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MCCH Members Meeting with LaGuardia (March 22, 1935)
While New York Evening Journal and another of the Hearst newspapers, the New York American, mentioned only that the meeting was going to happen, other white newspapers also published stories after the meeting. It lasted just over an hour, according to the New York Herald Tribune and NYS, after which “the Mayor had nothing to say,” the New York Herald Tribune reported. Several members of the MCCH, however, did speak to journalists; the DW named Morris Ernst as speaking to its reporter. As the meeting had been presented as the start of the commission’s work, all the stories, in the New York Herald Tribune, NYT, NYS, NYP, BDE and DW, focused on the extent to which that had occurred. As two of the members were absent – the New York Herald Tribune identified them as Hays and Villard – all those stories reported that the decision about the chairman was deferred until the next meeting on March 25, for which they provided a time and location, the 7th District Municipal Court, 447 West 151st Street, which would serve as the headquarters of the MCCH. While the NYP presented the investigation in broad terms, other newspapers published comments from commission members more narrowly focused on the events of the disorder. The MCCH was working “to find remedies for the underlying causes of the outbreak,” as “it appears to be generally agreed that though agitators had a part in inciting the Harlem populace to the violence, the real cause of the trouble lies in deep-seated resentment against economic and social conditions,” in the NYP’s story. By contrast the New York Herald Tribune and NYS both reported that “some” committee members said that many in Harlem did not believe that Lino Rivera was the boy who had been caught in the Kress store. Commission members also told at least the reporters from the BDE and NYT that they had spent much of the last two days in Harlem trying to determine the causes of the disorder.
This page references:
- "Harlem Riot Trial Court Guarded," New York Evening Journal, March 22, 1935, 1.
- "2d Harlem Riot Victim Dies; 4 More Indicted," New York Herald Tribune, March 23, 1935, 5.
- "12 Indicted in Riot; Troop Plea Denied," New York Times, March 22, 1935, 1.
- "12 Are Indicted As Harlem Riot Danger," New York Herald Tribune, March 22, 1935, 2.
- "Both Reds and Conservatives Critical of Mayor's Riot Probe," New York American, March 22, 1935, 4.