This page was created by Anonymous.

This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

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

MCCH Meeting (May 14, 1935)

The only source for the MCCH meeting on May 14 are the minutes. The minutes do not record Hays' report on the subcommittee on crime. He did tell the meeting that the upcoming hearing on May 18th would be the last on police brutality. Having reported only two weeks earlier that too many police brutality cases had been reported to the MCCH for them all to be brought to a hearing, Hays now said he "did not have any more material."

In a later discussion, the question of having Commissioner Valentine testify in a hearing of the subcommittee on crime was raised. "It was decided that it might be well to have him at some future date." Mention of Valentine led Hays to report the responses he had received almost two weeks ago from the commissioner saying that the police department was investigating the cases of Lloyd Hobbs and Thomas Aiken.

The minutes also recorded that the MCCH members had a "general discussion of the conduct of hearings and the method of questioning." No details of the discussion were included, only the conclusion that "the hearings had been conducted in the most advisable manner." The nine MCCH members in attendance included those most committed to allowing wide participation from the audiences, Hays, Oscar Villard and A. Phillip Randolph, so that conclusion was perhaps not surprising, notwithstanding the increasing disruptions in response to the testimony of police.

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:

This page references:

"Minutes of the Executive Meeting of the MCCH, May 14th," Mayor's Committee on Conditions in Harlem: Meetings, 1935-36, Departmental Correspondence, Box 34, Folder 3 (Roll 171), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.