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

"Youth, 16, Fourth to Die as Result of Harlem Riot," Afro-American, April 6, 1935, 16.

In the Afro-American

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Lloyd Hobbs killed Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black teenager, was shot and killed by Patrolman John McInerney, who claimed Hobbs had been looting an auto supply store.

Around 7:30 PM, Hobbs and his fifteen-year-old brother Russell had made the short trip from their home on St. Nicholas Ave to the Apollo Theater on 125th Street for a show, not emerging until 12:30 AM. When they stepped back onto 125th St, they saw crowds down the block at the intersection with 7th Ave, and went to investigate. They followed as police pushed the crowd north on 7th Ave. As people milled in front of a damaged auto parts store at 2150 7th Avenue near 128th Street, a police radio car pulled up, and one of the officers inside, Patrolman John McInerney got out. Fearing that they would be beaten by the police, the boys and the others in front of the store ran up 7th Avenue. Here the accounts of the boys and seven Black eyewitnesses and those of the two white patrolmen diverged.

McInerney and his partner, Patrolman Watterson, claimed that as they were driving south, their attention had been drawn to the auto parts store by the noise of breaking glass, and they had seen Lloyd in the window handing items out to those on the street. Three of the eyewitnesses, Howard Malloy, Arthur Moore, and Marshall Pfifer, said all the windows of the store had been broken at least an hour earlier and nothing remained in the display by the time the Hobbs brothers arrived there. The patrolmen said that Lloyd climbed out of the window with items in his hands as they pulled up, and when McInerney pursued him up 7th Avenue and called on him to halt, continued to run. When those running from the patrolman got to 128th Street, Lloyd broke away from the group and turned west on to 128th Street. McInerney then shot the boy. Warren Wright, standing in the entrance of the apartments above 2150 7th Avenue, south of the store, Howard Malloy, Arthur Moore, and Samuel Pitts standing on the corner across 128th Street from the auto supply store, in front of Battle's Pharmacy, to which the crowd was running, John Bennett, in 201 West 128th Street toward which Lloyd turned and ran, and Marshall Pfifer, standing on the corner of West 128th Street on the other side of 7th Avenue, all testified that the boy had nothing in his hands as he ran and that McInerney did not call to him to halt before shooting him. After the bullet hit Hobbs and he fell to the ground, McInerney and Watterson, who had remained in the car, backing it into 128th Street, said Lloyd dropped a car horn and socket set, which McInerney picked up. Seven witnesses said that there was nothing on the ground next to the boy.

The two patrolman loaded Lloyd Hobbs into their car and drove him to Harlem Hospital. Russell Hobbs had kept running up 7th Avenue and had not seen the shooting. He learned from the crowd at the scene that it was his brother who had been shot and driven away and immediately ran home to tell his parents, Lawyer and Mary Hobbs. The family rushed to Harlem Hospital. When they found Lloyd, he told them, “Mother, the officer shot me for nothing. I was not doing anything.” McInerney, guarding the boy, said "Why didn't you halt when I told you to?" Lloyd offered the same account when questioned in the hospital by Homicide Bureau detectives, in a statement recorded by a police stenographer.

Lloyd Hobbs appeared in all seven published lists of those injured in the disorder, in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, Daily News, New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In the following days, Lawyer Hobbs went to the 28th Precinct several times trying to make a complaint against the officer who had shot his son. He also sought help from the New York Urban League, giving them a statement about what had happened to his son on March 28, which they sent to the MCCH. As a result, Hobbs and his family were among the witnesses asked to come to the MCCH's first public hearing on March 30. Only Russell testified that day, briefly describing how his brother had been shot. A few hours later, at 6:30 PM, Lloyd Hobbs died in Harlem Hospital, the fourth death resulting from the disorder. While the New York Times, Daily News, New York Age, New York Amsterdam News, and Afro-American referred to Russell's testimony in reporting Hobbs' death, the New York Herald Tribune, Times Union, Home News, Daily Mirror, New York American, and Chicago Defender reported only the boy's death in their stories.

The next week, at the MCCH hearing, Lawyer, Mary, and Russell Hobbs testified, together with three Black men who had witnessed the shooting, Howard Malloy, Arthur Moore, and Samuel Pitts, Dr. Arthur Logan, one of the physicians who treated Lloyd Hobbs, the police stenographer who had recorded a statement from the boy soon after he arrived at Harlem Hospital, and James Tartar, a Black investigator for the MCCH. Assistant District Attorney Saul Price heard the testimony of the three eyewitnesses soon after the hearing and had them appear before the grand jury on April 10 so they could consider charges against Patrolman McInerney. The grand jury also heard from Russell Hobbs, both his parents, McInerney's partner, Patrolman Watterson, the police stenographer, the detective who investigated the shooting, John O'Brien, and the owner of the automobile supply store. Patrolman McInerney also offered to testify, but the grand jury opted not to hear him. They dismissed the case.

