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"Riot Deaths Mounting Daily as Fourth Victim Succumbs. Extra Police Still on Duty; Many Sentenced to Workhouse Terms," New York Age, March 30, 1935, 1
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1
2022-07-14T17:02:48+00:00
Police find Lino Rivera
49
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2022-10-09T20:05:36+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, police tried to locate Lino Rivera so they could show that he had not been killed or beaten. Chief Inspector Seely ordered the boy be located, according to the New York Times, which suggests those efforts started after 9:00 PM, when senior officers took charge of the police response. However, the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Times, Times Union and Afro-American newspapers simply reported that police searched for Rivera throughout the night. They were unable to find him because the home address they had was incorrect, 272 Morningside Avenue rather than 272 Manhattan Avenue. (The New York Age story written early in the disorder included the incorrect address) The Daily News reported that “the mistake was made” when Eldridge gave the address to an officer at the West 123rd St. station over the telephone – not that he had misrecorded the address as the New York Herald Tribune reported or that Rivera had given a false address as the Home News reported. According to Louise Thompson, a group of women who had tried to locate Rivera at the beginning of the disorder also had the wrong address, although one on the correct street, 410 Manhattan Avenue. Joe Taylor, the leader of the Young Liberators, also heard a rumor that Rivera lived at 410 Manhattan Avenue and went to investigate around 7:30 PM.
At 1:30 AM, Officer Eldridge was woken at his home on Whitlock Avenue in the Bronx by a telephone call telling him to report to the Chief Inspector at the West 123rd Street station, he told a hearing of the MCCH. The police officers at the scene, Eldridge and Patrolman Donohue, had gone off duty at 4:00 PM. Until he was woken Eldridge thought Rivera had been arrested and was unaware of what was happening in Harlem. He was able to go directly to Rivera’s home, arriving around 2:00 AM, and found him asleep, according to his testimony in a MCCH hearing. The boy had not been there all night, as initially reported in the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun, but had gone out around 9:00 PM. Rivera had a cup of coffee and returned home after about twenty-five minutes because he "saw there was a lot of trouble around,” the New York World Telegram reported. Rivera said Eldridge told him people thought he was dead, the New York World Telegram and New York Herald Tribune reported.
Eldridge took Rivera to the West 123rd Street station. Only the New York Sun described Rivera as “blubbering and frightened.” Rivera told a reporter for the New York World Telegram that he was at the station about half an hour. During that time, police questioned him, he spoke with reporters, and was photographed with Lt. Battle and Officer Eldridge. Newspaper stories that quoted his statements mentioned that he spoke to two different officers, Kear, according to the Daily News, and Captain Oliver, according to the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun. Battle told the MCCH that he asked Rivera “if he had been hurt by anyone and had he been arrested.” The New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York Sun, and New York American published separate stories about Rivera’s statements. The Daily News, New York Herald Tribune and Atlanta World appended his statements to larger stories on the disorder. Reporters also interviewed and photographed Rivera at his home later on March 20, with New York World Telegram, New York Herald Tribune and La Prensa publishing separate stories based on those interviews, and the New York Times including it in a larger story.
Inspector Di Martini took credit for having Battle appear in the images, telling a hearing of the MCCH that “It was my idea to get Lieut. Battle to pose with the boy and get the picture into the streets as soon as possible.” Battle said the reason Rivera posed with him was “for the moral effect.” Not made explicit in either statement was that having the boy photographed with a Black police officer added to the credibility of the image and cut across the racial divisions expressed in the disorder. “A lot” of pictures were taken, Rivera told a MCCH hearing, but only six different published images have been identified. An Associated Press photo that showed Battle seated with his arm around Rivera, who was standing, was published in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun. Rivera was only 4 feet 8 inches tall according to the New York Herald Tribune, so that pose put the two on the same level. Their height difference is visible in an image of them standing in the same pose taken by an International Photo agency photographer. That difference was further emphasized in the photograph of this pose published in the Daily Mirror, in which Battle is looking down at Rivera. (The Daily Worker took offense at Battles having "his arm protectively around" Rivera as the "Harlem masses...know that Battles would kill a worker on the slightest excuse.") Photographs taken by the International Photo agency and Daily News revealed that Eldridge was on the other side of Rivera in both poses. Eldridge did not have an arm around Rivera, as Battle did, so was detached from their grouping. A second Black officer added to message Di Martini wanted to send. However, Battle was in uniform and well-known as the senior Black police officer in New York City, while Eldridge was in plainclothes, a suit and tie, and not a public figure. It was likely on that basis that some photographers and editors decided not to include Eldridge. An ANS photo showed Rivera and Battle in a different pose, standing surrounded by white reporters, looking at a camera to their left. Where the other photographs showed Rivera unharmed, in contradiction of the rumors circulating in Harlem, the ANS image presented him as telling his story. Rivera, dressed in a leather jacket, is smiling in all the photographs. Photographed at home later that day, Rivera wore a suit and tie, because he said his mother suggested he “dress for the picture,” and, in the image published in the New York Evening Journal, a pensive expression rather than smiling. (The New York Times reporter who visited Rivera at home described him as "a dejected figure," "overwhelmed by the fact that his desire for a ten-cent knife had precipitated the riot and resultant bloodshed.")
