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• 1 2022-10-26T20:01:26+00:00 Members of the MCCH (13) 117 plain 2023-09-17T22:31:22+00:00 Most newspapers reported in the same edition both the statement that Mayor La Guardia released on the morning of March 20 and had distributed in Harlem and his afternoon announcement of who he had appointed to the Commission. Only the appointment of eleven Committee members was reported in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, while their names were included in the Home News, New York World-Telegram, Atlanta World. The New York Age published the names of only the six Black members, while the Afro-American only identified the office holders, Roberts, Villard and Carter, and Hays. The names and the occupations provided in the Mayor’s press statement were published in the Daily Mirror, New York American, New York Times, Daily Worker and the New York Amsterdam News. The New York Post, and the Norfolk Journal and Guide, combined that occupational information with information on the political affiliations of each member. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun published more extended biographies of all eleven members.
  
  La Guardia announced the members had been selected “because of their distinct contributions in their several fields,” according to a story in the New York Sun. He would later say that the appointments had been made "by advice,” according to the New York Age. There was no direct evidence of who offered La Guardia that advice. That it had not come from the leaders of Harlem’s social organizations was clear from the pointed request that James Hubert, the Executive Director of the Urban League, made to the mayor in a letter on March 26, “that in the future you will avail yourself of such assistance as is very easily obtained in Harlem and other Negro sections of the City to the end that whatever is undertaken may be accomplished as I know you desire the work to be done.” Instead, La Guardia appeared to have relied on those with who he had political ties. Hubert Delany was likely one source of advice. La Guardia, who had appointed him Tax Commissioner, treated him “as an unofficial ombudsman for the black community” according to historian Thomas Kessner. (Delany was a member of NAACP, holding a position responsible for “Legal Redress and Legislation” – letterhead of Butler letter). The NAACP did send La Guardia a list of names on March 20 that included three of those appointed – Hays, Ernst, and Carter – but there is no evidence to confirm that the Mayor received that list before announcing the Commission members. <NAACP 0267-4> Historian Stephen Carter argued that Eunice Hunton Carter may have been appointed in recognition of her willingness to run for a state assembly seat for La Guardia’s Republican-Fusion party the previous year. He noted that the party machine “had a tradition of finding places for candidates willing to run in tough cases against incumbents.” An Associated Negro Press story published in the Norfolk Journal and Guide attributed Carter’s subsequent appointment to Thomas Dewey’s team of special prosecutors going after the Mob to that obligation.
  
  La Guardia subsequently added two additional members, a Black clergyman and a white clergyman. Only the New York Amsterdam News reported those appointments, suggesting that the Mayor's office did not announce them in press statements. The appointment of Rev. John W. Robinson, the retired pastor of St. Mark's, the city's largest AME church, was foreshadowed in newspaper stories about the mayor's visit to the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity on March 25. Robinson led that group. After their complainants about La Guardia's failure to appoint a minister, the mayor indicated he would consider appointing a nominee of the meeting. Stories in the Home News, New York Times and New York World-Telegram, and in the New York Amsterdam News and New York Age reported that the meeting chose Robinson. Evidence of an indirect political connection that may have made La Guardia receptive to that suggestion appeared in a New York Amsterdam News story on the couple's wedding: Robinson’s second wife, pharmacist Dr. Julia Coleman, was active in the Republican Party in Harlem.
  
  That La Guardia told the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting that he would also appoint a second clergyman “chosen from a denomination not included in the Alliance” was reported only in the New York Age. It took until April 4, almost a week after Robinson's appointment, for the mayor to finalize that choice: Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on West 141st Street. The New York Amsterdam News made McCann's appointment the headline of the story it published on April 6 about the MCCH hearing. McCann had appeared in earlier stories in the Home News, New York American, NYJ, NYP and the AN (3/30) as a result of a pastoral letter he made public on March 23 blaming Communists for the disorder and calling for a movement to keep them out of Harlem. The priest's anti-communism offered La Guardia a way to address those who had criticized those he had appointed as all liberals. However, La Guardia had clearly also decided the second clergyman on the committee should be Catholic as he had sought the advice of Edmund B. Butler, a prominent Catholic lawyer who was secretary of the city’s Emergency Relief Bureau about who to appoint immediately after he met with the Black ministers. Butler wrote to him the next day, to give him McCann’s name, which he had been unable to think of at that time: “He has always been very much interested in Negroes and volunteered for the work….I think that the appointment of him would be excellent.” A note on the letter recorded, “Father McCann is white,” likely another criteria for his selection given that the committee had two more Black members than white members after Robinson’s appointment. Several days later, on April 1, Butler spoke to La Guardia about McCann, after which he told the clergyman that La Guardia was going to appoint him. On April 4, La Guardia wrote to notify Roberts that he had appointed Father McCann. Even after the Communist Party wrote to both the MCCH and the Mayor to complain about McCann's appointment on April 25, the Daily Worker did not report it.
  