The MCCH nonetheless continued to investigate the boy's killing, hearing testimony from McInerney's partner, Patrolman Watterson, and Detective O'Brien, who investigated the shooting, at a hearing on April 20 marked by angry interjections from the audience. Four additional witnesses to the shooting testified at an MCCH hearing on May 18. James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, also obtained information that McInerney had not turned in the items he claimed to have found next to Lloyd Hobbs until April 8, more than two weeks after he shot the boy. That interval raised the possibility that the patrolman had not found the items at the scene but had obtained them later, when he needed to justify the shooting. As a result of that information and the testimony of additional eyewitnesses, Assistant District Attorney Saul Price presented the case to the grand jury for a second time on June 10. After hearing from the new witnesses, and from Tartar about the absence of the allegedly stolen items from police records and the Police Property Department until April 8, the grand jury again dismissed the case without hearing testimony from McInerney.

The police department had committed to an internal hearing on the case before ADA Price had decided to resubmit it to the grand jury. The hearing took place on June 14; in attendance were James Tartar and E. Franklin Frazier, the Howard University sociologist who had recently started work leading the MCCH's investigation of Harlem. It was the first time that anyone outside the police department and the district attorney's office heard Patrolman McInerney's testimony. While Tartar and Frazier were unpersuaded, senior police officers found the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs was justified, reprimanding the patrolman only for his delay in handing in the items he claimed to have found at the scene.

While two grand juries and a police department hearing exonerated McInerney, the MCCH and the Black press did not share that view. Arthur Garfield Hays and Oscar Villard gave a central place to McInerney killing Hobbs in the report of the subcommittee submitted to Mayor La Guardia on June 11, 1935. The report of the subcommittee characterized the killing of Lloyd Hobbs as "inexcusable." E. Franklin Frazier included that material in the final report of the MCCH, framed in even harsher terms: the killing of the boy was "a brutal act on the part of the police." Police Commissioner Valentine was unmoved by that censure. He responded to both reports by asserting that Lloyd Hobbs had been looting the store and that two grand juries had exonerated McInerney.
In assessing the case, the two reports gave significant weight to the character of Lloyd Hobbs and his family. The subcommittee argued that "the record of Lloyd Hobbs and that of his family are presumptive evidence that he was not the kind of boy who would engage in looting." The final report of the MCCH described the boy as "having a good record in school and in the community, and being a member of a family of good standing and character." Lloyd Hobbs had been born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1916, the second youngest of five children of Mary and Lawyer Hobbs. (The story published in the New York Amsterdam News on April 6, 1935, accompanied by a photograph of Mrs. Hobbs, gave her first name as Carrie, but it was recorded as Mary in the census in 1930, 1940, and 1950). The boy's name was recorded as Lawyer in the 1930 census and as Lawyer, Jr in the "Social and Economical History" of the family written by James Tartar, but elsewhere in that document and in all other sources as Lloyd. The family farmed in Virginia until 1927, and still owned 83 acres there, when Lawyer's ill health required him to get work "which would not necessitate his being in the sun," according to his wife. He had worked previously in New York City, so the family relocated there. Lawyer found work first as a sexton at Union Baptist Church, then for a construction company. Mary Hobbs worked first as a domestic servant, the most common occupation for Black women, before becoming one of a much smaller group employed in factory work, in her case at a lampshade company. That was her occupation in the 1930 census; Lawyer's occupation was recorded as chauffeur. At that time the family lived at 228 West 140th Street, their home since they arrived in New York City. By April, 1931 both parents had lost their jobs, and the family joined many in Harlem applying for work and relief from private and government agencies. Sometime in the intervening years Lawyer Hobbs found some work as a helper on a truck owned by Charles Bell (perhaps a brother-in-law; a sister-in-law named Senora Bell lived with the family in 1930).

Lawyer Hobbs' income allowed the family to settle in a fourth-floor apartment at 321 St. Nicholas Avenue in 1932, having moved twice in the preceding year, as many in Harlem did during the Depression. A lodger helped pay the rent in 1935. James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, described the residence as "a comfortable apartment, clean, nicely arranged, nicely furnished and well ventilated."

Throughout their time in the city, the Hobbs children attended school. By 1935 the eldest, twenty-year-old Cassie, was working, but her twin sisters Hazel and Zenobia remained students at the Textile High School, Lloyd was a student at Haaren High School, and his younger brother Russell a student at Frederick Douglas Junior High School. Lloyd would have graduated in June, according to a story in the New York Amsterdam News.