If the primary purpose of finding Rivera was to show that he was alive and unharmed, his appearance at the police station also brought some consistency to reports about the identity of the boy who had been in Kress' store. Louise Thompson heard from the women she spoke to in Kress' store that a "colored boy" aged ten to twelve years had been beaten. The signs carried by the Young Liberators who picketed the store an hour or so later referred to a "Negro child," while the leaflets their organization distributed another hour later later described a "12 year old Negro boy." The first newspaper stories published appear to have relied on those rumors and leaflets in describing the boy; with neither Eldridge nor Donohue still on duty, police apparently did not have more precise information until Rivera was found. The New York American mentioned a "colored boy" and a "10-year-old Negro boy," the Daily News a 12-year old "colored boy," the New York Evening Journal a 15-year-old "Negro boy," the Daily Mirror a "little colored boy," the Home News a "young colored boy," and the New York Sun a "Negro boy." Early stories in some Black newspapers featured similar descriptions, a "small Negro boy" in the Norfolk Journal and Guide and a 10-year-old "colored boy" in the Indianapolis Recorder on March 23, or simply referred to the boy's age not his race, a 16 year old boy in the Atlanta World on March 21, a 12-year-old boy in the New York Age, a 14-year-old boy in the Chicago Defender, and a 16 year old boy in the Afro-American and Pittsburgh Courier on March 23. Newspapers published on March 20 after police found Rivera identified him as a 16-year-old Puerto Rican, in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram, or a "Puerto Rican youth" in the New York Herald Tribune and Times Union. The New York World-Telegram also pointed to the differences between Rivera and the boy of the rumors by putting Negro in quotation marks when reporting the rumors and the text of the Young Liberators leaflet. By contrast, the New York Times referred to a 16-year-old "Negro boy" even after Rivera had been found, as did the New York Sun and New York Evening Journal. While the New York Times did eventually identify Rivera as Puerto Rican when he appeared in the Adolescents court after the disorder, the New York Evening Journal continued to describe Rivera as "Negro," while the New York Sun made no mention of his race. Those newspapers' persistent use of "Negro" may have been intended to convey that Rivera was dark-skinned; the New York American described him in those terms, as a "dark-skinned 16-year-old Porto Rican" in a story reporting an interview with the boy in his home, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described him as a "Negro born in Porto Rico." Editions of the other newspapers published after Rivera was found, including the Black newspapers, simply switched to identify him as Puerto Rican. (Historian Lorrin Thomas argued that the New York Amsterdam News "failed to identify Rivera as Puerto Rican, referring to him instead as a “young Negro boy,”" but did not provide a citation. The March 23 issue of that newspaper is missing the news sections, but the March 30 issue identified Rivera as a "16-year-old Puerto Rican youth.")
Police found Rivera too late for his appearance to impact the disorder, although it may have contributed to the violence not continuing the next evening. However, the delays in locating him fed rumors that he was not in fact the boy grabbed in Kress’ store. Reflecting questions raised in hearings, the MCCH report noted that, “The final dramatic attempt on the part of police to placate the populace by having the unharmed Lino Rivera photographed with the Negro police lieutenant Samuel Battle only furnished the basis for the rumor that Rivera, who was on probation for having placed a slug in a subway turnstile, was being used as a substitute to deceive people.” An Afro-American journalist reported the rumors before the first hearing of the MCCH: “At the present time Harlem is divided into those who has been presented by the police as the boy in the case, is not the boy who was beaten in the store. They declare that Lino is being paid off to be the scapegoat and a camouflage....The AFRO reporter has run scores of tips about the boy who actually stole the knife, or a bag of jelly-beans, as it was first given out. Everything so far has run up a blind alley. One clue to the real boy is that all during the riot he was referred to as a 12-year-old boy, but became a 16-year-old one with the finding of Lino Riviera." The New York Age hinted at those rumors when it described Rivera as “believed to have been the cause of the whole affair.” Writing in The New Masses, Louise Thompson reported that a man and woman who had been in the store said Rivera was older and taller than the boy they saw. Other publications did not raise the issue. However, as the Afro-American journalist predicted, questions about Rivera were raised in a hearing of the MCCH, although not until the third hearing on April 20. Mention that he had been on parole after being caught putting slugs in a subway turnstile prompted an interjection from "Mrs Burrows:" "My impression is that this boy is not the boy. We have testimony here that he got into trouble before March 19th, 1935. They had a boy under supervision. This is not the boy. They got a boy through these people and this is the boy they presented." Hays, chairing the hearing, pushed the ILD lawyers for evidence that another boy was beaten in the store. They had found none, nor could they establish that Rivera had received lenient treatment. In the first hearing, on March 30, L. F. Cole, a thirty-year-old Black clerk, had testified that he had "no doubt" Rivera was the boy he saw taken into the Kress store basement. Almost two months later, Jackson Smith, the store manager, was questioned in a MCCH hearing about whether Rivera was the boy caught shoplifting. He confirmed Rivera was the boy he saw from the office, with Donohue and again outside the Grand Jury room after the disorder. After listening to several questions trying to undermine the certainty of that identification, Hays cut off that questioning, announcing "there is no question about it." Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to think Rivera was not person grabbed in the store. The shoppers who saw him in the store could have assumed he was younger, given that he was only only 4 feet 8 inches tall. Similarly, seeing that he was dark-skinned, they could have assumed he was a Black rather than Puerto Rican.
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1
2020-02-25T18:07:14+00:00
Andrew Lyons killed
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2022-07-02T21:58:53+00:00
Andrew Lyons, a thirty-seven-year-old Black man, died as a result of injuries "sustained during the thick of a melee at 125th street and Seventh Avenue," according to a story in the New York Amsterdam News. A story in the Times Union, the only other source that mentioned a location, put the site of his injury a block to the east, at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. There is no information on when he was injured or by who. The medical records obtained by the MCCH provided an explanation for that lack of details. Lyons did not receive medical attention until the evening after the disorder; an ambulance was called to his home, 147 West 117th Street, at 5:10 PM on March 20, by a friend, George Harris, according to the death record issued by Harlem Hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, he was was described as "stuporous," too groggy to tell doctors what had happened to him. The doctor who completed the death record, Emanuel Hauer, wrote that Lyons was "said to have been hit on the head during riot on 3-19-35." When Hauer testified before a MCCH hearing, he gave the same information. Arthur Garfield Hays, chairman of the hearing, responded, "That is not in my report." Hauer then read the ambulance man's report, which simply recorded that Lyons had been "Struck over the head," not that he had been hit during the disorder. If the ambulance man did not provide information that Lyons had been injured in the disorder, neither did his friend Harris. Hauer testified that Harris told him Lyons "came home stuporous but doesn't know how it happened." When he returned home on the night of March 19 Lyons had gone to bed. The autopsy report completed on March 24 did not describe Lyons as injured during the disorder: "Deceased was injured in some unknown manner." Lyons died three days after being admitted to hospital, on March 23rd; the recorded cause of death was a "fractured skull, laceration of the brain, terminal pneumonia." Lyons brother James, a resident of Stem, North Carolina, is recorded in the autopsy as identifying his body on March 25.
