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"Report of Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th," (May 29, 1935), 5, Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 6 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
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- 1 2021-10-14T19:12:42+00:00 Anonymous "Report of Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th," (May 29, 1935), Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 6 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives). Anonymous 7 plain 2022-10-11T21:03:07+00:00 Anonymous
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Looting of Black-owned businesses (?)
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2023-04-16T02:31:18+00:00
While five black-owned businesses are reported to have had their windows broken, there are no reports of any Black-owned businesses having merchandise taken. Roi Ottley, in his column in the New York Amsterdam News specified that it was looting not damage that Black-owned businesses avoided: “The marauders, although without leadership, followed a studied program of exclusively looting white businesses.” He expressed the same assessment in more direct terms a week later: "The amazing discrimination manifested in deliberately choosing only stores owned by white people to loot...certainly indicated the direction the protest took...Years of pent-up emotion and resentment flashed their fangs in bitter opposition to the economic inequality imposed on a normally peaceful people." A story in the Atlanta World also specified that it was "stores belonging to white merchants" that were looted. Only one newspaper explicitly contradicted that claim, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, which reported that "Some Negro establishments were among the 200 which lost their plate-glass windows and had the window contents looted." The New York Evening Journal also reported that "All the stores were raided and their fixtures smashed,” but once Black-owned businesses identified themselves with signs, "Those owned by Negroes, in most cases, were not broken into. The rioters concentrated on others." Staff and storeowners put up signs in their windows identifying their business as “Colored,” “Black,” and “This Store Owned by Colored,” according to the Afro-American. Seven signs identifying a store named “Winnette’s Dresses” as a “Colored Store” are visible in both a photograph of an arrest taken during the disorder published in the Daily News, and a photograph taken the morning after the disorder published in the Afro-American. Most reported looting occurred some time after attacks on store windows, so the attacks that signs displayed in response to windows being broken would likely have prevented would have involved looting.
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The MCCH Report was alone in positing the reverse chronology of when Black-owned business were targeted: "While, of course, many motives were responsible for the actions of these crowds, it seems that as they grew more numerous and more active, the personality or racial Identity of the owners of the stores faded out and the property itself became the object of their fury. Stores owned by Negroes were not always spared if they happened to be in the path of those roving crowds, bent upon the destruction and the confiscation of property." The MCCH "Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th" had been more definitive in its initial report on May 29, 1935, writing "Nor is it true that stores owned by Negroes were spared. There is no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." While the final version of the Report seems to recognize the evidence of Black-owned stores being spared from attack reported in the press, the fading of that distinction over time is not supported by the lack of reported looting. Mentions of Black-owned businesses being spared from attack in the Home News, New York Post, and Afro-American focused on windows being broken, and did not mention looting.
The number, nature and location of those enterprises Black-owned businesses also contributed to them not being looted. The MCCH business survey identified 5971 businesses in the blocks of Black Harlem (110th Street to 155th Street, from east of Amsterdam Avenue to west of Madison Avenue); black-owned business constituted only 1690 (28%) of that total. (The survey was undertaken after the disorder, between June and December 1935, by which time there likely had been some changes in Harlem’s business landscape, but few businesses appear to have been forced to close as a result of the disorder). In categorizing business owners, the MCCH survey used "Spanish" (largely Puerto Rican) and Chinese as well as white and "colored" (and on occasion "Jewish" and "Italian"); as sources on looting emphasized that "Spanish" and Chinese businesses were not spared from attack, they are grouped with white-owned businesses in this analysis.
At least one-third of Black-owned businesses did not offer the food, drink or clothing that appear to have been the primary targets of looting. Beauty parlors and barbers were the most common Black-owned businesses; the 230 beauty parlors and 143 barbers made up more than one in every five (22%) of those businesses. The offices of physicians, dentists and lawyers represented another 10% (177 of 1690) of Black-owned businesses, including ninety-eight doctor's offices, fifty-eight dentist's offices, and twenty-one lawyer's offices. Beauty parlors were an overwhelmingly Black-owned enterprise (89.15%, 230 of 258); in the other groups, Black practitioners represented slightly more than half of the total -- 56.3% (143 of 254) of barbers, 55.06% (98 of 178) of physicians, 54.21% (58 of 107) of dentists and 53.86% (21 of 39) of lawyers -- and well above the overall Black-owned share of Harlem's businesses (28%, 1690 of 5971). By contrast, the types of businesses most often looted less often had Black owners than that overall distribution of ownership, with one exception, tailors: Black owners operated 13.96% of grocery stores (67 of 480); 27.75% of restaurants (101 of 364); 5.88% of liquor stores (2 of 34); 9.94% of clothing stores (17 of 171);14.63% of hat stores (6 of 41); 24.55% of shoe repair stores (41 of 167); 1.39% of shoe stores (1 of 72); 19.53% of laundries and cleaners (91 of 466); and 35.79% of tailors (107 of 299).