  In the historical literature, only Lindsey Lupo identified all thirteen the members of the MCCH, in a chart that described their occupations in two or three words. Cheryl Greenberg named Delaney, Randolph, and, inexplicably, Cullen as examples of the "impressive range of experts" that La Guardia had appointed, also mistakenly including Frazier as a member of the commission. Naison only identified the number of "representative citizens" appointed, which he stated was eleven, neglecting the later appointments of Robinson and McCann. Johnson also mistakenly identified the MCCH as an eleven-member commission, without identifying any of the members. Kessner mentioned only Roberts, the chair, as did Watson.
  
  Information on the attendance of the MCCH members at their meetings and public hearings was collated by their staff. The MCCH included its own appraisal of each members contribution to its work in the foreword of the version of its report it submitted to Mayor La Guardia. Who signed, and thereby endorsed the report of the subcommittee on crime and the MCCH's final report was documented in the MCCH records.

  Black members:

  Eunice Hunton Carter

  • Press statement: “social worker and lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer and social worker, holds degrees from Smith College and Columbia and Fordham Universities, Republican-Fusion candidate for Assembly from 19th Manhattan District in 1934"
  • New York Post: “lawyer and social worker and Fusion political leader” in the New York Post
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a social worker, lawyer and leader in every important progressive movement in the community, who knows Harlem in its gladness and sorrow."
  • Meeting Attendance: 17
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Countee Cullen

  • Press statement: "Author"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "poet, graduate of New York University; contributor to magazines and newspapers and winner of several poetry awards"
  • New York Post: “the poet”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a young Negro pedagogue and poet, brought to the commission the point of view of the youth."
  • Meeting Attendance: 11
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Hubert T. Delany

  • Press statement: "Tax Commissioner of the City of New York."
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, lawyer, graduate of the College of the City of New York and New York University Law School, Assistant United States Attorney under former United States Attorney Charles H. Tuttle, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st Manhattan District in 1920. Commissioner of Board of Taxes and Assessments by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia in February 1934."
  • New York Post: “lawyer and Republican leader."
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "Commissioner of Taxes and Assessments of the City of New York, was well-qualified to anlayze the employment situation in Harlem. Mr Delany, a lawyer and former public official, was well-equipped to analyze the problem of unemployment with as little intellectual bias as anyone in the community."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  A. Philip Randolph

  • Press statement: "Natl. President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "general organizer and president of National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, attended College of City of New York, founder of a magazine, "The Messenger""
  • New York Post: “president of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a great leader in the labor movement displayed his keen sense of understanding as President of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Mr Randolph brought to the Commission a greater understanding of labor problems as they affect the Negroes than any other man that could be found in the community. Harlem respects and admires A. Philip Randolph."
  • Meeting Attendance: 7
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the Subcommittee report was submitted)

  Charles Roberts

  • Press statement: "Dentist"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, dentist, graduate of Lincoln University, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st District in 1924, member of Board of Aldermen, 1931-1933"
  • New York Post: “dentist, Republican leader and former Alderman”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "selected for the reason that he has lived in the community of Harlem for over a quarter of a century. His life has been devoted to the development of the social, economic and cultural advancement of the community, both as a former public official and as a professional man. His unquestioned interest and knowledge of the community needs make him an outstanding representative of Harlem."
  • Meeting Attendance: 20
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Rev. John Robinson

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a representative of the Interdenominational Ministers Alliance, symbolizes the opinion of Negro clergymen of Harlem. It is useless to state the churches of Harlem exercise the most vitalizing influence that can be found in this area."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Charles Toney

  • Press statement: "Municipal Court"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Justice of Municipal Court; graduate of Syracuse University, Tammany Democrat"
  • New York Post: "justice of the Municipal Court and Democratic political leader”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a Justice of the Municipal Court of the City of New York, was of great assistance in that by reason of his experience in what is known as the poor man's court, brought a legal understanding to the commission that was valuable."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 1 (missed April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   