Lyons' delayed admission to hospital explains why he was not in any lists of the injured published in newspapers on March 20 and March 21. The first mentions of Lyons in the press are mentions of his death in the New York Post and Daily News on March 23, in the Times Union, New York Times and an AP story on March 24, and in the Atlanta World on March 27. Lyons also appeared in lists of those killed in the weekly Black newspapers, the New York Age, Pittsburgh Courier, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide as well as the New York Amsterdam News, on March 30. The only source that provided any details of the circumstances of Lyons' fatal injury was the Times Union, which described him as having been "beaten over the head with a blunt instrument during the rioting on Tuesday night." That story was the only newspaper to follow the death record in describing his injury as a fractured skull. However, neither the death record nor the autopsy mentioned a blunt instrument as the cause of Lyons' injuries.
There is no indication where the reporters for New York Amsterdam News and Times Union obtained information on where Lyons was attacked. No such evidence was produced for the MCCH. If the reporters were correct, Lyons would have been in the midst of police efforts to establish a perimeter around Kress' store, and his injuries likely the product of a police nightstick. One of Communist Party-affiliated lawyers who questioned Captain Rothengast during a MCCH hearing did claim that "Andrew Lyons died of injuries inflicted by clubs of the police." Rothengast replied, "I'd have to consult records to be exact." The MCCH had its investigators gather information on those killed during the disorder. In Lyons case, the only material in their files are the death and autopsy records. The autopsy recorded "Detectives investigating." Given that Hauer told the MCCH hearing that Harris knew nothing about how Lyons had been injured, there are no avenues for investigation in those records. Likely as a result, Lyons death appears to have remained unexplained. Notwithstanding the claim made by the lawyer in the MCCH hearing that police were responsible for the death, the information accompanying Lyons name in a list of "Workers Killed in the Past Six Months" published in New Masses in July 1935: "Died of internal injuries received during the Harlem events of March 19."
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1
2020-02-25T18:06:03+00:00
August Miller killed
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2022-08-17T01:31:37+00:00
Around midnight, August Miller, a fifty-six-year-old white man, suffered a head injury in the midst of a crowd at 126th Street and Lenox Avenue. A cab driver took him to the Joint Disease Hospital, according to the police complaint report. It was 12.30 AM when Dr. Millbank attended Miller, so likely around midnight when he collapsed in the crowd. Millbank diagnosed him as suffering a possible skull fracture "received in some unknown manner during disorder," according to hospital records, and admitted him for treatment. Miller appeared in three of the seven newspaper lists of the injured published on March 20, those of the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American, and among those the New York Herald Tribune reported still in hospital on March 21, and those listed as injured in the Atlanta World on March 27.
Miller himself never described the circumstances of his injury, dying on March 22 without regaining consciousness. His death was widely reported on March 23, in some cases with information on the how he had been killed. The most direct explanations came in stories published in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Times Union, and in the Associated Press story, which reported Miller had been "beaten by rioters." The Home News offered additional details, that Miller was "struck by several bricks, knocked down and kicked around by the mob." The New York Times and New York Sun did not attribute Miller's death to anyone, only going as far as saying Miller was "in the midst of rioters" when injured, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle even more obliquely said his death came "during the height of the disorders." The New York Post implied he had been assaulted in a different way, noting where he had been injured, and adding "He was one of the half a dozen white men seriously hurt during the disturbance." Lists of those killed in the Daily News and stories in Black newspapers the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News, as well as the lists of those killed published in the Afro-American, Norfolk Journal and Guide and Pittsburgh Courier simply listed Miller's injuries, a fractured skull.
Police investigating the case in the aftermath of the disorder could find no witnesses to establish the circumstances in which he was injured. There is also no information on why he traveled to the neighborhood. Miller lived in the Bronx, some distance from Harlem. His employers did report Miller had been “acting peculiar for some months previous.”
An autopsy performed at the City Morgue on March 23 determined that the cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage, “a natural cause, nothing suspicious.” Miller was included in lists of those killed in the disorder published on March 23 and 24, and in Black weekly newspapers on March 30, without mention of the autopsy. On March 31 the Home News also included him in its count of those killed in the disorder even while noting that Miller's death "was later found to have been due to heart disease, probably aggravated by exertion and excitement." The Daily News, New York American, Daily Mirror, Times Union, the Associated Press, Afro American, and Chicago Defender reported the death of Lloyd Hobbs on March 30 as the fourth death resulting from the disorder without specifying the other three individuals killed. None of those newspapers included Edward Laurie among those killed, so they also still included Miller after the autopsy, along with James Thompson and Andrew Lyons. So too did the New York Herald Tribune, which identified Hobbs as the fifth death resulting from the riot. (The Daily Worker initially reported Hobbs as the fourth death, on April 1, but a week later referred to him as the third death, while the New York Times reported his death without reference to how many others had been killed). -
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2020-02-26T15:11:31+00:00
Richard Jackson arrested
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2022-07-05T17:13:36+00:00
Officer Connelly of the 32nd Precinct arrested Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street, on March 20, perhaps for assaulting Vito Capozzio, a man of unknown race and age. Jackson appeared in the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, with no information on the events that led to his arrest. However, the information in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book suggests Jackson may have been involved in a fight not in the disorder. When he appeared in court on March 20 charged the charge against him was the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault, and was annotated "fight." That violence cannot have resulted in significant injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." The complainant was Vito Capozzio, whose address was recorded as "3764 Boulevard," perhaps in the Bronx. He was also the complainant against the man recorded after Jackson in the docket book, Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man also charged with disorderly conduct. Both Jackson and Smith were arrested by the same police officer. Given that evidence, Jackson and Smith may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in rather than assaulting him. Their appearance in the Washington Heights Court, and arrest by an officer from the 32nd Precinct, indicate that they were arrested north of 130th Street, an area that saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Jackson and Smith would not have been the only men who appeared in court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law.