In addition to not containing the items looted during the disorder, many of those Black professional offices were located above street level, removed from the disorder. Similarly, a proportion of the beauty parlors operated in apartments, also located above street level. In all, between 125th and 135th streets, on 7th Avenue, fourteen of the one hundred Black-owned business (compared to 6 of 181 other businesses), and on Lenox Avenue, eleven of fifty-five Black-owned businesses (compared to 3 of 112 other businesses) were off the street and away from the disorder.
Moreover, a portion of those businesses were located on cross-streets rather than the avenues which ran north-south through Harlem on which attacks on stores and looting took place. Excluding West 116th, 125th, 135th and 145th Streets (which as both transport arteries and sites for businesses were akin to avenues), 767 of 1920 side street businesses were Black-owned (40%, compared to 28% of the total businesses). They made up 45% of all Black-owned businesses (767 of 1690), compared to 27% of businesses owned by other racial groups (1153 of 4281).
The blocks of the avenues on which looting was reported in particular had few Black-owned businesses. Most looting occurred on Lenox Avenue between 125th and 135th Streets, blocks which had fewer Black-owned businesses – 23% (55 of 236) - than those blocks on 7th Avenue to the west – 47% (100 of 212). (Those numbers somewhat exaggerate the possible targets of looting as almost one third of those businesses on 7th Avenue (32 of 100) and 27% (15 of 55) of those on Lenox Avenue were beauty shops or barbers). While a very high proportion of the businesses on 8th and 5th Avenues were also white-owned, there were far fewer businesses on those avenues between 125th and 135th Streets than on 7th and Lenox Avenues: only an average of 13.8 each block on 8th Avenue and 10.375 on each block of 5th Avenue (which had several blocks without any businesses); compared to 20.2 on each block on 7th Avenue and 22.7 on each block on Lenox Avenue. White residents predominatied west of 8th Avenue and east of 5th Avenue, particularly south of 125th Street, while 7th and Lenox Avenues were in the midst of the Black population.
Less looting was reported south of West 125th Street down to West 115th Street, where it was concentrated on 7th Avenue rather than Lenox Avenue. On both avenues there was a smaller proportion of Black-owned businesses than between West 125th and West 135th Streets -- 12.4%, 18 of 145 on Lenox Avenue and approximately 34%, 48 of 141, on 7th Avenue (one side of the street is missing from the survey for several blocks). What focused attention on 7th Avenue in these blocks was its greater number of businesses, on all the blocks down to West 115th Street, whereas Lenox Avenue had few businesses between 123rd and 120th Streets. Reported lootings on Lenox Avenue clustered in blocks which had the highest proportion of white businesses, those closest to the retail centers of 125th Street and 116th Street. South of 125th Street, 5th Avenue was interrupted by Mount Morris Park from 124th to 120th Streets, resulting in a similarly small number of businesses as north of 125th Street. 8th Avenue south of 125th Street was lined with businesses to the same extent as 7th Avenue, none of which were Black-owned (0 of 184), but around those blocks there were diminishing numbers of Black residents.
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Windows not broken (7)
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2023-04-16T02:57:06+00:00
Seven businesses were reported as not having their windows broken. The absence of damage drew attention because of claims that violence had been directed only at white-owned businesses rather than being an indiscriminate attack on property in Harlem. Stories in the Home News New York Post, New York Evening Journal and Afro-American made the claim that the windows of Black-owned businesses were generally not broken. The newspapers linked black-owned businesses being spared to the appearance of signs identifying them in store windows. "It was significant that almost no windows of Negro-owned or Negro-staffed stores were broken," the white New York Post reporter wrote. "Many Negro storekeepers scrawled on their windows, with soap, the word "colored" and the heat of the mob was never sufficient to cause the Negroes to attack their own." Attacks on stores were initially indiscriminate in the account published in the New York Evening Journal, as "the mob made no choice, at first, of victims," "And then one colored man who owned a small restaurant pasted a sign in the window. It bore one word: "Colored." The mob passed him by and when others saw how the "miracle" was worked, signs flashed up in store windows throughout West Harlem. Those owned by Negroes, in most cases, were not broken into." The Black reporter for the Afro-American similarly portrayed the crowd as less controlled and less discriminating. “Stores owned by colored persons in the rioting area had to rush improvised signs reading ‘Colored, “Black,” “This Store Owned by Colored," in order to be spared in the rain of bricks, whiskey bottles, and other missiles. At that, several colored establishments suffered." That description appears to have reflected the reporter's treatment among the crowds on the street, whose "ring leaders," he complained, "were ready to jump on the reporters of "the Uncle Tom press" as they would on many whites.” The mention in the Home News appears to have confused the nature of the signs displayed. Explaining how it was that "Most of the damage was done to shops which were known to be operated by white persons," the reporter claimed "The colored persons who owned stores protected their shops against vandalism by picketing their establishments. They carried signs stating that the store was operated by colored people." No other sources mention pickets in front of Black-owned stores.