After Lloyd's death, the family continued to live at 321 St. Nicholas Avenue until at least 1950. All the family members resided there in 1940. Fifty-six-year-old Mary, who provided the information to the census enumerator, did not identify an occupation. Lawyer was working as a laborer in a sugar refinery, Cassie and Zenobia as seamstresses in a dress factory, Hazel in a lampshade factory, and Russell as a clerk in a food store. All but Zenobia were still living in the apartment in 1950, although as Cassie was recorded as divorced she had likely not resided there for all of the intervening ten years. Neither Lawyer nor Mary, who was listed as sixty years old, were working by that time. Hazel had joined Cassie working as a seamstress, while Russell now worked as a driver for a construction company.
The public hearing on March 30 46 plain 2023-11-13T22:07:36+00:00
There is no reliable record of what was said in the public hearing. A transcript of the hearings was recorded but it did not consistently identify who asked questions of witnesses or the reactions of the audience (nor the recess taken for lunch on March 30). Arthur Garfield Hays, who chaired the hearing, considered them a “poor report." By the same token, newspaper stories on the hearing varied widely in their emphases and detail. Reporters also appeared to have frequently misattributed comments made during the hearing. None of the newspaper stories reported testimony about events after disorder broke out on 125th Street or events beyond 125th Street described by witnesses.

Unsurprisingly, Harlem’s two Black newspapers provided the most extensive accounts of the hearing. The New York Age published the most detailed story, summarizing the testimony of all but two witnesses — Russell Hobbs and Inspector Di Martini (it did offer details of the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs elsewhere in the story). The New York Amsterdam News took a different approach, providing a summary of what it judged to be the key information: that Patrolman Donohue chose to release Rivera out of sight of those in the store; that the leaflets distributed by the Young Liberators and Communist Party did not appear until two hours after the disorder began; and that Rivera was the boy grabbed in the store. Only three other newspapers highlighted several of those issues: the New York Age, without giving Donohue’s testimony the same significance; and the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, without attention to the identification of Rivera. Other newspapers emphasized only one of those topics.

In the largest group of newspapers, it was Patrolman Donohue’s decision to release Rivera out the rear exit and so out of sight of those in the store which was the focus. While the Home News, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, and New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Associated Negro Press reported Donahue had admitted that was a mistake, the transcript did not record such a statement. Instead, it was Edward Kuntz, one of the ILD lawyers in the audience, who offered that assessment while questioning the officer. After Donahue testified that crowds on 125th Street caused him to take Rivera into the store, Kuntz commented, “If you had let the boy go at that time there would not have been any excitement.” Rather than Donohue or Kuntz, it was unnamed “witnesses” to whom the New York Times and Afro-American attributed evidence that had there been “no mystery” about what happened to Rivera, there would have been no rioting. Both those stories, and the New York Amsterdam News, were the only accounts that also reported Inspector Di Martini had testified “he would have released the boy where all could see.” Again, that statement is not in the transcript. Instead, it records that Di Martini said, “The policeman who was there did not take those people into his confidence. I am of the opinion that the people did see this boy led from the store.” As Hays questioned Donohue, both ILD lawyers, Tauber and Kuntz, and James Ford, the head of the CP in Harlem, all interjected with questions of their own, likely leading some of those listening to confuse who was speaking and what was being said. As the MCCH's stenographer would have sat at the front of the courtroom, it was likely the reporters who were mistaken. It is striking given how those eight newspapers interpreted Donohue’s testimony that the New York Herald Tribune and New York Age reported Donohue’s testimony without mentioning its implications — and that the Daily News, Daily Mirror, and Daily Worker did not include it at all.

Testimony about the leaflets distributed by the Young Liberators and Communist Party were the focus of stories in the New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and New York Age. That evidence provided the headline in the New York Herald Tribune: “Reds' Handbills Are Cleared As 'Chief Cause' of Harlem Riot - Came Out Two Hours After Peak of Fighting, Mayor's Board Learns at Outset.” The story did not identify the source of that testimony (Louise Thompson); it simply reported that “the committee learned” that information. The story also somewhat misleadingly described the source of the leaflets as the concern of “most of the hearing.” (The testimony of the leaders of the YL and CP constituted eleven of the fifty-one pages of testimony; in addition, several other witnesses — Battle, Cole, and Thompson — were briefly asked about the pamphlets. When Di Martini mentioned them, Hays responded by saying they were not distributed until after disorder, referencing Thompson's earlier testimony.) The Daily News, in a story under the byline of their crime reporter Grace Robinson, omitted the testimony about the time the leaflets appeared that became central to the MCCH’s narrative of events, instead continuing to cast them as “having brought the riot into being” and focusing on who was responsible for them. That story, which appeared in early editions, was headlined “Blank Drawn at Probe of Harlem Riot,” focusing on Taylor’s statement that “somebody upstairs” at the YL’s office had composed and distributed the leaflet while he was seeking information on what had happened to Rivera. The reporter characterized Taylor as having “neatly shrugged off” “blame for the riot.” (In later editions the headline was changed to “Harlem Riot Takes Its Fourth Victim” and the story was revised to not only lead with Hobbs’ death but to highlight an exchange between Hays and Di Martini about whether the police should put out leaflets of their own in the future, the Inspector’s testimony about the hearse that arrived at the rear of Kress’ store and other elements of Taylor’s testimony with only a passing mention of the pamphlets.) The New York Age also reported only that the testimony confirmed that the groups were the source of the pamphlets; it made no mention of the evidence that they were distributed too late to have triggered the disorder. Instead, the New York Age pointed to Louise Thompson’s testimony that the first window was broken in the Kress store before any speech was made as having “refuted” “reports that the Communists had taken the first steps in starting the actual violence.”

