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

"Harlem Rioters Face Anarchy Indictments," New York Herald Tribune, March 26, 1935, 17.

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Harry Gordon arrested Around 6.30 PM, Patrolman Irwin Young arrested Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white student on the north sidewalk of West 125th Street near 7th Avenue. Gordon had climbed a lamppost to speak to the crowd that police had pushed east, away from Kress’s store; Young pulled him down. The Patrolman alleged that Gordon then grabbed his nightstick and hit him with it; Gordon denied doing anything. Young and other officers dragged Gordon thirty feet to a police radio car and drove him to the police station on West 123rd Street, he told a public hearing of the MCCH.

Around 6.30 PM, Patrolman Irwin Young arrested Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white student on the north sidewalk of West 125^th Street near 7^th Avenue. Gordon had climbed a lamppost to speak to the crowd that police had pushed east, away from Kress’s store; Young pulled him down. The Patrolman alleged that Gordon then grabbed his nightstick and hit him with it; Gordon denied doing anything. Young and other officers dragged Gordon thirty feet to a police radio car and drove him to the police station on West 123rd Street, he told a public hearing of the MCCH. (56)

As soon as the radio car reached 7th Avenue, out of sight of the crowd on 125th Street, Gordon told the MCCH hearing that the officer driving “Go ahead and hit him’ to the officer next to him, and both men “poked him in the ribs and kicked him.” [56] When the car got to the station, Young pushed him up against the wall of the station and clubbed him in the stomach. Officer continued to beat and kick Gordon when he was put in a cell, taken upstairs for questioning and fingerprinted. As a result of these attacks, Gordon told a public hearing, “I had two black eyes. Had bumps on my head. My shins were bruised.” [57] When he was bailed and released forty-eight hours after being arrested, his lawyer described Gordon’s face as “entirely discolored,” so much so that he took Gordon to his home so his mother would not see his injuries, he told the public hearing. [57-58] The man identified as Gordon has no visible injuries in a photograph published in the DN on March 20 that purported to show him and the three other white men police arrested in front of Kress’ store in the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, that image may not include Gordon, who appeared in court separately from the other three men even as police grouped them together in the information they gave reporters. There are only three white men in the foreground of the photograph.

Gordon was among the group of around eighty-nine arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters downtown at Police Headquarters on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Gordon was brought to the platform together with Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators arrested at other times protesting in front of Kress's store, a New York Herald Tribune story noted, with police presenting the group as acting and arrested together. However, Gordon's actions overshadowed the larger group in stories about the line-up. While Gordon stood on the "klieg-lit platform," Captain Edward Dillon questioned him about his role in the disorder in an exchange reported in three newspapers. The briefest mention appeared in the Daily Mirror, which reported the details of the setting, but only that "under the grilling conducted by Acting Capt. Edward Dillon" Gordon declared "I am a student at City College of New York" and "refused to answer further questions." The reporter described Gordon's manner as "defiant." Other reporters conveyed a similar judgment in their portrayals of Gordon. The New York Herald Tribune described him as "a tall, lanky youth [who] thrust one hand in his pocket and struck an orator's attitude" during the questioning; the New York Sun described his pose as "Napoleonic." Neither of those stories mention Gordon identifying himself as a student; they instead quote him as refusing to answer questions until he saw a lawyer; the New York Sun reported Gordon as saying:
"I have no comment to make until I see my lawyer. I understand that anything I might say would be used against me."

"If you are not guilty why do you want to see a lawyer?" he was asked.

"I know all that," he replied with a wave of his hand "But I won't talk until I see my lawyer."
The Daily Mirror concluded that Gordon, in responding as he did, "had practically declared himself the inciter of the night's rioting" and the leader of the four others arrested at the beginning of the disorder. Gordon himself, testifying at the MCCH hearing, set himself apart, as a passerby who had attempted to urge the crowd to go to the police for information. Inquiries by reporters from the New York Evening Journal found no evidence that Gordon was a City College Student, with the New York Herald Tribune reporting Dean Morton Gottschall did not find him in college records. The New York Evening Journal did confirm that he lived in the Bronx, at 699 Prospect Avenue.

Gordon did not appear in the MCCH transcription of the 28th Precinct Blotter, nor did Miller and the two white Young Liberators arrested in front of Kress’ store. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, do appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.