The official police account of the disorder, likely reflecting information shared with journalists, did not mention Black-owned businesses being attacked. Instead, in a “Report of Disorder” to the Police Commissioner, Inspector Di Martini, the commanding officer of the Sixth Division, described the “vandals who continued to break windows on 125th Street, Seventh Avenue, Lenox Avenue, 8th Avenue, Fifth Avenue” as targeting “stores occupied by whites.” However, the MCCH initially concluded that the violence against businesses was indiscriminate: the "Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th" reported on May 29, 1935, "Nor is it true that stores owned by Negroes were spared. There is no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The final MCCH Report was less definitive, but argued that any discrimination displayed by those on the streets faded over time. "While, of course, many motives were responsible for the actions of these crowds, it seems that as they grew more numerous and more active, the personality or racial Identity of the owners of the stores faded out and the property itself became the object of their fury. Stores owned by Negroes were not always spared if they happened to be in the path of those roving crowds, bent upon the destruction and the confiscation of property." That chronology is the reverse of the narrative in the stories in New York Post and Afro-American, in which the appearance of signs stopped attacks on Black-owned businesses.
Four of the businesses reported with undamaged windows displayed signs identifying them as Black-owned, in line with the chronology offered in the press rather than that in the MCCH Report. The Monterey Luncheonette, Winnette’s Dresses and the Cozy Shoppe did not suffer any damage. In the case of the Cozy Shoppe, all five white businesses on the same block of 7th Avenue had windows broken and merchandise taken, evident in newsreel footage and information gathered by MCCH investigator James Tartar. Less detailed information is available on the block of Lenox Avenue where Winnette’s Dresses was located, but two white-owned stores were reported looted, and multiple other white-owned businesses were damaged or looted in the blocks to the north and south. While there were only two reported white-owned businesses with windows broken near the Monterey Luncheonette, it was located further north, on 7th Avenue and West 137th Street, an area north of West 135th Street where there were few white-owned businesses: only 8 of 24 businesses on the block on which the restaurant was located, and only 10 of 38 and 6 of 29 businesses on the blocks occupied by the damaged white-owned businesses. The fourth business, the Williams drug store, did suffer broken windows in its storefront facing 7th Avenue, but the windows facing West 128th Street, on which someone painted “Colored Store, Nix Jack” were not broken. The drug store was across 7th Avenue from the Cozy Shoppe, in an area where white businesses were significantly damaged and looted.
Three additional businesses reported as undamaged were white-owned. The Koch Department store and the Empire Cafeteria had both not been attacked, according to newspaper stories, because they had hired Black employees in 1934 during the boycott movement. White-owned businesses that employed Black staff drew some general attention in newspaper descriptions of attacks on businesses, distinguished from the businesses targeted for attack. The only white newspaper to make that distinction, the New York Post, reported "It was significant that almost no windows of Negro-owned or Negro-staffed stores were broken." The Pittsburgh Courier likewise reported that when "window smashing" extended beyond West 125th Street, "Most of it [was] directed against stores not employing colored clerks" (with no mention of Black-owned businesses). Two other Black newspapers reported the opposite situation, although with a qualification. "Many white business houses which employ colored help in high positions were pillaged, " according to the Afro-American, and "Those employing Negroes in high positions were not spared," according to the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Just which businesses the stories referred to is uncertain. One possibility is that "high positions" referred to salespeople, rather than the porters and cleaners more commonly employed by white-owned businesses. Those positions had been the focus of the boycott movement in 1934. A survey by the New York Age a month after the disorder, likely not an accurate picture of the situation at the time of the disorder as there are reports of stores moving to hire Black staff after the disorder, found only 101 Black clerical staff in 134 stores (with the larger chain stores generally refusing to provide information). Harlem's Black newspapers made no mention that stores employing Black staff were not damaged, other than the New York Age publishing the interview in which the manager of Koch's asserted that his store was undamaged. The Empire Cafeteria hired Black staff after a campaign by the Communist Party, and its condition after the disorder is only reported in their newspaper, The Daily Worker. Although the story fitted the Party's efforts to show they had support from Harlem's Black residents, it is unlikely they would have made a claim that could so easily be checked unless it was true. It seems more likely that only they had any reason to give particular attention to that business.
