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Theodore Hughes arrested
Located between West 126th and West 127th Streets, the store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence and police making arrests during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a grocery store three buildings to the north, on the corner of 127th Street; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across the street from the store. Hughes lived at 50 Old Broadway, on the Upper West Side near West 131st Street, beyond the boundaries of Black Harlem. Given that he was arrested on the western boundary of the disorder, he may have come to the neighborhood from his home.
Hughes appeared in the lists of those charged with larceny published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal and Daily News. The charge of larceny rather than burglary fits with the circumstance that he did not break the store window mentioned in the New York American. He was among the first of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions by Magistrate Renaud, Hughes was held on $500 bail. There was no evidence of the outcome of his trial. He, and Emmet Williams, are some of the few who appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20 not mentioned in the Home News story on March 21 that provides brief details of those hearings. Given the location of the market, Hughes, and Williams, should have been taken to the 28th Precinct and appear in their blotter, but they do not. Carrington may have instead taken them to his own precinct, the 32nd, on West 135th Street.
There is some conflicting information about Hughes' racial identity in the sources. The list published in the Daily News identified him as white; however, that list misidentified several of the other people arrested in the disorder as white. The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book, the one official source that included Hughes, recorded his race as "B[lack]."
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This page references:
- "List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 30, 1935, 18.
- "Harlem Riot Damage is Figured at Half Million," Afro-American, March 30, 1935, 1, 2.
- "Says Economic Conditions in Harlem Are Bad," Atlanta World, March 27, 1935, 1, 2.
- "1 Dead, 7 shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "List of Those under Arrest in Harlem Riot and the Charges They Face," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.
- "Jailed for Rioting," Daily News, March 20, 1935, 4.
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- "Harlem Riot Prisoners and Charges," New York American, March 20, 1935, 4.