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Nathaniel Powell injured
While the hospital record recorded Powell’s injuries as "laceration of nose and left wrist," the Daily News described them more broadly as cuts about the face, and the New York Post shifted the injury to his foot. The New York Evening Journal and New York American reported a more dramatic wound, that Powell’s nose had been cut off, with the American sensationally describing his nose as “severed by [a] razor.” That account cast Powell as a victim of assault, with a weapon that whites associated with Blacks. While the hospital record provided no details of the circumstances of the injury, given that none of the other newspapers suggest an assault, the American listing seems an example of the white press falling back on tropes of racial violence rather than a reliable account of what happened to Powell. Descriptions of his nose being cut off likely stem from the seriousness of the cuts; after Payne attended Powell, he was admitted to the hospital, one of only eleven among the injured known to have been treated in that way (11 of 42, 26%).
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This page references:
- "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).
- "Injured," Daily News, March 20, 1935, 3
- “List of Victims," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 1, 3.
- “List of Casualties in Riots,” New York Post, March 20, 1935, 6.
- “Riot’s Casualties," New York American, March 21, 1935, 2.