Seven additional newspapers mentioned the pamphlets without making them a focus. The New York Times included a subheading “Source of Pamphlet Sought” that drew attention to Tauber’s testimony that he did not know who printed the pamphlet. The story went on to note that “testimony” “indicated” that the pamphlets did not reach the street until after the disorder started, in the process noting that there had been two pamphlets, from the YL and CP, the only story to note that detail. Taylor’s testimony that the YL produced the leaflets was also reported by the New York American, without the detail that he did not know by who, and the Afro-American, which included his statement that it been “somebody upstairs.” Neither newspaper mentioned the time the pamphlets were distributed. It was Ford’s testimony about the second pamphlet, produced by the CP, that was reported in the Home News and in the Chicago Defender and Associated Negro Press stories. Those stories mentioned the time the pamphlets were distributed; they did not make clear that Ford was referring to the second and later of the two pamphlets nor report Taylor’s testimony. Unsurprisingly, the Daily Worker also noted testimony that the leaflets were distributed too late to have caused the disorder, attributing that evidence to "witnesses, including some of the police."

The stories in the New York World-Telegram, Times Union, and New York Post that made no mention of the pamphlets reported only testimony from the morning session of the hearings, suggesting that those reporters had left when the hearings recessed for lunch. The Daily Mirror reporter may have thought the hearing ended at the recess, as the paper’s story mistakenly claimed that “the inquiry into the origin of 5,000 incendiary pamphlets advocating Revenge for the murder of Martyr Rivera, which, distributed to milling pedestrians in 125th St., aroused them to their riot frenzy,” had been delayed to the next hearing, which it reported would be on Monday instead of the next Saturday.

Anti-Communist Hearst newspapers the New York Evening Journal, New York American and Daily Mirror that might have been expected to highlight testimony about the pamphlets circulated by radical groups chose to instead focus on clashes between lawyers affiliated with the Communist Party and witnesses and members of the MCCH. They likely did so because the testimony on the leaflets relieved the CP of blame for starting the disorder, as those publications had charged. The New York Post, which rejected efforts to blame CP for the disorder, also focused on those clashes. Other papers mentioned instances of conflict without focusing attention on them; for eg, the Daily News noted that the hearings “developed at times into a field day for Communist exponents and cop-baiting attorneys for the International Labor Defense.” There was no mention of such incidents in the New York World-Telegram and Times Union.