Gordon appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, shortly after Miller and the three Young Liberators with who police had grouped him. The charge recorded in the Magistrates Court Docket book was assault, which was the charge reported by New York American, New York Evening Journal, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. A second list in the New York Evening Journal, a later story in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Amsterdam News, Daily Mirror and New York Sun reported Gordon had been charged with both offenses. The Home News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Age, and the list published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, reported the charge against Gordon as inciting a riot.

The mistaken information about the charge could result from police continuing to group Gordon with the Miller and the three Young Liberators when he appeared in court. the Am, HN, NYHT, and NYT all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used, in stories on the court appearances. However, while the DN, HT, and DM included all five men in that group, the Am, HN, and NYT omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation was likely because he was charged with assault, the other men with riot, and the officer listed as arresting Gordon was Patrolman Irwin Young not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Miller and the three other men.

The Daily Mirror claimed Gordon was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers." While being held, Gordon testified, he had not been not allowed to contact a lawyer or his family and was not fed until he had been in custody for more than twenty-four hours and had been arraigned in the Magistrate's Court. [56] In the courthouse on March 20, Gordon was able to make contact with an ILD lawyer, Isidore Englander. Englander testified [60] that while he was speaking with Frank Wells, who had learned had been arrested, he saw Gordon, who he claimed not to know, and spoke with him after his arraignment. Gordon asked him to communicated with Edward Kuntz, another ILD lawyer, whose son Gordon testified was a friend, and who would represent him in subsequent court appearances. After Gordon was taken away, Englander heard him scream, and immediately heard him scream, the result, Gordon claimed, of being beaten again by police officer. Englander made no mention of the visible injuries on Gordon’s face that Gordon and Kuntz described in their testimony.

Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2500. Around forty-eight hours after Gordon’s arrest, at 1 AM, Kuntz testified that he secured bail for Gordon, who was released from prison [??]

initially felonious assault, but the clerk struck that out and wrote "Red[uced] to Simple Assault misd[emeanor]." The charge of assault was The inconsistent reporting may have resulted from confusion about what occurred in the Court. [Someone - Gordon or his lawyer] told a public hearing of the MCCH about reduced charge, questioning Irwin about extent of injuries, addition of riot charge]. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, after being arraigned, Gordon and the three white men, Miller, Jamison and Samuels, had been "taken to the District Attorney's office for questioning on possible charges of indictment to riot." The New York Evening Journal and New York Sun announced the first grand jury charges without naming those charged; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Daily News stories distinguished "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot." The Daily Mirror named Gordon and the four other men as those charged. However, Gordon's case proceeded in a different way than those of the men charged with inciting a riot.

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Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2500. Gordon returned to court, at the same time as the other four alleged Communists; while they were discharged so they could be indicted, Renaud remanded Gordon again to appear on March 27, with the New York American reporting "his case, it was said, is being investigated by the Grand Jury." (The only other newspaper to report this appearance was the New York World-Telegram). When Gordon did appear again, Renaud instead transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, a decision only reported in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. That court had jurisdiction over misdemeanors such as the charge against Gordon. The outcome of his trial is unknown.
Sam Jameson, Murray Samuels and Claudio Viabolo arrested Shortly after 6.45 PM, Patrolman Timothy Shannon and other officers arrested two nineteen-year-old white men, Sam Jameson and Murray Samuels, and Claudio Viabolo, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man, who were picketing in front of Kress’ store at 256 West 125th Street. The three men had arrived a few minutes earlier, likely from 262 Lenox Avenue, the offices of the organization to which they belonged, the Young Liberators. The placards they carried read “Kress Brutally Beats and Seriously Injures Negro Child and Negro Women. Negro and White Don’t Buy Here” and “Kress Brutally Beats Negro Child.” An officer “told or asked [the men] to stop marching in front of Kress'," Patrolman Moran told a public hearing of the MCCH and when they did not leave “after about five minutes," police arrested them for unlawful assembly. Jackson Smith, the store manager, watched the arrest from inside the store. “The police took the placards and pushed the people carrying them into the vestibule,” he told a later public hearing. Around thirty minutes earlier, Patrolman Shannon had arrested another man in front of the store, twenty-year-old white man, Daniel Miller, pulling him down from a stepladder when he tried to speak to a crowd. A few minutes later, around 6.30 PM, other officers, including Patrolman Irwin Young, arrested a second white man, Harry Gordon, when tried to speak to the crowd by climbing a lamppost on 125th Street east of Kress’ store.