  White members:

  Morris L. Ernst

  • Press statement: "Lawyer;" “writer and publisher” in the Daily Mirror and New York American
  • New York Herald Tribune: "lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, member of American Civil Liberties Union, counsel in many liberal causes, represented Mrs. Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate; mediator in recent taxicab strike by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia"
  • New York Post: "of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Hays
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "an eminent attorney, did yeoman service relative to the housing situation."
  • Meeting Attendance: 6
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 2 (missed April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  John J. Grimley

  • Press statement: "Doctor"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "physician, lieutenant-colonel of 369th Infantry, National Guard of New York, crack Negro regiment"
  • New York Post: “lieutenant-colonel of the Negro 369th Infantry, National Guard”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "brought to the Commission intimate contact with the manhood of Harlem through his experience as commanding officer of the 369th Infantry. Col. Grimley also rendered technical advice relative to the problem of health, having spent years as superintendent and director of various hospitals."
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (recorded as missing May 18, but was referred to as present in transcript)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  Arthur Garfield Hays

  • Press statement: "Lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, counsel to American Civil Liberties Union, appeared as defense counsel in many cases involving civil liberties - coal strike in Pennsylvania, 1922; Scopes evolution trial in Tennessee, 1925; Countess Cathcart immigration case; Sacco-Vanzetti case in 1927, and most recently in defense of John Strachey, English lecturer threatened with deportation"
  • New York Post: “of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Ernst
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a champion of civil liberties, conducted with astuteness and patience the public hearings concerning the police and their treatment of Harlem. The information so adduced was of invaluable worth to the study."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5 (chair)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Father McCann

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "represented the Catholic opinion of the community."
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed March 30 [not appointed at that time], May 18)
  • Reports signed: Neither

  William J. Schieffelin

  • Press statement: "Trustee of the Tuskegee Institute”
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Chemist, graduate of Columbia School of Mines and University of Munich, chairman of Citizens Union, trustee of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, schools for the education of Negroes"
  • New York Post: “chairman of the Citizen's Union and of Tuskegee Institute, the Negro university”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a trustee of Tuskegee Institute, a contributor and benefactor of the Negro race, a director of the Citizen's Union, and an exponent of social justice, contributed calm understanding of the perplexing problems that this committee dealt with."
  • Meeting Attendance: 9
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the Subcommittee report was submitted)

  Oswald Garrison Villard

  • Press statement: "Publisher"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "owner of "The Nation"; graduate of Harvard University, liberal crusader, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of "The Liberator," and apostle of abolition of slavery"
  • New York Post: “editor of the Nation”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "former editor and owner of a metropolitan daily, former professor at Harvard University and contributing editor to the Nation, a member of the NAACP, writer and lecturer, a keen student of American social problem, not excepting the oftern referred to Negro problem, brought a wealth of understanding and experience. It has been said of Mr Villard that his merciless scrutiny and analysis make him one of the foremost social philosophers of America."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   
• 1 2022-02-13T21:48:02+00:00 Margaret Mitchell arrested 53 plain 2023-08-25T02:31:02+00:00 Officer Johnson of the 6th Division arrested Margaret Mitchell, an eighteen-year-old Black woman, inside Kress’ 5, 10 and 25c store, sometime around 5.00 PM on March 19.  Police alleged that she was “throwing pans on floor and causing crowd to collect,” according to Inspector Di Martini’s report on the disorder. Pots and pans, and glasses, were knocked off counters and women screamed, after the store was closed and police tried to clear out those inside, Jackson Smith, the store manager, Patrolman Timothy Shannon, and Louise Thompson all testified. Only Thompson described the circumstances that produced that noise, most fully in an article in New Masses. After a woman she could not see screamed, Thompson joined part of the crowd who rushed to where the noise came from, the rear of the store. Police there pushed that crowd back and refused to answer when women asked “if the boy was injured and where he is,” Thompson wrote. The officers also “began to get rough.” A woman with an umbrella retaliated; she either hit an officer, according to Thompson’s testimony, or “knocked over a pile of pots and pans,” according to her article. Many of those in the store left once the noise and struggles with police began, both Thompson and Smith testified. Thompson remained with the woman she described knocking over pots and pans, who was not arrested, but she was clearly not the only person who knocked over merchandise in efforts to remain in the store until they had information about Rivera. Mitchell could also have been the woman whose scream drew Thompson and others to the rear of the store.
  