The most widely reported exchange involved ADA Kaminsky, the third witness to testify, and ILD lawyers. It was the focus of the New York Evening Journal and New York Post stories and their headlines, and mentioned with details in the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Age, and New York Amsterdam News, and the Daily Worker, and in passing in the Chicago Defender. The New York Evening Journal led with the “verbal clash,” but described only Tauber demanding to question the ADA and him responding "I prefer not to be a party to a field day by irresponsible persons." The story also mentioned Tauber’s claim that police had raided the offices of several organizations affiliated with the CP after the disorder, targeting those groups because of their political views — hence the story’s headline: “RIOT TERROR CHARGED TO POLICE.” Kaminsky’s response to Tauber’s effort to question him and the charges made by Tauber were also reported by the New York Post, which extended the exchange to include protests by the ILD lawyers and an exchange between Hays and Kaminsky: “'I don't think you ought to call these men irresponsible because their views are different from yours,' Mr. Hays told Mr. Kaminsky, who shrugged and said: 'That's your viewpoint.'” The Daily Worker reported Kaminsky's statement and the same retort from Hays without a further response from Kaminsky. The Home News story included the same exchange, while the New York Amsterdam News included elements of it, Hays “chiding” Kaminsky without a response from the ADA. The elements in those exchanges appeared differently in the transcript. Before Tauber sought to question the ADA, Hays asked Kaminsky about whether those indicted before the DA’s grand jury had been charged “for their political views?” Kaminsky responded, “I am quite sure that the grand jury would not indict people for their political views.” (12) When Tauber asked to question Kaminsky, Hays simply said, “I think not,” before Kaminsky declared “I refuse to be a party to a field day by irresponsible persons. So far this has been simply an occasion for police baiting.” (12) When Tauber and Minor raised the raids, Hays asked Kaminsky if he knew anything about them, which he said he did not. He then sat by while Hays asked the ILD lawyers about their allegations, eventually asking to be excused as he was not a witness (12-13). The story in the New York Herald Tribune reported it was an audience member who called out “that’s your viewpoint,” not in response to Hays, but after Kaminsky claimed the ILD was using the hearing for "police-baiting.” In that narrative, Hays refused to allow Tauber to question Kaminsky before the ADA made his remark about irresponsible people. Similarly, no exchange between Hays and Kaminsky featured in the New York Age's account. Like the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Worker, it included the audience reaction, applause for the lawyers’ protests and hissing when the ADA left the stand. Kaminsky’s response to Tauber was mentioned in the New York Times, which added that he accused Tauber of “police baiting,” and that Hays refused to allow the questioning on the grounds that the lawyers would be representing men prosecuted by the DA. (The New York World-Telegram and Times Union mentioned Kaminsky’s evidence without reference to the clash.)

If the garbled reporting and transcription of this exchange might be explained by the difficulty of discerning what was being said when people shouted at and over each other, those circumstances do not explain the complete absence from the transcript of another clash reported by several newspapers. In that case, the Home News and the Chicago Defender and Associated Negro Press reported that when Battle, a Black police lieutenant, was recalled to testify for a second time in the afternoon, Charles Romney questioned him until stopped by Schieffelin declaring “there would be no more 'police baiting.'” The passage was identical in all three stories; the stories in the Black newspapers were published after the Home News story, so may have taken the text from that story. However, Bessye J. Bearden, credited as the author of the Chicago Defender story, worked as a New York correspondent for the paper, so could have been in the courtroom.

The police officer who was recalled to the stand in the afternoon in the transcript was Captain Rothengast, a white officer; after Hays asked him about the circumstances in which police shot Lloyd Hobbs, his testimony was interrupted so that Russell Hobbs, Lloyd’s younger brother could testify (44). When Rothengast returned to the stand, Romney was one of those who questioned him. Later, when someone questioning Rothengast complained that the officers who had killed people during the disorder had “gone free,” Hays interjected to say, “We are not here to investigate the police.” (46). The New York Times and New York American identified the subject of that “rebuke” as Minor not Romney; the New York Times, which attributed the statement to Schieffelin not Hays, described what Minor said as police baiting, while the New York American described it as “as similar rebuke” to an earlier accusation of police baiting (which could refer to Kaminsky’s statement, as there was no intervention in Rivera’s testimony, which is when the story said it took place). The New York Herald Tribune reported that Hays said “he would have no police baiting at the hearing” during Donohue’s testimony; there was no intervention by him in the transcript of that testimony other than offering people the opportunity to ask questions. While Rothengast was a white officer, and Battle a Black officer, it does appear that these stories misreported the name of the officer testifying during this clash. The Daily Mirror reported another exchange during Rothengast’s testimony as “another highlight” of the hearing. The story described Schieffelin warning Tauber, one of the ILD lawyers, to treat witnesses with politeness. That statement did appear in the transcript, without a clear identification of who said it, and addressed to “Mr Allen,” a name that otherwise did not appear in the transcript.

Reactions from the audience likely contributed to focusing attention on those incidents. Newspaper stories portrayed those reactions in different, somewhat contradictory terms. The New York Amsterdam News and New York Age described a tense crowd that on occasion made their feelings known. Those outbursts came at the end of the day according to the New York Amsterdam News: “The undercurrent of the antagonism against the police, noticeable throughout the day in the audience, surged to its height during Rothengast's stay on the stand, culminating in numerous audible taunts and cat-calls just before the hearing ended for the day.” Such outbursts were more frequent in the New York Age’s account and tied to the actions of the ILD lawyers and their supporters on which the Hearst newspapers focused: “The hearing itself was characterized by an air of unrest and incipient disorder on the part of the crowd which was greatly augmented by the presence and active participation in the proceedings of numerous lawyers representing various 'left wing' organizations. A large part, if not the entire crowd of spectators also exhibited definite 'radical' leanings and frequently interrupted the hearing with their audible comments and criticism.” The Daily News and New York Evening Journal, portrayed the audience in similar but less threatening terms as “restless and sometimes irritable” and having “stirred uneasily” when the ILD lawyers questioned witnesses. By contrast, the New York World-Telegram and Home News highlighted outbursts of laughter as illustrating that the audience was “interested and even jovial” and “good-natured,” portrayals that conjured racist stereotypes.