Disorderly conduct was a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Ford convicted Jackson, and Smith. He sentenced both to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine; neither paid the fine, so would have served the time. The New York Age reported Jackson's conviction, while the New York Herald Tribune also reported the charge and sentence, in stories on legal proceedings related to the disorder. The New York Age also reported Smith's conviction, the only mention of his name in a newspaper story. The inconsistent appearance of Jackson in newspaper lists and reports of court proceedings likely reflects confusion of reporters about whether his arrest related to the disorder. -
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2021-08-29T22:00:15+00:00
Drug store windows broken (339 Lenox Ave)
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2021-12-07T16:48:28+00:00
Sometime during the disorder windows were smashed in the white-owned drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 127th Street. A single large hole is visible in the center of the window facing West 127th Street, and another in the adjacent window facing Lenox Avenue, in a photograph taken the next day published in the Afro-American. (The photograph caption for the Getty Images version of the photograph locates the store "at 127th Street and Lenox Avenue," and the Tax Department photograph confirms the store was on the northwest corner so 339 Lenox Avenue). The store may have been looted. There is no merchandise in the store windows in the photograph. However, the image appears to have been taken after the clean-up had begun, so the merchandise might have been removed as part of the removing debris from the windows not taken during the disorder. Frank De Thomas' candy store next to the drug store on West 127th Street was looted, as was Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store two buildings north on Lenox Avenue. Many other stores in the surrounding blocks of Lenox Avenue had windows broken and goods taken. Few arrests were made as a result of those attacks, as police lacked the numbers to control the many crowds on the streets, but police did make two arrests for breaking windows in 339 Lenox Avenue, as well as arrests for looting the two nearby stores, suggesting that officers were stationed at the intersection. There are no details of the circumstances of the arrests for breaking the drug store windows, but the same detective is recorded as the arresting officer, making it likely the arrests occurred at the same time.
A story in the Home News is the only evidence connecting two of the men arrested for allegedly breaking windows to the drug store. Arthur Bennett and James Bright, both Black men twenty-eight years of age, appear in lists of those charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against the men; no one else arrested during the disorder was charged with that offense. Bennett and Bright appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti of the 6th Division recorded in the docket book as having arrested both men. They had allegedly thrown "stores through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. Neither man lived close to the store, with Bennett giving his address as 48 West 119th Street, eight blocks south, and Bright's address recorded as 43 West 133rd Street, five blocks north. Magistrate Renaud convicted both men. They returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, receiving a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows the men had allegedly broken.
A white owned drug store is recorded at 339 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935. The Tax Department photograph from sometime between 1939 and 1941 shows a drug store at the address; there is no information available to establish if it is the same business as operated in 1935. -
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2020-02-24T23:45:08+00:00
Killed (5)
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2022-09-27T20:33:42+00:00
Five individuals were killed in the disorder in Harlem, three Black men and two white men. All those killed suffered their injuries in the vicinity of 125th Street. James Thompson died on the morning of March 20, only a few hours after being shot. Three of the other men died in the days following the disorder: August Miller on March 22, Andrew Lyons on March 23, and Lloyd Hobbs not until March 31. Thomas Wijstem, the final man killed did not die until three months later on June 25, long enough after the disorder that his death is reported in only one newspaper.
Police shot two of the Black men, James Thompson and Lloyd Hobbs, while there are few details of the circumstances in which the Andrew Lyons was killed. As the result of an incorrect police notification, a fourth Black man, Lyman Quarterman, was widely reported as having been killed early in the disorder. Although shot and seriously wounded enough to spend approximately two weeks in Harlem Hospital, he did recover. Another Black man, Edward Laurie, did die on March 20, and was included in lists of those killed in the Home News, Pittsburgh Courier and New York Age, but his death was not related to the disorder. Apparently drunk, Laurie created a disturbance at a restaurant on Lenox Avenue around 4 AM, and struck a police officer trying to arrest him. The officer responded by throwing him to the ground and fatally fracturing his skull. The MCCH report discussed Laurie's death as an example of police brutality.
Some uncertainty exists about whether the two white men included here belong among those killed in the disorder. August Miller is included among those killed as newspapers reported his death and the MCCH investigated it, although an autopsy they obtained indicates he died of natural causes, a cerebral hemorrhage. Only the Home News appears to have reported the autopsy result, and still listed Miller among those killed in the disorder. The second white man, Thomas Wijstem, unconscious after being assaulted, is reported as severely injured in the aftermath of the disorder and not subsequently included in lists of those killed. However, three months after the disorder, a brief story in New York Herald Tribune reported Wijstem had died in Bellevue Hospital without regaining consciousness after suffering a fractured skull in an assault.
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2021-12-13T01:27:23+00:00
Moskowitz's tailor shop windows broken
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2021-12-13T16:53:38+00:00
Sometime during the disorder the windows of Moskowitz's tailor shop at 2310 7th Avenue were broken. Located between 135th and 136th Streets, the shop was one of the northernmost businesses damaged during the disorder. A shoe repair shop two blocks north, on the northwest corner of West 138th Street, also had windows broken. Although the blocks of 7th Avenue north of West 135th Street had few of the white-owned businesses that made up almost all those damaged during the disorder, there were may have been more stores damaged in this area, as the Monterey Luncheonette at 2341 7th Avenue felt the need to post signs identifying it as a Black-owned business. The luncheonette's windows were not broken.
Patrolman Carter of the 32nd Precinct arrested Julius Hightower, an eighteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a brick through the window of the store, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. When he appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge recorded in the docket book was malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in cases of individuals who allegedly broke windows during the disorder. During Hightower's arraignment, that charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, an offense that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Hightower, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. He served the time. That sentence was reported in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Age.
The Moskowitz's tailor shop was operated by a father and son who had had businesses in Harlem for eighteen years, according to a note by a investigator conducting the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935. The store's sign read "Full dress and Tuxedos to rent." -
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2021-12-20T17:37:03+00:00
Leo Smith arrested
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2022-04-21T16:36:59+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Williams of the 6th Detective Division arrested Leo Smith, an eighteen-year-old white man, for allegedly "throwing a stone through a Seventh Avenue window," according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. The specific location of the damaged store is not given. However, Smith was one of three men arrested during the disorder arraigned in the Night Court, during the disorder on March 19, the New York Herald Tribune reported, so was likely arrested near 125th Street, where the initial events were concentrated. In reporting that Smith was "accused of smashing a store window," a story in the Home News gave the address as 3180 7th Avenue, a non-existent address. He lived well to the east of Harlem, at 305 East 118th Street, between Second and First Avenues, an area with only white residents.
