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

James White assaulted

James White, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, was injured in "an altercation with an unknown white man at 129th Street and Lenox Ave,” Harlem Hospital staff recorded in the admission records. Dr. Payne attended White at 3:30 AM, so he was likely assaulted sometime after 3:00 AM. Two other men of unknown race, Jack Ponder and Thomas Brown, suffered injuries at the same place and were treated by Dr. Payne at the same time. White lived at 104 West 123rd Street six blocks south of where he was assaulted.

The hospital record described White's injury as a "laceration of scalp." He left for home after treatment rather than being admitted to the hospital, so it was not a serious injury. White's absence from police and court records, and from newspaper lists and stories, indicated that he did not make a report to police.

While the hospital admission record did not include information regarding White's race, that it specified that the man who assaulted him was a white man suggested that White himself was a Black man. He was one of twelve Black men reported assaulted during the disorder and the only one who explicitly attributed the attack to a white man. The white men in the area at that time would almost all have been police officers, including plainclothes detectives. There was also at least one white storeowner present at this time. Louis Levy returned to his dry goods store at 374 Lenox Avenue near the intersection around 3:00 AM.

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"Hospital Admissions, 19-20 March 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).