Only Harlem’s Black newspapers focused attention on the identification of Rivera as the boy who had been arrested and released in the Kress store. That topic was mentioned in only three white newspapers, the New York Post, Home News, and Daily Worker. Both reported only Battle’s testimony that he had no evidence Rivera was not the boy; neither mentioned Cole’s testimony affirmatively identifying Rivera (which was reported only in the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News). In contrast, neither the New York Age nor New York Amsterdam News mentioned Battle’s testimony on the boy’s identity. Instead, the New York Age presented Cole’s testimony as “one of the most important revelations of the day’s testimony.” Rather than either man’s testimony, the New York Amsterdam News highlighted the testimony of Rivera himself and “the failure of any interested person to accept the committee's invitation to present evidence to the effect that another youth was the real victim.” The Daily Worker more generally noted that, "Throughout the hearing, the Mayor's Committee sought to dispose of rumors, still persisting in Harlem, that the Rivera boy had been substituted by the police for the real victim."
- The Public Hearing on March 30 in secondary sources
The public hearing of the MCCH's subcommittee on crime (March 30) At 10:00 AM on Saturday, March 30, the members of the Mayors Commission on Conditions in Harlem took their seats at the front of a courtroom in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on West 151st Street. While formally it was the subcommittee on crime that was holding the public hearing, with Arthur Garfield Hays serving as chairman, all twelve members chose to attend (Father McCann would not join the committee until the next week). An audience of around 400 people filled the courtroom, monitored by around thirty police officers. Among the crowd of Black residents were enough white men and women for observers to describe the audience as racially mixed. Most, if not all, of the white audience members were connected with the Communist Party, present to place blame on the staff of Kress’ store and police, rather than the party. Thanks to Hays offering those in attendance the opportunity to question witnesses, the Communist International Legal Defense lawyers and others in the audience would be active participants in the hearing.

The event ran from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM, interrupted only by an hour-long break for lunch. During that time eleven people testified; all witnessed the events of the disorder other than an assistant district attorney, who briefly described the progress of the investigation District Attorney William Dodge was conducting in the grand jury. In addition to Lino Rivera, the MCCH heard the testimony of two Black witnesses who had been in Kress’ store, when Rivera was taken to the basement in the case of L. F. Cole, and after he had been released in the case of Louise Thompson. Four police officers testified: Patrolman Donohue, the white officer who arrested and released Rivera; two senior officers who were at the store after disorder broke out on 125th Street, Inspector Di Martini and Captain Rothengast; and the senior Black officer in the police department, Lieutenant Samuel Battle, who was not on Harlem’s streets until the final hours of the disorder. The hearing also heard from the leaders of the Young Liberators and the Harlem Communist Party, Joe Taylor and James Ford, about the activities of their organizations and their own experiences in the hours after the Kress store was closed. The briefest testimony was provided by Russell Hobbs, whose older brother Lloyd had been shot by police. Several of those on the list of eyewitnesses the MCCH staff prepared for Hays did not testify, apparently because there was not sufficient time. Hays planned to have at least five of those witnesses appear at the next hearing, scheduled for April 6, writing a list of “Witnesses who didn’t testify last week:” "Mrs Jackson, Mrs Ida Hengain, Mrs. Effie Diton, Mr Campbell, Mr Irving Kirshaw.”

Lino Rivera was the first of those witnesses to testify, taking a seat next to the members of the MCCH. Questioned by Hays, he described being grabbed by store staff after he put a pocketknife in his pocket but insisted that although they had threatened to beat him, he had not been hit. His testimony, which confirmed what newspapers had reported immediately after the disorder, unsurprisingly appeared in all the stories about the hearing. MCCH members and ILD lawyers asked Rivera series of questions about exactly how the store staff had taken hold of him, probing for evidence that he had been subject to any violence. Rivera continued to deny he had been injured in any way. He also rejected suggestions that police had told him what to say. When he left the stand, Rivera took a seat in the front of the audience, next to Alfred Eldridge, the Crime Prevention Officer who had been given responsibility for him. Over the course of the day, the pair was photographed several times listening and reacting to testimony. The MCCH heard from one other witnesses to Rivera being apprehended, L. F. Cole. He had seen the boy being taken to the front of the store, the ambulance arrive and later Rivera being taken to the basement. While he apparently remained in the area, he did not stay in the store.