  Margaret Mitchell appeared in many newspaper stories about what happened in Kress’ store, but almost all truncated the extended standoff between the Black women and store staff and police into a rapid sequence of events, in the process mistaking what Mitchell was alleged to have done and when she was arrested. The Home News reported that Mitchell “attempted to take the Rivera boy from the department store detectives and cried cut that the guards were beating the youth.” La Prensa also reported Mitchell trying to intervene. Although the Home News went on to claim that Mitchell was arrested at that time, neither Hurley nor Donohue mentioned a woman being part of their struggles with Rivera, and Donahue testified he did not arrest anyone while at Kress’ store. The Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News, New York Evening Journal (and the New York Times on March 24) reported that Mitchell was arrested after she screamed when the boy was being beaten. However, the New York Times, Daily News, New York American, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and Daily Worker did not specify when she screamed (or spread rumors in the New York Times story or was “a leader of the disturbance” in the New York Herald Tribune story) – although the Daily News, New York American, and New York Post did elsewhere in their stories mention an unnamed woman running into street screaming at the time Rivera was grabbed. The New York Sun alone specified that Mitchell’s actions came later: “The woman whose cries that the boy had been murdered, rekindled the vandalism after the police had succeeded in quenching it earlier in the evening, is Margaret Mitchell, 18, of 283 West 150th street.” The next day, in reporting Mitchell’s arraignment in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court, the Home News combined its description of her trying to intervene when Rivera was grabbed with the later events mentioned in Di Martini’s report. While reiterating that she “attempted to take the Rivera boy from the department store detectives and cried cut that the guards were beating the youth,” the story added that after Rivera had been taken to the basement, she “urging other colored people in the store to demand the release of the boy, started throwing merchandise to the floor and upset many of the counter displays.” Inspector Di Martini's report, while containing few details of events in the store, did distinguish Mitchell from the woman who reacted to Rivera, whose actions he located slightly later than the newspaper stories, "upon the arrival of the ambulance [to treat Hurley and Urban]," when the "unknown female screamed that the boy had been seriously injured or killed and otherwise caused a commotion which attracted a large number of persons." Mitchell's arrest came later, after which "this commotion was soon quieted."
  
  The more specific allegation of “throwing pans on floor and causing crowd to collect” was recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as “Disorderly in Kresses 5 & 10c Store.” That language echoed the offense with which the prosecutor charged Mitchell, disorderly conduct. She appeared in lists of those arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York Evening Journal, New York American and Daily News. Arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Mitchell was found guilty by Magistrate Renaud, who remanded her until March 23 for investigation and sentencing. The Times Union reported that she “denied hysterically she participated in the rioting. She stood up from the witness chair screaming, then collapsed.” No other newspapers included that scene.
  
  Mitchell returned to the court on March 23, telling Magistrate Renaud she was "sorry," according to the Home News and New York World-Telegram. In passing sentence Renaud commented that “he did not believe the girl acted maliciously,” those two publications and the New York Times and New York Age reported. The sentence reflected that assessment: three days in the Workhouse or a fine of $10. The New York American reported only that outcome, obliquely reporting Renaud's comment by describing her as having "unwittingly started Tuesday's outbreak." A brief mention in the New York Amsterdam News gave the opposite impression by describing Mitchell as having been "found guilty" of "stirring up the mob." The Daily Worker pointed to what its reporter saw as the implications of her sentence, that it "beating of Negro children by Harlem white storekeepers of the police, as frequently has been the case." Mitchell was one of only three people convicted during the disorder who paid a fine. She was also one of only eighteen of those arraigned represented by a lawyer, in her case Sidney Christian, a prominent West Indian attorney.
  
  The lawyer was likely obtained with the help of Mitchell’s father, Thomas E. Thompson. A West Indian immigrant who had arrived in New York City in 1895, Thompson had been a postal worker for thirty-five years at the time of his daughter’s arrest, and an office holder in the Prince Hall Masons. He and his family were among the earliest Black residents of Harlem, recorded in the 1910 census living in 55 West 137th Street. While not featuring on the social pages as Sidney Christian did, Thompson would have had the resources and the standing in the West Indian community to have known of and involved the lawyer. Mitchell, one of the youngest of Thompson's twelve children, had married in April 1934, and at the time of the disorder lived with her husband, David Mitchell, a handyman in an apartment building, at 287 West 150th Street. That she was in a store twenty-five blocks south of her home indicated the distance from which the businesses on West 125th Street drew their customers.
  
