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

Elizabeth Tai arrested

Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue. Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described her alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Tai appeared for sentencing. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Tai's court appearances, so the location she allegedly looted is unknown. Her home was some way from Harlem, on the east side of Central Park between 92nd and 93rd Streets.

Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Arthur Davis and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.

When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced her. The docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out, and stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Davis and Hunter. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything. She is one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.

Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record her sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Tai was unable to pay the fine.

Tai is the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. It is recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai is a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given the unusual last name, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as Hawley Tai. This Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, and lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death.

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