The state of the other white-owned business identified as undamaged had nothing to do with its staff. Stan Katz's business was reported to have been protected rather than spared. A group of Black "boys" stood in front of the shop, "shouting to passing crowds that he was a friend of the Negroes," according to the New York Post. Neither of the two newspaper stories that mention the shop made clear if or how the boys knew the store owner. -
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Windows broken in Black-owned business (5)
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2022-01-20T18:52:52+00:00
At least five Black-owned businesses had windows broken during the disorder, 7% (5 of 69) of the businesses reported damaged. That proportion is far below the share of Harlem's businesses that had black owners, 28% (1690 of 5791) in the area from 110th Street to 155th Street, east of Amsterdam Avenue to west of Madison Avenue identified by the MCCH business survey taken after the disorder. The limited scale of that damage fits
The five Black-owned businesses that were reported damaged are not clearly at odds with a picture of those on the street directing violence at specific targets. The Manhattan Renting Agency storefront was the office of Everard M. Donald, a twenty-seven-year-old Black real estate broker and owner of a chain of barbers, but also where Hary Pomrinse, a sixty-six-year-old Jewish real estate broker did business. A similar ambiguity surrounded the ownership of the grocery store that had windows broken, a Peace Market operated by followers of Father Divine, a Black religious leader whose theology and claim to be God in a body drew criticism from Harlem's black clergy and leaders. The Peace Food Market name and sign would have identified the store as not being a white-owned business, but Divine's Peace Mission had white members in its Harlem ranks, historian Judith Weisenfeld has shown. That interracialism that may have made the store a target; so too might the controversy Divine provoked within Harlem's Black community.
The nature of the damage done to the other three Black-owned businesses reported to have had windows broken offers another manifestation of how confusion over the ownership of stores, rather than disregard for it, produced attacks on stores. After the front windows of the Williams Drug Store facing 7th Avenue were broken, the owner wrote “Colored Store, Nix Jack” on the side windows on West 127th Street. Those windows were not damaged. Two other businesses that a La Prensa reporter recorded as having damaged windows, a billiard parlor and the Castle Inn saloon on Lenox Avenue south of 125th Street, also put up signs, according to another story in La Prensa. That reporter did not appear to understand the intent of the signs, seeing them as an effort to establish a racial divide in the neighborhood, to segregate Black and white residents, and did not relate them to the damage suffered. However, as the reporters could see the signs as well as broken windows, those stores too had been able to prevent extensive damage by identifying themselves as having Black owners. Other businesses also put up signs, and at least three suffered no damage. The success of that strategy suggests that broken windows in Black-owned businesses resulted from ignorance of who owned them, produced perhaps by residents joining crowds that moved beyond the areas where they lived.
Black-owned businesses being spared from attack are mentioned in the Home News, New York Evening Journal, New York Times, New York Post, New York World-Telegram and Afro-American. [include details here that not in looting of Black owned business page]. The one contrary report was published in the New York Herald Tribune: 40 windows broken in the exclusively Negro section north of 130th St (of 8th Avenue). However, that story misrepresents those blocks, which remained overwhelmingly populated by white-owned businesses. The character of the street did change, but from entirely white-owned businesses from ? to ? Streets, to a small proportion of Black-owned businesses on blocks from ? to ? street. [The one arrest in this area for allegedly breaking windows, of Henry Stewart, involved a white-owned business] If there were another thirty-nine windows broken in this area they too were likely in white-owned businesses.
Police Report on riot for Mayor/MCCH = white stores. However, the MCCH initially concluded that the violence against businesses was indiscriminate: the "Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th" reported on May 29, 1935, "Nor is it true that stores owned by Negroes were spared. There is no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The final MCCH Report was less definitive, but argued that any discrimination displayed by those on the streets faded over time. "While, of course, many motives were responsible for the actions of these crowds, it seems that as they grew more numerous and more active, the personality or racial Identity of the owners of the stores faded out and the property itself became the object of their fury. Stores owned by Negroes were not always spared if they happened to be in the path of those roving crowds, bent upon the destruction and the confiscation of property." The reported events of the disorder contradict that claim. No Black-owned businesses are among those identified as looted.