The testimony of Moran and Smith in the public hearings provide the only details of the arrests of Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. The men themselves did not testify. Patrolman Shannon did testify, but was not asked about any of the arrests he made. Newspaper stories on the arrests grouped the men with Miller, and in some cases, Gordon, reflecting information from police that they had acted together to create the disorder. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that testimony in the public hearings indicate did not happen: Jameson and Samuels arrived with Miller and Gordon, not after them, in the newspaper narrative, picketed before Miller spoke, and with Harry Gordon came to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Viabolo was not on the picket line in those stories, but in the Am was a member of the crowd who joined in efforts to prevent Miller’s arrest. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, the elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers. The NYT and, somewhat surprisingly, the DW, also published narratives in which the men picketed before Miller spoke, but without details of their arrest. The NYT simply reported that the arrest of Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo, and Miller, came “later,” after Miller spoke. The DW did not report specific arrests, but rather that “police broke up the picket line, arresting the leaders.”

Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo all appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the AA etc, the NYEJ, the DN, the Am and the HT, among those charged with inciting a riot. However, the white men, Jameson and Samuels, as well as Miller and Gordon, are not in the transcription of the 28th Precinct Police blotter in the MCCH records. Viabolo did appear, with Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time. It may be that the charges against those men were not recorded as riot. The charge against Viabolo in the blotter is disorderly conduct, with the note that he was “Disorderly in Kress’ 5 & 10c store,” the same description recorded for Margaret Mitchell.

In a line-up on the morning of March 20 that included eighty-nine of those arrested disorder, police put Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo in a group with Miller and Gordon, a New York Herald Tribune story noted. Police described the men as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, in the Daily Mirror and New York Sun. An unnamed Black man, presumably Viabolo, was quoted in the New York Sun “giving his version of the start of the trouble:” "We were picketing in front of the store. I heard that a child had been killed inside. I thought it ought to be called to the attention of the public, about the child being killed.” The man then told the officer questioning him that he “and his companions took turns on a soap box “informing the public.”” That last detail was not part of any other description of the picketing. The two other newspaper stories on the line-up did not include Viabolo’s comments, but focused, as the New York Sun did, on Harry Gordon’s exchange with police, in which he refused to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.

The Daily News and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. On the right of the image is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He is unmentioned in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph below, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face is not visible in the photograph notwithstanding the caption).

Police continued to group Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo with Miller and Gordon when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the Am, HN, NYHT, and NYT all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the DN, HT, and DM included all five men in that group, the Am, HN, and NYT omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from the three Young Liberators and Miller. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The DN claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."

When the court clerk called the names of Jameson, Samuels, Viabolo and Miller were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the DM, HN, DN, NYT, and Daily Worker but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the DM explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror and Daily Worker named the lawyers as Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander, while the DN named only Aronsky, and the HT and NYT reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).

Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker, that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."

When Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with Miller, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because they had already appeared before the grand jury. The Magistrates Court docket book recorded the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Home News, Daily Mirror and New York Amsterdam News also reported that they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor not a felony, so an information not an indictment, and to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. Other newspaper stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. If the men were being prosecuted for the form of the crime defined as a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly, their crime was being treated as involving disturbing the peace not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.

As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Jamison, Samuels and Viabolo, or Miller. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions. The New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources, or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defense lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' prior to the men arriving, they moved to have the charges dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo, as well as Miller.

Claudio Viabolo lived in Harlem, at 202 West 132nd Street; the two white men did not. Sam Jameson lived at 967 East 178th Street in Washington Heights, north of the Black neighborhood, although when a reporter from the New York Evening Journal went to the address the tenants denied knowing him. Murray Samuels lived at 8621 Twentieth Avenue, Brooklyn. However, he was not a student at City College, as the New York Evening Journal reported on March 21. A week later the New York Evening Journal acknowledged that the Murray Samuels a reporter had identified as attending evening classes was not the man arrested during the disorder, in a story headlined, "Far From Red, and RIiot! Says C. C. N. Y. Man."