Patrolman Donohue and Louise Thompson testified about subsequent events inside the store. The police officer described seeing staff struggling with a boy outside Kress’ store, who he found out had stolen a knife and bitten the men. He called an ambulance for the staff members. Asked why he then took Rivera back into the store, he explained that he wanted to avoid a crowd gathering on the street. Donohue gave the same explanation for releasing Rivera through the rear basement. That testimony was the most widely reported of the hearing. While the Home News, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, and New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Associated Negro Press reported Donahue had admitted that releasing the boy out of sight of shoppers was a mistake, the transcript did not record such a statement. Instead, it was Edward Kuntz, one of the ILD lawyers in the audience, who offered that assessment while questioning the patrolman. Rather than Donohue or Kuntz, it was unnamed “witnesses” to whom the New York Times and Afro-American attributed evidence that had there been “no mystery” about what happened to Rivera there would have been no rioting. (Both those stories, and the New York Amsterdam News, also attributed a similar statement to Inspector Di Martini, that “he would have released the boy where all could see,” that is not what the transcript recorded him as saying.)

The most extensive testimony about what happened in the store came from Louise Thompson, although she did not arrive until around an hour after Donohue had released Rivera and left. She described the groups of concerned Black women who remained in the store, the arrival of additional police, and their efforts to clear the store while refusing to answer questions about what had become of Rivera that resulted in a woman screaming and displays being knocked over. Thompson stood out among those who appeared at the hearing in offering extended narratives of what she had witnessed rather than having all that information drawn out by questions. Her delivery of that testimony “In a steady voice, as if she were reciting a poem or play” also stood out, at least to the journalist from the New York Age. The woman screaming was reported in the New York World-Telegram and Times Union, and as an ”outburst” in the New York Age, while the New York Amsterdam News referred more generally to “the first violence on the part of indignant women.” The later story blamed the failure of police to provide “proper explanations of the incident” for the women’s behavior. Those police efforts to mollify the women in the store were the testimony the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Worker chose to report. The Home News and Chicago Defender reported no details, only that Thompson had criticized police.

Thompson also testified about events on 125th Street after the Kress store closed and she and the other women inside were pushed out. She described crowds on the street and the corners at each end of the block, the arrests of Daniel Miller and Harry Gordon, and windows being broken. After leaving around 7:30 PM, she returned around thirty minutes later to find police violently keeping people at the corners of 125th Street away from the Kress store. It was only then, around 8:00 PM that she saw the leaflets distributed by the Young Liberators that much of the press had reported were responsible for inciting the disorder. The New York Herald Tribune made that testimony the headline of its story about the hearing: “Reds' Handbills Are Cleared As 'Chief Cause' of Harlem Riot - Came Out Two Hours After Peak of Fighting, Mayor's Board Learns at Outset.” The New York Times, New York Amsterdam News and, unsurprisingly, the Communist publication the Daily Worker also reported the testimony, with the New York Amsterdam News further highlighting its implications in an editorial: “Disappointing as this testimony must be to District Attorney William C. Dodge and Mr. Randolph Hearst, who have attempted to use the Harlem outbreak as an excuse for a citywide Red-baiting campaign, it is well that this issue was settled at the outset by the committee. Now, with the red herring out of the way, the investigating body can set out to probe the basic factors which really precipitated the riots - the discrimination, exploitation and oppression of 204,000 American citizens in the most liberal city in America.” None of those publications identified Thompson as the witness. The only other element of Thompson’s testimony that journalists reported was the arrest of Daniel Miller, in the New York Times, New York World-Telegram, and Times Union, together with the breaking of the store window, and the spread of rumors among the crowd, in the New York Age. Surprisingly, the Daily Worker was among the publications that made no mention of her descriptions of police violence on 125th Street.

Testimony about the source of the leaflets occupied more of the hearing than when they appeared. Joe Taylor, the leader of the Young Liberators, testified that his organization produced the leaflet, while he was on the street seeking information about what had happened in the Kress store. The information on which it was based came from Black men who brought news to the organization’s offices. James Ford, the head of the Harlem branch of the CP, said his organization was responsible for a second leaflet. The YL had approached them for help as they worried that protests at the store would turn into a riot. The CP leaflet was not distributed until after 9:00PM. That the YL and CP produced the leaflets was reported without the evidence that they appeared too late have caused the violence as the press had claimed in the Daily News, New York American, Home News, New York Age, Afro-American, and Chicago Defender.

