites still lived in 1935. Further assaults occurred north of 125th Street around 1 am, back near the entertainment district frequented by whites. The final assault whose timing is known was of a storekeeper during the looting that began after midnight.

Most assaults on whites left few traces in the official record: police made arrests in only five cases (there is no information on the circumstances that led to the arrest of one of the men charged with assault). Seven victims of alleged assaults appear only in records of ambulance callouts and hospital admissions. Fifteen assaults are reported only in newspapers. Four cases appear in only the New York Evening Journal, a publication that reported the disorder with an emphasis on violence against whites distinct from the rest of the press, using sensational language and invoking racist stereotypes of blacks.

Only one of the five black men arrested for assaulting whites, Rivers Wright, was convicted, but only summarily by a Magistrate for the misdemeanor offense of disorderly conduct, for which he received a sentence of ten days in the Workhouse. In one case, there is no evidence of the outcome, one was dismissed by the Grand Jury, and two acquitted by trial juries.
As Part of Related Categories:
- Assaults by groups (17/17)
- Assaults by individuals (3/7)
- Hit by objects (7/19)
- Assaults in unknown circumstances (1/3)
- Assaults on women (4/5)
- Injured in assaults (29/53)
- Assault in the courts (5/9)
Assaults on women (5) 22 plain 2020-08-07T18:55:01+00:00
The fifty-three alleged victims of assault included five women. Two of the women were allegedly attacked by groups, one “beaten” by an individual or group, one hit by an object and one assaulted in unknown circumstances. Details exist of only two of those assaults. This small proportion of women does not appear to reflect their presence in the disorder.

Patricia O’Rourke was hit by glass after a bottle was thrown at the car in which she was traveling on 7th Avenue toward her home in the Bronx, leaving her with cuts to her eyes, forehead and cheeks. Betty Willcox was also traveling on 7th Avenue, in a car that stopped at 7th Avenue and 125th Street so her companion could buy cigarettes. A crowd of black men attacked the car as she sat in it, until a group of police appeared and drove them away. Willcox was uninjured. Alice Gordon was also allegedly assaulted by a group of black men, also on 7th Avenue, eight blocks to the south at 117th Street, only a block south of where O’Rourke was assaulted. She was treated for lacerations to her face. The alleged assault on Emma Brockson occurred at 125th St and 7th Avenue, the same location as that described by Willcox, but there is no evidence indicating the form of the assault. She suffered an injured hand. The final assault, on Elizabeth Nadish, is described as her being “beaten,” a term that encompasses assaults by an individual and by groups while excluding being hit by objects or shot. Her injury was to her eye.

Four of the women are white and one of unknown race. Two of the women were traveling through neighborhood rather than present there. However, white women could be found among the staff of businesses in Harlem, and among those who patronized the theaters on 125th Street and 116th Street. That the four assaults with locations all occurred on 7th Avenue, at 125th Street or further south, fits that pattern. Nonetheless, white women do not appear in any images of the crowds in Harlem’s streets.

Although no black women are identified as victims of assault in any of the sources, they do appear in images of crowds and of the injured. One photograph printed in several newspapers shows a black woman being helped up from the pavement, reportedly after being knocked down by “rioters.”
Two men have hold of her arms, a black man looking directly at the camera and a partly visible white police officer. Offering additional evidence of the presence of black women on the streets, three of the four figures in the background are black women. While the woman in that photograph does not appear to be seriously injured, a black woman was photographed being treated in Harlem Hospital – although no black women appear in the list of those treated sent to the MCCH.

(There are additional photographs published, that are largely illegible in microfilm copies, showing an injured woman being loaded into a vehicle, and another of a woman knocked to the ground). Black women can also be seen in the front ranks of the crowd a police officer is attacking with a night stick and there is a woman in background of another photo of a crowd being dispersed.

There are also three photographs of women who were allegedly assaulted. O’Rourke is bandaged, leaving hospital, her fur coat attracting particular attention from NYDN (The only other bandaged individual is among those arrested being transported to court; otherwise injured are bleeding or being treated). Only Nadish’s head appears in her photographed, with her “puffed up eye” visible, not bandaged. Willcox is photographed striking a pose and smiling while seated on a desk -- an image that on its own contains nothing to associate it with assault or the disorder.

The reporting of assaults on women varies little from that on men. Several stories do frame women victims of assault as indicating the indiscriminate nature of the violence of the disorder. The NYDN titled the photograph it published of a woman in Harlem Hospital “Sex was disregarded in riot” and in the body of its coverage wrote “Men and women alike were attacked by hoodlums” (NYDN, 3/20/35, 3a,).
As Part of Related Categories:
- Assaults by groups (2/17)
- Hit by objects (1/19)
- Assaults in unknown circumstances (1/3)
- Assaults on whites (4/29)
- Injured in assaults (5/53)
- Images of women (2/9)
- Images of the injured (20)
Assaults on blacks (12) 14 plain 2020-08-07T18:52:29+00:00
The fifty-three alleged victims of assault included twelve blacks, all men. The assaults occurred throughout the area of the disorder and in a variety of circumstances. Five individuals were hit by objects, four shot, two assaulted by an individual, and one assaulted in unknown circumstances. Only one of the reports included any kind of identification of the assailant: James White told staff at Harlem Hospital that he was injured in an altercation with an unknown white man. None of the assaults resulted in arrests or prosecutions.

Generalized reports of police violence towards the crowds on Harlem’s streets make it likely that many, if not all, of these assaults were committed by uniformed or plainclothes officers. This is most likely the case in regards to the four men shot, as there is little evidence that Blacks used guns during the disorder, and those shootings occurred after looting began and police shot more indiscriminately at crowds. The white man who assaulted James White is also likely a plainclothes police officer, given that few other whites were in Harlem by around 3.30 AM, when he was assaulted. Although the nature of the assault that left John Hardeman with a fractured skull is not specified, he was assaulted in a “melee at 126th and Seventh Avenue,” which newspaper reports failed to specify resulted from police efforts to move crowds away from 125th St and Kress’ store.

Other assaults on Blacks are less clearly the work of police. William Brook, Henry Blackwell, and Thomas Suarez, reported as being hit by rocks or bottles may have been caught in attacks on stores or police (or they could have been offering explanations for the cuts to their heads or legs that avoided implicating them in clashes with police). All three men appeared in newspaper lists because an ambulance attended them. Thomas Suarez, who reported being hit by a bottle while walking on the street near his home, on the margins of the disorder, also appeared in the blotter recording individuals aided by police. Arthur Block is reported as having been bitten on his hand, a relatively rare form of assault, and one unlikely to have been used by police officers who carried nightsticks and guns.

The final two assaults on Blacks definitely did not involve police. Fred Campbell reported twice having his car hit by objects thrown by Black crowds as he drove up 7th Avenue to collect the day’s takings from the two barber’s shops he owned. It is possible that in the dark those who bombarded his car thought Campbell was white. He reported numerous other cars being attacked, all driven by whites; the other vehicles that feature in reports of assaults, two buses, another car and two police vehicles, all had white drivers.
As Part of Related Categories:
- Assault by individuals (2/7)
- Assault in unknown circumstances (1/3)
- Hit by Objects (5/19)
- Shot & wounded (4/6)

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