Claudio Viabolo’s name was spelled in a variety of ways in these sources. Viabolo is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories about his appearances in the Harlem Magistrates Court published in the 1935_03_30_AA_12; 1935_03_21_NYDN_3; 1935_03_25_NYP_3; 1935_03_21_NYHT_2; 1935_03_21_American_2; 1935_03_21_HN; 1935_03_25_NYS_2; 1935_03_21_NYT_1; 1935_03_21_American; 1935_03_30_NYA_1; 1935_03_22_NYP_1. The name was spelled Diabolo in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the AA, AW and NJG, and stories in 1935_03_20_WT; 1935_03_20_NYJ_1. In the edition the NYA rushed to print on March 23, the name was Bilo. In the DW on March 21, the name was Viano. Sam Jameson's name was also misspelled, but was not corrected over time as Viabolo's name was. Jameson is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories published in 1935_03_20_NYJ_1; 1935_03_20_NYT_1; 1935_03_20_NYP_1; 1935_03_20_NYHT_1; and stores about court appearances published in the 1935_03_21_HN; and 1935_03_25_NYS_2. The name was spelled Jamieson in the 1935_03_20_NYDN_6; 1935_03_21_NYDN_3; 1935_03_27_AW_1; 1935_03_30_NJ&G_18; 1935_03_20_American_1;.
Daniel Miller arrested Daniel Miller stepped up on a ladder in front of Kress' store about 6.15 PM, and began to speak to a crowd he estimated at 100-200 people. The twenty-four-year-old white man who identified himself as a member of the Nurses and Hospital League had said only "Fellow workers" when someone in the crowd threw an object at the windows of the store, breaking one. Patrolman Timothy Shannon of the 28th Precinct, one of about five officers stationed in front of Kress' store, immediately pulled Miller from the ladder and arrested him. Sergeant Bowe testified in a public hearing of the MCCH that he was a "witness" to that arrest. James Parton, the Black man who had carried the ladder, and an American flag banner, to the front of the store and spoke briefly before Miller, was not arrested. Nor was Parton arrested when he climbed a lamppost on the opposite side of 125th Street and spoke to the crowd. However, Harry Gordon, a white man who followed Parton in climbing up the lamppost to speak, was, like Miller, immediately arrested.

Miller's testimony in a public hearing of the MCCH provided the most detailed description of his arrest. Patrolman Shannon also testified in an earlier public hearing, but he was not questioned about the arrest. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that other sources indicate did not happen: Shannon arresting Miller after he refused an order to move on, with no mention of the widely reported broken window; and two white Young Liberators and Harry Gordon coming to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, and battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, these elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers.

The lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the AA etc, the NYEJ, the DN, the Am and the HT all included Miller among those charged with inciting a riot. However, Miller, and the three other white men arrested in front of Kress' store, are not in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter in the MCCH records. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, do appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.

Miller was among around eighty-nine men and women arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters at Police Headquarters downtown on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Police put him on the platform in a group with Gordon and the three Young Liberators, Samuels, Jamison and Viabolo, a New York Herald Tribune story noted; it reported that police described them as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, with the Daily Mirror and New York Sun, as well as the New York Herald Tribune focusing on Harry Gordon refusing to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.

The Daily News and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified in the caption as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. Miller was the man on the right of the group, according to the captions. To his right is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He is unmentioned in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph below, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face is not visible in the photograph notwithstanding the caption).

Police continued to group Miller with the other four men when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the Am, HN, NYHT, and NYT all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the DN, HT, and DM included all five men in that group, the Am, HN, and NYT omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being charged separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The DN claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."

In the Harlem Magistrates Court Miller was charged with inciting a riot, as were Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. When their names were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the DM, HN, DN, NYT, and DW but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book (a section completed for Harry Gordon). The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the DM explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror named the lawyers as "Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander," while the DN named only Aronsky, and the HT and NYT reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).

Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's ILD lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."

When Miller returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with the three Young Liberators, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because they had been, or so they could be, indicted. The Magistrates Court docket book records the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Daily Mirror, New York Amsterdam News reported they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor not a felony, so an information not an indictment, and to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. Other stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. Testifying in a public hearing of the MCCH, Miller said he was charged with unlawful assembly. That crime involving disturbing the peace not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.

As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Miller, or Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions -- the New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources, or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defence lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as on the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' store prior to the men arriving, the attorneys moved to have the charges of inciting a riot dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Miller and the three other men.

