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

Rivers Wright arrested

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.

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