Smith is included in lists of those arrested in the disorder charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal, and in the New York American, and without a charge in a list published in the Daily News. He is not included, however, in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter, likely because he was arrested and sent to the Night Court on March 19 (although one of the two other men arraigned in the Night Court, Claudius Jones, is in the transcript). There Magistrate Capshaw held him for the Magistrates Court, on bail of $500. On March 20, Smith appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, charged with disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud tried and convicted him that day, holding him for sentence, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book and a story in the Home News. When Smith returned to court on March 23, it was for sentencing, stories in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News and New York Times reported. Magistrate Renaud sent him to the Workhouse for one month.
Smith is recorded as white in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories about his sentencing in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News and New York Times. Only the lists published in the New York Evening Journal and Daily News did likewise. Neither story about his first appearance in court, in the New York Herald Tribune and the Home News, mentioned his race. His address, well east of the areas of Black residences in Harlem, fitted with his recorded race (although the New York Evening Journal, New York Herald Tribune and Daily News mistakenly recorded his address as West 118th Street). None of the newspaper reporting offered any comment regarding Smith's race. -
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2021-09-17T00:24:45+00:00
Albert Yerber arrested
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2022-07-04T21:14:53+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Albert Yerber, Charles Alston, Edward Loper and Ernest Johnson for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Yerber lived on the other side of Harlem at 106 Edgecombe Ave, as did Loper, at 298 West 138th Street and, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street, while Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Yerber and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th Street. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Yerber and his companions.
On March 20 Yerber, Loper and Johnson were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Yerber and his two companions. Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Yerber, and Loper and Johnson, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted. -
1
2020-10-01T19:25:21+00:00
Rivers Wright arrested
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2022-07-06T18:59:29+00:00
Detective Doyle of the 5th Division arrested Rivers Wright, a twenty-one-year-old Black man for allegedly being part of a group of men who attacked an unnamed white man at 125th St and Lenox Avenue at some point in the disorder. Wright lived at 2137 7th Avenue, a block west and two blocks north of the site of the alleged assault, and in the heart of the disorder.
Only one source provided any details of the circumstances of his arrest. The Home News reported on March 21 that Wright was arrested "after he and a number of others are said to have attacked a white man at 125th St and Lenox Ave." Wright appeared in lists of those arrested during the disorder in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York American, New York Evening Journal, and Daily News. His sentencing several days later is also reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News, and New York Times.
Among the first arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Wright was charged with disorderly conduct, not assault, as was the case with half of those arrested for assault. The attack cannot have resulted in significant injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." Disorderly conduct was also a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Renaud convicted Wright and remanded him for sentence on March 23. On that date, Magistrate Renaud sent him to the Workhouse for 10 days. -
1
2021-09-07T16:52:05+00:00
James Smith arrested
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2021-12-20T21:06:42+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer C. G. Weiler of the 32nd Precinct arrested James Smith, a seventeen-year-old Black man. Smith appeared in the lists of those arrested in the disorder charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal, and in the New York Daily News. By the time that Smith appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against him had been reduced to Disorderly Conduct. That change suggests that police did not have any evidence that Smith had taken any merchandise, or had been trying to take merchandise, but only that he had allegedly broken the window of a store that was looted. The New York American reported that Smith had been charged with Disorderly Conduct.
Magistrate Ford convicted Smith and sentenced him to six months in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the docket book and reported in the New York Herald Tribune and later in the New York Age.
There is considerable variation in Smith's age and home address in as reported in the press. The docket book recorded him as seventeen years of age and living at 125 West 123rd Street, near the heart of the disorder. The New York Evening Journal and New York Daily News reported that home address, but Smith as eighteen years of age. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Age reported Smith was forty-eight years of age, living at 112 West 136th Street, while the New York American reported his age as twenty-six years and his home as 158 West 123rd Street. Based on the docket book, the stories could not refer to anyone else who appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 other than James Smith. -
1
2022-01-07T19:57:38+00:00
John Hawkins arrested
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2022-01-07T21:43:52+00:00
Detective George Booker of the 28th Precinct arrested John Hawkins, a thirty-year-old Black man, for allegedly inciting a riot. There are no details of his alleged offenses or where or when Hawkins was arrested. Booker also arrested Horace Fowler during the disorder, for allegedly looting Nicholas Peet's tailor's shop at 2063 7th Avenue. Booker made no mention of a crowd or anyone else being involved in that alleged looting, so he likely arrested Hawkins at some other time and place. Hawkins lived at 2357 8th Avenue, between West 126th and West 127th Streets. He could have been part of the crowds around that block of 8th Avenue, where Theodore Hughes was arrested for allegedly looting the store directly opposite the building where Hawkins lived, Emmet Williams for breaking the window of that store, and Rose Murrell for breaking a window in the store at 2366 8th Avenue.
In the 28th Precinct Police blotter, the charge against Hawkins is recorded as inciting riot, which is also the charge against in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. When he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, that was also the charge recorded in the docket book. Magistrate Renaud held him for the case to be investigated. Hawkins returned to court on March 23, when the charged against him was reduced to disorderly conduct: the charge is crossed out in the docket "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That offense could be dealt with in the Magistrates Court; Magistrate Renaud convicted Hawkins and sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse. Stories in the New York Daily News, New York Times, New York Age and Afro-American reported the sentencing. Three other men sentenced at the same time had broken windows; the three newspapers other than the New York Times reported that Hawkins had also committed that offense, while that newspaper merely reported his sentence. -
1
2021-09-17T00:25:21+00:00
Edward Loper arrested
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2022-07-04T21:19:31+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Edward Loper, Charles Alston, Albert Yerber and Ernest Johnson for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Loper lived on the other side of Harlem at at 298 West 138th Street, as did Yerber, 106 Edgecombe Aveand, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street, while Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Alston and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions.
On March 20 Loper, Yerber, and Johnson were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Loper and his two companions. Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Loper, and Yerber and Johnson, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted.
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1
2021-09-17T00:28:51+00:00
Ernest Johnson arrested
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2022-07-04T21:22:03+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Ernest Johnson, Albert Yerber, Charles Alston, and Edward Loper for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Yerber lived on the other side of Harlem at 106 Edgecombe Ave, as did Loper, at 298 West 138th Street and, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Johnson and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions.