Miller's home address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as 1280 South Boulevard in the Bronx. That address is also published by the DM, BDE, AM, 3/20 arrests, NYT, NYA, 3/23. However, the NYEJ reported that address did not exist. (NYEJ, 3/21, 2). However, the HT, 3/21 + HN, 3/21 + AM, 3/21 + AN, 3/30 reported Miller's address as 35 Morningside Avenue, between West 117th and 118th Streets two blocks west of 8th Avenue. That address fits the information he gave in the MCCH public hearing. All those newspaper stories are reports of Miller's appearance in court, suggesting that the Morningside Avenue address was mentioned at that time even if it was not recorded in the docket book. Miller's organization, the Nurses and Hospital League, had an office downtown at 799 Broadway, identified in the New York Post New York American and Daily Worker as raided by police investigating the disorder that was outside Harlem.
MCCH Meeting (March 25, 1935) All eleven members of the MCCH met for the first time at 4.30 PM on March 25, at the Seventh District Municipal Court, 447 West 151st Street. Minutes of that meeting are in the Records of Mayor La Guardia. The meeting was also widely reported in the press, having been announced the previous week, after some members of the MCCH met with the Mayor. Aware of the presence of reporters, the MCCH members made preparing a statement for them their first business after electing their officers, the task deferred the previous week. That statement contributed to focusing attention not on the events of the disorder but on broader conditions in Harlem.

Oswald Villard wrote and delivered the statement released after the meeting, having been appointed chair of a Publicity Committee that included Toney, Roberts and Carter. Although the minutes refer to a copy of the statement being attached as part of the record, one is not included in the file. Based on the newspaper stories, it appears to have had three sections. Only the Home News quoted all three sections, although it omitted a parenthetical statement in the first section that is quoted in the Daily Worker and New York Times.

The first section, the most widely reported, indicated that the focus of the Commission would be the broader conditions in Harlem rather than the events of the disorder:
"The committee is already agreed that the disturbance (of last Tuesday, which took a toll of three lives and extensive property damage) were merely symbols and symptoms: that the public health, safety and welfare in colored Harlem have long been jeopardized by economic and social conditions which the depression has intensified."
All the stories in white newspapers quoted or paraphrased this statement, and in the case of the New York Times, New York World-Telegram, Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Daily Worker made it the basis of the headline of their story. The New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and Home News folded the meeting into stories about the work of Dodge’s grand jury, which they made the subject of their headlines. The Hearst newspapers, the New York Evening Journal, New York American and Daily Mirror, took that approach further, writing only about the progress of Dodge’s investigation without similar attention to the MCCH (keeping the Communists in the foreground). Only the New York Amsterdam News among the Black newspapers quoted this section; the other papers did not refer to the statement at all.

The second section put events on par with broader causes as one of two parts of the investigation:
“It has, therefore, determined to divide its work into two parts, an investigation of the immediate situation and a thorough, far-reaching inquiry into the entire problem, including housing, wages, rents, employment discrimination and other questions.”
Only the Home News and Daily News included this section in their stories, quoted in the Home News and paraphrased in the Daily News. It was not mentioned in New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, New York Times, Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Daily Worker. Without this section, the stories pushed the events of the disorder to the background, giving the impression that the MCCH not concerned with them - particularly the Daily News, which characterized the statement as a “preliminary report.”

The third section was an appeal for information, and a notice that hearings would be held, without any dates.
“To that end it asks public cooperation and will welcome any suggestions and information which should be sent directly to the secretary, Mrs Eunice Hunter Carter, in care of Seventh Municipal Court, 447 W. 151st St.

Public hearings will be started at an early date.”
This section was quoted in New York Times and Home News, and paraphrased in three other newspapers: as “The public was invited to send any remedial suggestions” in the Daily News; as “beseeching the city to offer suggestions to clear up the Harlem sore spots” in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle; and as “it asks for public cooperation and will welcome any suggestions and information,” in the New York Amsterdam News. The New York Age mentioned only that the meeting took place, emphasizing that as the meeting was not open to the public the MCCH was “enveloping their activities in an obscuring cloud of secrecy that evoked considerable comment.”

