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

Loyola Williams arrested

Sometime during the disorder, Loyola Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman who lived at 301 West 130th Street was arrested and charged with burglary. Williams' name appears among those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette and the list in the New York Evening Journal, which also included her age, race and address. However, Williams does not appear in 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that she allegedly looted. That is also the case with nine men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police released them after questioning them the next day.

In the case of Loyola Williams, it is also possible that whoever compiled the list mistakenly recorded the name of another Black woman arrested during the disorder, Viola Woods, who was identified as Viola Williams in several sources. Both women were twenty-eight-years of age and resided at 301 West 130th Street. Both Loyola Williams and Viola Williams appear in the list published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, with Viola Williams charged with Malicious Mischief. Viola Williams also appears in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter with the same age and address, where a note records her alleged offense as using her umbrella to break a store window. It is possible given the charges brought against others arrested in the disorder that that woman would also have been charged with burglary on the basis that was her goal in breaking the window. In the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, the name of the woman charged with Malicious Mischief is recorded as Viola Woods not Viola Williams.

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