On March 20, Johnson, Yerber, and Loper were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Johnson and his two companions. Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Johnson, and Loper and Yerber, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted. -
1
2022-10-27T21:16:01+00:00
MCCH Meeting (March 25, 1935)
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2022-10-28T14:40:57+00:00
All eleven members of the MCCH met for the first time at 4.30 PM on March 25, at the Seventh District Municipal Court, 447 West 151st Street. Minutes of that meeting are in the Records of Mayor La Guardia. The meeting was also widely reported in the press, having been announced the previous week, after some members of the MCCH met with the Mayor. Aware of the presence of reporters, the MCCH members made preparing a statement for them their first business after electing their officers, the task deferred the previous week. That statement contributed to focusing attention not on the events of the disorder but on broader conditions in Harlem.
Oswald Villard wrote and delivered the statement released after the meeting, having been appointed chair of a Publicity Committee that included Toney, Roberts and Carter. Although the minutes refer to a copy of the statement being attached as part of the record, one is not included in the file. Based on the newspaper stories, it appears to have had three sections. Only the Home News quoted all three sections, although it omitted a parenthetical statement in the first section that is quoted in the Daily Worker and New York Times.
The first section, the most widely reported, indicated that the focus of the Commission would be the broader conditions in Harlem rather than the events of the disorder:
All the stories in white newspapers quoted or paraphrased this statement, and in the case of the NYT, NYWT, BDE and DW made it the basis of the headline of their story. The NYHT, NYDN, and HN folded the meeting into stories about the work of Dodge’s GJ, which they made the subject of their headlines. The Hearst newspapers, the NYEJ, Am and Daily Mirror, took that approach further, writing only about the progress of Dodge’s investigation without similar attention to the MCCH (keeping the Communists in the foreground). Only the AN among the Black newspapers quoted this section; the other papers did not refer to the statement at all."The committee is already agreed that the disturbance (of last Tuesday, which took a toll of three lives and extensive property damage) were merely symbols and symptoms: that the public health, safety and welfare in colored Harlem have long been jeopardized by economic and social conditions which the depression has intensified."
The second section put events on par with broader causes as one of two parts of the investigation:
Only the HN and NYDN included this section in their stories, quoted in the HN and paraphrased in the NYDN. It was not mentioned in NYHT, NYWT, NYT, BDE and DW. Without this section, stories pushed events to the background, appearance that the MCCH not concerned with events. Particularly in the NYDN, which characterized the statement as a “preliminary report.”“It has, therefore, determined to divide its work into two parts, an investigation of the immediate situation and a thorough, far-reaching inquiry into the entire problem, including housing, wages, rents, employment discrimination and other questions.”
The third section was an appeal for information, and a notice that hearings would be hold, without any dates.
This section was quoted in NYT and HN, and paraphrased in three other newspapers: as “The public was invited to send any remedial suggestions” in the NYDN; as “beseeching the city to offer suggestions to clear up the Harlem sore spots” in the BDE; and as “it asks for public cooperation and will welcome any suggestions and information,” in the AN (3/30, 3 – end of critics story). The New York Age mentioned only that the meeting took place, emphasizing that as the meeting was not open to the public the MCCH was “enveloping their activities in an obscuring cloud of secrecy that evoked considerable comment.”“To that end it asks public cooperation and will welcome any suggestions and information which should be sent directly to the secretary, Mrs Eunice Hunter Carter, in care of Seventh Municipal Court, 447 W. 151st St.
Public hearings will be started at an early date.”
At some point, the MCCH also announced that it would hold its first hearing at the end of the week, on Saturday, March 30. There was no mention of that decision in the minutes or the NYT, NYDN, or the BDE stories about the meeting. While the upcoming hearing was reported in the NYWT without attribution, the NYHT attributed that information to Villard; however, that seems unlikely as the statement he wrote included a vague commitment rather than that information. It was Hays who the HN quoted, identifying him as “a member of a subcommittee which will meet at the Heights Court at 10 a. m. on Saturday “to welcome anybody who has anything to tell us about what happened.” The same statement appeared in the Afro-American, in a separate story from the one that mentioned the first meeting of the MCCH, suggesting it had been made at a different time. A day later, the DW reported that Hays’ statement announcing the hearing had “followed by a few hours a statement issued by Oscar Villard,” and included an attack on District Attorney William Dodge for suggesting he would use the criminal anarchy statute to prosecute Communists arrested during the disorder. The Am also reported Hays comments on March 27, and said he made them “yesterday,” March 26, the day after the committee met and Villard released his statement. The HN simply reported the comments on March 27. The decision to hold a hearing on March 30 thus did appear to have been made after the MCCH met. The press statement after the second meeting of the MCCH would also include information on the March 30 hearing. It was at that time that the NYEJ reported the hearing.
The subcommittee of which Hays was a member was one of three the MCCH established at the meeting. In the minutes, Judge Toney was chair of the group appointed “to investigate the police records and all facts pertinent to the happenings in Harlem on Tuesday, March 19th,” with Schiefflin and Carter as well as Hays. A meeting of the subcommittee, and two others, on discrimination and employment and on housing, was scheduled for March 27. By the time the MCCH met again on March 29, Hays rather than Toney was acting as chairman of the subcommittee. There is no evidence of why that change was made. These subcommittees do not appear to have been announced to journalists after the meeting. Only the AN provided any information on them: that story identified their members and said Hays subcommittee would “investigate the "outburst" (the committee rejected the term "riot").” After the MCCH met on March 29, the statement to the press provided information on eight subcommittees, with the one led by Hays labelled “Crime” and no longer including Carter. (The six subcommittees appointed in addition to those on discrimination and housing were focused on education, health and sanitation, labor problems, law and legislation and relief agencies). [Presumably these reflect Randolph and Ernst’s plan for the MCCH’s work??] Given that Hays announced the March 30 hearing before his subcommittee was scheduled to meet, it is not clear who else was involved in the decision to hold the hearing.
