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

Killed (5)

Five individuals were killed in the disorder in Harlem, three Black men and two white men. All those killed suffered their injuries in the vicinity of 125th Street. James Thompson died on the morning of March 20, only a few hours after being shot. Three of the other men died in the days following the disorder: August Miller on March 22, Andrew Lyons on March 23, and Lloyd Hobbs not until March 31. Thomas Wijstem, the final man killed did not die until three months later on June 25, long enough after the disorder that his death is reported in only one newspaper.

Police shot two of the Black men, James Thompson and Lloyd Hobbs, while there are few details of the circumstances in which the Andrew Lyons was killed. As the result of an incorrect police notification, a fourth Black man, Lyman Quarterman, was widely reported as having been killed early in the disorder. Although shot and seriously wounded enough to spend approximately two weeks in Harlem Hospital, he did recover. Another Black man, Edward Laurie, did die on March 20, and was included in lists of those killed in the Home News, Pittsburgh Courier and New York Age, but his death was not related to the disorder. Apparently drunk, Laurie created a disturbance at a restaurant on Lenox Avenue around 4 AM, and struck a police officer trying to arrest him. The officer responded by throwing him to the ground and fatally fracturing his skull. The MCCH report discussed Laurie's death as an example of police brutality. 

Some uncertainty exists about whether the two white men included here belong among those killed in the disorder. August Miller is included among those killed as newspapers reported his death and the MCCH investigated it, although an autopsy they obtained indicates he died of natural causes, a cerebral hemorrhage. Only the Home News appears to have reported the autopsy result, and still listed Miller among those killed in the disorder. The second white man, Thomas Wijstem, unconscious after being assaulted, is reported as severely injured in the aftermath of the disorder and not subsequently included in lists of those killed. However, three months after the disorder, a brief story in New York Herald Tribune reported Wijstem had died in Bellevue Hospital without regaining consciousness after suffering a fractured skull in an assault.

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