At some point, the MCCH also announced that it would hold its first hearing at the end of the week, on Saturday, March 30. There was no mention of that decision in the minutes or the New York Times, Daily News, or the Brooklyn Daily Eagle stories about the meeting. While the upcoming hearing was reported in the New York World-Telegram without attribution, the New York Herald Tribune attributed that information to Villard; however, that seems unlikely as the statement he wrote included a vague commitment rather than that information. It was Hays who the Home News quoted, identifying him as “a member of a subcommittee which will meet at the Heights Court at 10 a. m. on Saturday “to welcome anybody who has anything to tell us about what happened.” The same statement appeared in the Afro-American, in a separate story from the one that mentioned the first meeting of the MCCH, suggesting it had been made at a different time. A day later, the Daily Worker reported that Hays’ statement announcing the hearing had “followed by a few hours a statement issued by Oscar Villard,” and included an attack on District Attorney William Dodge for suggesting he would use the criminal anarchy statute to prosecute Communists arrested during the disorder. The New York American also reported Hays comments on March 27, and said he made them “yesterday,” March 26, the day after the committee met and Villard released his statement. The Home News simply reported the comments on March 27. The decision to hold a hearing on March 30 thus did appear to have been made after the MCCH met. The press statement after the second meeting of the MCCH would also include information on the March 30 hearing.

The subcommittee of which Hays was a member was one of three the MCCH established at the meeting. In the minutes, Judge Toney was chair of the group appointed “to investigate the police records and all facts pertinent to the happenings in Harlem on Tuesday, March 19th,” with Schiefflin and Carter as well as Hays. A meeting of the subcommittee, and two others, on discrimination and employment and on housing, was scheduled for March 27. By the time the MCCH met again on March 29, Hays rather than Toney was acting as chairman of the subcommittee. There is no evidence of why that change was made. These subcommittees do not appear to have been announced to journalists after the meeting. Only the New York Amsterdam News provided any information on them: that story identified their members and said Hays subcommittee would “investigate the "outburst" (the committee rejected the term "riot").” After the MCCH met on March 29, the statement to the press provided information on eight subcommittees, with the one led by Hays labelled “Crime” and no longer including Carter. (The six subcommittees appointed in addition to those on discrimination and housing were focused on education, health and sanitation, labor problems, law and legislation and relief agencies). [Presumably these reflect Randolph and Ernst’s plan for the MCCH’s work??] Given that Hays announced the March 30 hearing before his subcommittee was scheduled to meet, it is not clear who else was involved in the decision to hold the hearing.

The other work done in the meeting reported in the press was the selection of officeholders: Roberts as chairman, Villard as vice chairman and Carter as secretary. The previous week a story in the NYHT [3/22] had suggested that Delany would be the chairman, as his name “led the list of appointments to the committee as made public by the Mayor.” Delany had rejected that possibility, telling the reporter that “he would rather have someone else, preferably a white, in that position.” When the MCCH met on March 25, the minutes mentioned “a general discussion as to whether [illegible] expedient to have a white or Negro Chairman.” Or at least that statement initially appeared in the minutes; someone later crossed it out. Before that discussion Ernst had said “he thought that the Chairman should be a Negro,” and suggested Eunice Carter. She declined. After the discussion, Toney was nominated by an unnamed Commission member, with Grimley seconding. Hays then nominated Villard, with Carter seconding, setting up a choice between a Black candidate and a white candidate. However, Villard withdrew due to “his uncertain health,” offering instead to be the vice chairman. Schiefflin then nominated Roberts, with Hays seconding. That nomination ensured that the MCCH would have a Black candidate, with Roberts winning the role on an 8-3 vote. (Villard would later write to [Walter White] lamenting his decision not to serve as chairman, “which was the wish of the majority,” complaining that “Roberts has been a very poor chairman and there has been no meeting for weeks and weeks and weeks, and there is to be no effort on the part of the Commission to carry out any of its recommendations.” [NAACP 0438, Villard to White, 1/31/1936}

The further business discussed in the meeting that was not made public was how the committee would do its work. The minutes record a “consensus” that “one trained person was necessary to correlate the reports.” The commission members voted to pursue Ira B. Reid for that role, but left the final selection to Roberts, Delany and Carter. (After lobbying by Walter White of the NAACP, E. Franklin Frazier rather than Reid would be employed by the MCCH). At Carter’s urging, the MCCH also decided to move forward with its investigation without waiting to fill that position, and charged Randolph, Ernst, Delany and Carter “to formulate general plans of work for the committee” by the next meeting.