  
  
  As the only person arrested in Kress’ store, and named in newspaper stories about the disorder, Mitchell was one of the few identifiable sources of information about the beginnings of the disorder for the MCCH. However, when Lt. Battle called at her home and requested that she be at the public hearing on March 30, “she refused to come.”  Asked again about her testimony three weeks later, Battle reiterated that "she absolutely refuses to come to this hearing."
  
  Margaret Mitchell and her husband still lived in the same apartment when the census enumerator called in 1940. In January 1945, she joined 200 family and friends celebrating her parents 50th wedding anniversary, photographed alongside her siblings in an image published in the New York Amsterdam News. Her husband David was not part of the celebration; he was a sergeant in the U.S. military serving overseas, as were two of Mitchell’s brothers and four nephews.
• 1 2023-03-14T20:07:41+00:00 In Harlem court on March 23 (6) 41 plain 2023-04-08T17:29:56+00:00 All the city's the major newspapers reported the hearings in the Harlem Court even as they involved just five men and one woman arrested in the disorder being sentenced on the minor charge of disorderly conduct. Only the New York Evening Journal story referred to conditions at the court, that "special squadrons of police stood guard outside." Given that previous stories in other newspapers had mentioned similar deployments, their failure to do so on this occasion likely indicates that additional police were not actually present. The New York Evening Journal was also alone in directly drawing attention to what the charges and outcomes reported in the stories indicated, that those sentenced were "minor offenders in the outbreak."
  
  The woman, Margaret Mitchell, was mentioned in all those stories. Those stories continued to confuse her with a woman on 125th Street who screamed that Rivera had been killed some time after Mitchell’s arrest. They presented Mitchell's actions as having started the disorder, a claim that publications presented in different ways. The New York American reported Mitchell "started" the disorder, the Afro-American and New York Times that she "provoked" it (a claim they attributed to police), the Daily News that she "precipitated" it, the New York Evening Journal that she "set-off" the disorder," the New York Herald Tribune that she was "the spark which fired the riot," a claim attributed to police, and the Home News and New York Amsterdam News that she "stirred up the mob." More qualified claims were presented in the New York World-Telegram, that she only "helped stir Harlem mobs to rioting," and the New York Age, that she "precipitated" the disorder, but that the reaction to her outcry was "magnified to riot proportions by Communist literature." The New York Post opted for a more specific framing that more clearly captured the scope of Mitchell's responsibility, that she was "instrumental in starting the rumor that led to the riots." The Daily Worker did not ascribe any responsibility to Mitchell, describing her only as having "raised the outcry." The headlines to stories in the in the Home News and New York World-Telegram described Mitchell as the "cause" of the disorder (notwithstanding the more qualified statement in the later story itself), and "Blamed for Riot" in the New York Times. Mitchell shared the description in newspaper headlines of having caused the riot with Lino Rivera.
  
  Only the New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram and Home News reported that Mitchell told Renaud that she was "sorry." Whatever her role, Magistrate Renaud determined it was not "malicious" or intended to have the consequences it did. That statement appeared in only the New York Times, New York World-Telegram, Home News, and New York Age, and implicitly in the New York American, which did not mention Renaud, but described Mitchell as having "unwittingly" started the disorder. By contrast, the New York Herald Tribune reported that Reanud "lectured Miss Mitchell on keeping the peace." No story mentioned her lawyer, who likely would have had some role in promoting Renaud's assessment. The magistrate's judgement was reflected in the light sentence he imposed, reported as a choice between a $10 fine and three days in the workhouse in the New York Times, New York Evening Journal, Daily Worker, New York Age, and Afro-American and simply as a fine in the Daily News, New York American, New York World-Telegram, Home News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Amsterdam News. However, Mitchell's sentence proved to be more punitive than those given to most of the others arrested for inciting crowds: six of the seven received suspended sentences, the other a month in the workhouse.
  