The other work done in the meeting reported in the press was the selection of officeholders: Roberts as chairman, Villard as vice chairman and Carter as secretary. The previous week a story in the NYHT [3/22] had suggested that Delany would be the chairman, as his name “led the list of appointments to the committee as made public by the Mayor.” Delany had rejected that possibility, telling the reporter that “he would rather have someone else, preferably a white, in that position.” When the MCCH met on March 25, the minutes mentioned “a general discussion as to whether [illegible] expedient to have a white or Negro Chairman.” Or at least that statement initially appeared in the minutes; someone later crossed it out. Before that discussion Ernst had said “he thought that the Chairman should be a Negro,” and suggested Eunice Carter. She declined. After the discussion, Toney was nominated by an unnamed Commission member, with Grimley seconding. Hays then nominated Villard, with Carter seconding, setting up a choice between a Black candidate and a white candidate. However, Villard withdrew due to “his uncertain health,” offering instead to be the vice chairman. Schiefflin then nominated Roberts, with Hays seconding. That nomination ensured that the MCCH would have a Black candidate, with Roberts winning the role on an 8-3 vote. (Villard would later write to [Walter White] lamenting his decision not to serve as chairman, “which was the wish of the majority,” complaining that “Roberts has been a very poor chairman and there has been no meeting for weeks and weeks and weeks, and there is to be no effort on the part of the Commission to carry out any of its recommendations.” [NAACP 0438, Villard to White, 1/31/1936}
The further business discussed in the meeting that was not made public was how the committee would do its work. The minutes record a “consensus” that “one trained person was necessary to correlate the reports.” The commission members voted to pursue Ira B. Reid for that role, but left the final selection to Roberts, Delany and Carter. (After lobbying by Walter White of the NAACP, E. Franklin Frazier rather than Reid would be employed by the MCCH). At Carter’s urging, the MCCH also decided to move forward with its investigation without waiting to fill that position, and charged Randolph, Ernst, Delany and Carter “to formulate general plans of work for the committee” by the next meeting.
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1
2021-12-02T19:10:37+00:00
Truss shop windows broken
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2021-12-02T21:28:59+00:00
Windows were broken in Fred Noble's Truss Shop at 2136 7th Avenue sometime during the disorder. Just south of the intersection with West 127th Street, the store was in the midst of the three-block section of 7th Avenue north of West 125th Street that saw multiple reported broken windows and looting, and three assaults on whites, including both James Wrigley and a Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus being hit by objects. Officer Platt's arrest of Arthur Killen for allegedly breaking windows in the Truss Shop was the only arrest that can be identified as having occurred in this area during the disorder. When police searched Killen they found an "open knife" in his possession, according to a Home News story.
A forty-three-year-old Black man, Killen appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with both malicious mischief and possession of a knife. Magistrate Renaud transferred Killen to the Court of Special Sessions, and held on bail of $500. The outcome of his prosecution is unknown.
A story in the Home News about his appearance in the Magistrates Court is the only evidence connecting Killen to the Truss shop. A forty-three-year-old Black man, Killen appeared in lists of those charged with inciting a riot published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the list in New York Evening Journal as charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a weapon. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against the men; no one else arrested during the disorder was charged with that offense. Bennett and Bright appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti of the 6th Division recorded in the docket book as having arrested both men. They had allegedly thrown "stores through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. Neither man lived close to the store, with Bennett giving his address as 48 West 119th Street, eight blocks south, and Bright's address recorded as 43 West 133rd Street, five blocks north. Magistrate Renaud convicted both men. They returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, receiving a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows the men had allegedly broken.
A white-owned Truss Shop is recorded at 2316 7th Avenue, with the owner identified as Noble, in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935. In the Tax Department photograph from sometime between 1939 and 1941 the name of the business at that address is not visible. -
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2021-12-02T17:24:56+00:00
Arthur Bennett arrested
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2022-07-04T20:10:38+00:00
Sometime during the disorder Detective Perretti of the 6th Division arrested Arthur Bennett, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking windows in the drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of 127th Street. Perretti likely arrested a second man, James Bright, also a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, at the same time, also for breaking the store's windows. There is no information on the circumstances of the arrests. While other stores in the surrounding blocks of Lenox Avenue had windows broken and goods taken, police made few arrests as they lacked the numbers to control the many crowds on the streets. However, other officers made arrests for alleged looting at Frank De Thomas' candy store next to the drug store on West 127th Street and at Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store two buildings north on Lenox Avenue, suggesting that officers were stationed at this intersection.
A story in the Home News is the only evidence that connects Bennett, and James Bright, to 339 Lenox Avenue. Bennett appeared in lists of those charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against him; no one else arrested during the disorder other than Bright was charged with that offense. Bennett appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti recorded in the docket book as the arresting officer. He had allegedly thrown "stores through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. He did not live close to the store, but eight blocks south, at 48 West 119th Street. Magistrate Renaud convicted Bennett of disorderly conduct. He returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, and received a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows Bennett had allegedly broken. -
1
2020-10-29T15:01:55+00:00
Vito Capozzio assaulted
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2022-06-13T19:36:34+00:00
Vito Capozzio may have been assaulted somewhere north of West 130th Street during the disorder. He was recorded as the complainant in the prosecution of Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man, and Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man, in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. No details of the case appear in any sources, but the men's arraignment in that court indicated they had been arrested within its jurisdiction, which began above 130th Street. Jackson appeared in the list of those arrested for assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, which included only his name and the charge. Smith was not included in that list. However, his name was recorded directly beneath Jackson in the docket book, with check marks indicating that the complainant, charge and arresting officer were the same in both cases. Although his name suggests Capozzio was likely a white man, there is no evidence of his race. The docket book recorded his address as "3764 Boulevard," which appears to be an incomplete address, perhaps referring to Southern Boulevard in the Bronx.
