This tag was created by Anonymous.
Windows broken in Black-owned business (5)
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.
Also in Police Report on riot for Mayor/MCCH. The MCCH initially concluded that the violence against businesses was indiscriminate: "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, in line with the evidence of Black-owned stores being spared from attack reported in the press, but argued that the discrimination of 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.
This page has tags:
Contents of this tag:
This page references:
- "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).
- The Negro in Harlem. A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935 (1935), 5-6, Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 8 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Numerosos Establecimientos Hispanos Apedreados y Saqueados por la Turba," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.
- C. C. Nicolet, "One Dead in Wake of Harlem Riots," New York Post, March 20, 1935 [clipping]
- Percy Gould, "20,000 Fight Police in Orgy of Looting," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Police Guard Against New Uprising as Mayor Acts to Probe Race Riot," Home News, March 21, 1935 [clipping]
- "Machine Guns Set Up in New York Streets. False Rumor Causes Death of One, Wounding of 50, and Looting of 300 Stores," Afro-American, March 23, 1935, 1.
- Joseph Mitchell, "Poor Housing and Idleness Cause Unrest," New York World-Telegram, March 20, 1935, 2.
- "Police End Harlem Riot," New York Times, March 21, 1935, 1.
- "Tropas Para Harlem Pedidas Ayer; Centenares de Policias Patrullaban Anoche Ei Barrio," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.