  Four of the five men sentenced at the same time were reported as charged with breaking windows, rather than the actual offense, disorderly conduct, in the Daily News, New York Times, Home News, New York World-Telegram, New York Age, and Afro-American, while the offense was reported in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Post, New York Evening Journal and New York American. Unlike Leo Smith, James Bright and Arthur Bennett, there was no other evidence that John Hawkins had broken windows. Initially charged with riot, in the analysis he has been classified with those inciting riot. The Home News, New York American, New York World-Telegram, New York Post and New York Evening Journal did not name the men. While the Daily News, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, and Home News, and the New York Age and Afro-American, identified a white man, Leo Smith, among that group, his presence went unmentioned in the New York Post, New York Evening Journal and New York American. In the later two Hearst newspaper that silence fitted their emphasis on white men and women as victims of violence during the disorder. The men were not mentioned at all in the New York Amsterdam News. The fifth man, Rivers Wright, had been charged with assault. None of the stories mentioned a charge in his case, only his conviction of disorderly assault and lesser sentence, ten days in the workhouse compared to thirty days for the other men.
• 1 2020-10-01T19:25:21+00:00 Rivers Wright arrested 27 plain 2023-08-19T17:51:47+00:00 Detective Doyle of the 5th Division arrested Rivers Wright, a twenty-one-year-old Black man for allegedly being part of a group of men who attacked an unnamed white man at 125th St and Lenox Avenue at some point in the disorder. Wright lived at 2137 7th Avenue, a block west and two blocks north of the site of the alleged assault, and in the heart of the disorder. Police arrived at the intersection around 11:00 PM, so Doyle likely arrested Wright around then or later.
  
  Only one source provided any details of the circumstances of his arrest. The Home News reported on March 21 that Wright was arrested "after he and a number of others are said to have attacked a white man at 125th St and Lenox Ave." Wright appeared in lists of those arrested during the disorder in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York American, New York Evening Journal, and Daily News.
  
  Among the first arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Wright was charged with disorderly conduct, not assault, as was the case with half of those arrested for assault. As the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior," police did not appear to have evidence that Wright participated in the assault. Instead, he may have been part of a crowd nearby, caught up in police efforts to arrest those responsible for the assault. Those circumstances fitted the definition of the offense.
  
  Disorderly conduct was an offense that was adjudicated by a magistrate rather than referred to another court as was the case with misdemeanor and felony offenses. Magistrate Renaud convicted Wright and remanded him for sentence on March 23. On that date, he sent Wright to the Workhouse for ten days. His appearance was widely reported, in stories that named him in the Daily News, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and New York Age and stories in which he was unnamed in the New York World-Telegram, New York American, New York Post, New York Evening Journal, and Home News. None of those stories mentioned what Wright had allegedly done. Four other men convicted of disorderly conduct sentenced at the same time, after being charged with breaking windows, received terms of thirty days. The disparity in sentence offered further evidence that Wright had not actually been involved in the alleged assault.
• 1 2023-02-20T20:57:44+00:00 Dodge grand jury hearing, March 25 (1) 14 plain 2023-03-10T19:43:08+00:00 While the grand jury was not in session over the weekend, Dodge affirmed his commitment to the investigation to several reporters on Saturday, March 23. He emphasized his concern with a specific target, those who advocated the overthrow of government by force and violence, according to stories in the New York American, New York Times, Daily News and Home News. Although the statement did not appear to directly reference Communists, most of those newspapers identified them as the target in their headlines: “Dodge Plans War on Reds in Harlem” in the Daily News; “Dodge Declares War on Red Leaders” in the Home News; and “Dodge Expects Arrest of Red Leaders” in the New York Times. The anti-Communist New York American predictably reported the DA’s comments in more detail and attempted to link them to further charges, as it had previously in posing questions about the criminal anarchy statute. Its story quoted Dodge as invoking the Constitution, and posed questions to him about involving Federal authorities, which he declined to answer. That story, and those in the New York Times and Daily News, also reported that books and papers seized in the raid on the ILD offices were being examined for evidence.
  
  When Dodge spoke to the press on Monday, he affirmed he was in fact following the path that the New York American reporter had raised two days earlier. He mentioned charges of criminal anarchy, which carried a sentence of up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $5000, in connection with the disorder. However, newspaper stories differed on just what he said, with the New York American, Home News and New York Sun reporting such charges “might be returned,” the New York Herald Tribune that the DA had evidence that “would justify” such charges, the Daily News, Times Union and New York Post that indictments would be sought and the New York World-Telegram that indictments were being sought. The New York Times did not publish a story about Dodge or the grand jury. There is no evidence that Dodge actually presented such charges; certainly, the grand jury did not vote for any indictments for criminal anarchy.
  