Other evidence in the docket book, and Jackson and Smith's absence from most newspaper reports of those arrested during the disorder, suggest that this incident was not part of the disorder. When Jackson and Smith appeared in court on March 20 the charge against them was the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault, annotated with the word "fight." The reduced charge could simply indicate that Capozzio's injuries did not warrant a charge of assault. However, this is the only instance in which the charge was annotated with "fight." Another possible interpretation is that Jackson and Smith may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in rather than assaulting him. The area north of 130th Street where the men were arrested saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Jackson and Smith would not have been the only men who appeared in the court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law. While stories in New York Age and New York Herald Tribune reported Jackson's appearance in court, only the New York Age also mentioned Smith, the only time he appeared in the newspapers. That inconsistency, and the absence of the men from other stories about the court proceedings, suggest at least some confusion about whether their arrests related to the disorder. Magistrate Ford did convict both Jackson and Smith, but sentenced them to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine. -
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2021-12-13T16:23:24+00:00
Shoe repair shop windows broken
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2021-12-13T17:11:12+00:00
Sometime during the disorder the windows of a white-owned shoe repair shop at 2360 7th Avenue were broken. Located on the northwest corner of West 138th Street, the shop was the northernmost business damaged during the disorder. A tailor's shop two blocks south, between 135th and 136th Streets, also had windows broken. Although the blocks of 7th Avenue north of West 135th Street had few of the white-owned businesses that made up almost all those damaged during the disorder, there were may have been more stores damaged in this area, as the Monterey Luncheonette at 2341 7th Avenue felt the need to post signs identifying it as a Black-owned business. The luncheonette's windows were not broken.
Patrolman Rappel of the 30th Precinct arrested Robert Porter, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing an ashcan through the window of the store, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. Porter appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. The offense of disorderly conduct was one that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Porter, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. "Porter went to jail," the New York Herald Tribune reported, an outcome also reported in the New York Age.
The white-owned shoe repair shop was still in business in the second half of 1935, when it was recorded in the MCCH business survey. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 appears to show a shoe store at the address. -
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2021-12-13T16:22:07+00:00
Julius Hightower arrested
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2021-12-13T17:12:35+00:00
Patrolman Carter of the 32nd Precinct arrested Julius Hightower, an eighteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a brick through the window of Moskowitz's tailor shop at 2310 7th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. The complainant recorded in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book is L. Hackner, with the address 2310 7th Avenue, confirming the location of Hightower's alleged offense published in the New York Herald Tribune. The tailor shop was operated by a father and son, so Hackner was likely a manager or staff member. Located between 135th and 136th Streets, the shop was one of the northernmost businesses damaged during the disorder, in an area where most of the other businesses had Black owners.
Hightower lived at 204 West 148th Street, more than ten blocks north of the tailor store. He appeared among those charged with disorderly conduct in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hightower appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge recorded in the docket book was malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in cases of individuals who allegedly broke windows during the disorder. During his arraignment, that charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, an offense that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Hightower, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. He served the time. That sentence was reported in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Age. -
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2021-12-02T17:25:14+00:00
James Bright arrested
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2022-07-10T18:20:20+00:00
Sometime during the disorder Detective Perretti of the 6th Division arrested James Bright, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking windows in the drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of 127th Street. Perretti likely arrested a second man, Arthur Bennett, also a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, at the same time, also for breaking the store's windows. There is no information on the circumstances of the arrests. While other stores in the surrounding blocks of Lenox Avenue had windows broken and goods taken, police made few arrests were made as they lacked the numbers to control the many crowds on the streets. However, other officers made arrests for alleged looting at Frank De Thomas' candy store next to the drug store on West 127th Street and at Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store two buildings north on Lenox Avenue, suggesting that officers were stationed at this intersection.
A story in the Home News is the only evidence that connects Bright, and Arthur Bennett, to 339 Lenox Avenue. Bright appeared in lists of those charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against him; no one else arrested during the disorder other than Bennett was charged with that offense. Bright appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti recorded in the docket book as the arresting officer. He had allegedly thrown "stones through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. He did not live close to the store, but five blocks north, at 43 West 133rd Street. Magistrate Renaud convicted Bright of disorderly conduct. He returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, and received a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows Bright had allegedly broken. -
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2022-06-13T16:54:29+00:00
Salathel Smith arrested
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2022-06-13T19:34:46+00:00
Officer Connelly of the 32nd Precinct arrested Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man somewhere north of West 130th Street some time during the disorder, perhaps for assaulting Vito Capozzio, a man of unknown race and age. Smith, who lived at 246 West 121st Street, appeared in a list published in the New York Age of those arrested during the disorder who were found guilty in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court and sentenced to the Workhouse on March 20. The story included no information on the events that led to his arrest. No other newspaper lists or stories mention Smith, including the other reports of those court proceedings. He did appear in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, where the charge against him was recorded as disorderly conduct.
The other information in the docket book suggests Smith may have been involved in a fight not in the disorder. Check marks indicate that the charge, complainant and arresting officer in his case were the same as those of the man who appeared above him in the docket book, Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street. The charge was annotated "fight." That violence cannot have resulted in any injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." Vito Capozzio was the complainant, his address recorded as "3764 Boulevard," perhaps in the Bronx. Given that evidence, Smith and Jackson may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in. Their appearance in the Washington Heights Court, and arrest by an officer from the 32nd Precinct, indicate that they were arrested north of 130th Street, an area that saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Smith and Jackson would not have been the only men who appeared in court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges obviously unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law.
Disorderly conduct was a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Ford convicted Smith, and Jackson. He sentenced both to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine; neither paid the fine. Jackson did appear in two sources that Smith did not: the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and a New York Herald Tribune story that reported the charge and sentence. However, he, like Smith, is missing from most sources that provided information on those arrested. The presence of Smith in the New York Age story likely reflects the reporter's confusion about whether his arrest related to the disorder, given that the charge against him was one made against others arrested in the disorder. -
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2021-12-13T16:48:29+00:00
Robert Porter arrested
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2021-12-13T17:14:18+00:00
Patrolman Rappel of the 30th Precinct arrested Robert Porter, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing an ashcan through the window of a shoe repair store at 2360 7th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. That story is the only information on the location of Porter's alleged crime; there is no complainant recorded in the court docket book. Located on the northwest corner of West 138th Street, the shop was the northernmost business damaged during the disorder.
Porter lived only three blocks north of the store, at 221 West 141st Street. He appeared among those charged with disorderly conduct in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. That was also the charge recorded in the docket book when Porter appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. The offense of disorderly conduct was one that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Porter, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. "Porter went to jail," the New York Herald Tribune reported, an outcome also reported in the New York Age.