  In raising criminal anarchy, Dodge told reporters that his investigators had found “some good clues,” a phrase reported in the New York American, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Sun, Times Union and Home News. The New York World-Telegram substituted “splendid new leads.” As examples, he displayed pamphlets seized in the earlier raids on the offices of Communist Party organizations, saying although he could no reveal their content, they were “hot stuff.” His claim that the documents were advocating the overthrow of the government was widely reported, in the New York Post, New York Sun, Home News, Times Union, New York Herald Tribune and New York World-Telegram, as was the assertion that they had been "distributed to young school children.” Curiously given their anti-Communist focus, none of the Hearst newspapers, the New York Evening Journal, New York American and the Daily Mirror, mentioned the pamphlets.
  
  Instead, the New York American (in a separate, earlier story) and New York Evening Journal, joined only by the New York Post, reported Dodge again speaking about the grand jury considering new legislation so “irresponsible agitators would be prevented from goading thoughtless people toward the overthrow of the American form of government, by violence,” as the New York American reported. The New York Evening Journal summarized its purpose as “designed to curb Communistic activities in the interests of the public safety.” The New York Post described the legislation as “defining” free speech, with all three stories reporting that he insisted it would not be a restriction on free speech. The two Hearst newspapers were also alone in including in their stories that Dodge had met with Federal officials and planned to turn his evidence over to them.
  
  For all of Dodge’s bravado, the day’s grand jury hearing resulted in only one additional indictment related to the disorder. Unreported in the Home News, New York Sun, New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal, the indictment charged [a man] with taking goods worth 15 cents. Only the Times Union reported the value of the goods. The New York American described the alleged offense as “theft of toilet articles,” the New York World-Telegram as “stealing several rolls of paper towels from a shop window,” and the Daily News simply identified the charge as burglary. Only the New York Post, continuing its criticism of Dodge’s anti-Communist focus, made a connection between the case and the DA’s rhetoric, describing the indictment as “for nothing spectacular.”
• 1 2023-01-28T20:50:37+00:00 Father McCann's Pastoral Letter 8 plain 2023-07-20T17:22:55+00:00 Father William McCann, of the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church at 211 West 141st Street circulated a pastoral letter to his parishoners after the disorder. The Home News was the only newspaper that published the letter's text in full. Other newspapers reported it as blaming white Communists for the disorder.

  On last Tuesday night, Harlem was thrown into a panic. An ordinary incident of everyday life, the stealing of a little bag of candy by a boy, was the zephyr that grew into a cyclone. Coincidence played its part in the appearance of a hearse at a moment that proved to be crucial. These simple elements were responsible for a riot that has not been equaled in New York City for 25 years. Harlem assumed the aspect of a war-ridden country. Shots were fired. Casualties, including death, were many. Property damage reached the staggering figure of $500,000. Looting became the order of the day. And all this within the short space of 12 hours.
  
  These are the bare fact of the tragedy. The pity of it is that the casual reader will rehearse the facts and be incapable of interpreting them and the underlying conditions that made the tragedy possible. Most of our staff has lived in Harlem for nearly 12 years. And we think that it is no different than living in any other section of the city.
  
  Yes, it is different because of the genial atmosphere that is Harlem, and we dare say there is more genuine respect for the priest of God in the street than there is elsewhere in the city. We have never seen a more home-loving people. We have never seen a more peace-loving people, and their main purpose in life seems to be to live happily in the love of God. But, we have noticed other things too. We have noticed that our people were the first to feel the depression and it looks as if they will be the last to recover from it. The ones who enjoy employment are the fortunate ones. And they are the first to share their mite with the less fortunate. And with this small income, they must live. They must pay high rents, eat and be clothed. A spirit of resentment is easily born in this environment.
  
  Then came the Communists to do their diabolical work. Three white trouble-makers, who were too young to even bote, seized the chance and worked on the emotions of our worried people. They are the cause of the riot, if the authorities are sincerely looking for a cause.
  
  The people of Harlem should be proud of the restraint they showed. Three thousand rioted out of a population of 300,000. That is just one percent. We wonder if other sections of the city so distinctly racial could boast of the same restraint under the same conditions.
  
  So, dear people, let us forget Tuesday, March 19. Let us look ahead with a hope that economic conditions will be righted. And let us start a movement from within to keep the white Communists out of Harlem.