The MCCH also heard from senior police officers about what happened in the streets. Inspector Di Martini was at the Kress store after it closed, Captain Rothengast arrived on 125th Street around 8:30 PM, then Battle was in the neighborhood after 2:00 AM. Di Martini testified that he spoke to the store staff and heard that Rivera had not been assaulted. He tried without success to convince the people outside the store that the boy had not been harmed, both then and when he returned around 7:15 PM. Di Martini also described the crowds on streets as numbering only a few hundred, mostly young people, and looting of stores with broken windows, which led him to call for police reinforcements. Rothengast described the crowds as small in number, like Di Martini, but made up not simply of young people but “hoodlums,” and as targeting police with rocks more often than they did store windows. He also insisted that most of those on the street were not angry about the rumors that a boy had been beaten or killed, but “yelling and laughing.” MCCH members (and audience) also questioned him about deaths and shootings during the disorder, and what role police played in that violence. By the time Battle went on to Harlem’s streets, the disorder was largely over. He described finding “no excitement” on the streets, only some small groups and looted and damaged stores. Asked by Hays about whether the crowd had spared Black businesses, Battle insisted they had not. He also agreed with Hays that the disorder was “not a race riot.” This testimony about events proved to be of little interest to journalists. While Battle featured in most newspaper stories about the hearing, his testimony about what he saw on the streets was mentioned only in New York Age, with the New York Post, New York American, Home News, and Chicago Defender reporting his statement that there had not been a race riot. Similarly, only the Home News and Chicago Defender reported Di Martini’s testimony about his efforts to persuade people on the street, while the Daily Mirror and Daily Worker made fun of his statements that people in Harlem loved him, and for taking credit for Rivera being photographed, which was the only part of his testimony reported in the New York Herald Tribune and New York American. Rothengast’s testimony received even less attention. The New York Age reported it in detail, but the only other mentions were just of his description of participants as hoodlums in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, and in the New York American, which used “troublemakers” in place of hoodlums. Information about damage to stores and looting was not reported.

The MCCH heard testimony about one other event, the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs, from his younger brother Russell. His testimony, or at least as recorded by the stenographer, was a somewhat garbled version of what he had told his parents. He talked of stopping on 125th Street, not 7th Avenue, and the patrolmen running up on the pavement on a horse, not in a patrol car. Few white newspapers' stories about the hearing mentioned Russell's testimony, even as they reported Lloyd's death later that night. The New York Times, Daily News, and Daily Worker, together with the New York Age, New York Amsterdam News, and Afro-American reported that Russell’s testimony contradicted the police account.

More attention was given to police actions in the disorder during the hearing than in the MCCH’s planned program thanks to the intervention of the audience. At this hearing, it was those who questioned witnesses that shaped the information presented, with a lesser role played by the reactions of the audience to the testimony than would be the case in later hearings. James Tauber and Edward Kuntz, lawyers from the ILD, and Communist Party official Robert Minor took the lead and drew the attention of journalists, with Charles Romney playing a lesser role. Just how many of the questions posed to witnesses came from those men and other members of the audience was difficult to establish. Both the stenographer recording the transcript and the journalists in attendance appeared to have had difficulty determining who was speaking, causing some of the statements made by audience members to be attributed to MCCH members (as happened in regard to who stated that Patrolman Donohue’s decision about where to release Lino Rivera was a mistake).

At this hearing, MCCH members objected to the substance of the audience’s question to police. While Oscar Villard and Eunice Carter questioned Captain Rothengast about the shootings and deaths that had occurred during the disorder and what role police had played in them, Hays, chair of the hearing, objected when Robert Minor asked him further questions about police violence. “We are not here to investigate the police.” Many in the audience, however, were seeking to do just that, prompting several other objections from MCCH members to questions that they judged to be “police baiting” that would not be permitted. Those interventions were sufficient in number to be reported in general terms in the New York American. Robert Minor’s questioning of Lieutenant Battle seemed to prompt that objection from Hays, who the transcript recorded simply as interjecting. The Home News and Chicago Defender attributed a charge of police baiting to William J. Schieffelin in response to Charles Romney’s questioning of Battle (while the New York Herald Tribune had Schieffelin accusing Minor in the exchange where the transcript recorded Hays admonition). Hays labelled questioning of Patrolman Donohue as police baiting according to the New York Herald Tribune. Surprisingly, the Daily Mirror did not use the term police baiting, reporting more blandly that a highlight of the day was Schieffelin warning Tauber to "treat witnesses with politeness." Whatever the particular incidents, it was clear what the New York Herald Tribune characterized as “heated exchanges” amplified the issues raised by the questions from lawyers and others affiliated with the CP shaped the hearing, producing what the Daily News described as “a field day for Communist exponents and cop-baiting attorneys for the International Labor Defense.”

By the end of the day, audience reactions also played a role. "The undercurrent of the antagonism against the police, noticeable throughout the day in the audience," the New York Age reported, "surged to its height during Rothengast's stay on the stand, culminating in numerous audible taunts and cat-calls just before the hearing ended for the day." In the coming hearings, such reactions would succeed in directing the attention of the MCCH to the role of police in the events of the disorder, with MCCH members limiting their objections to the tone of their questions and reactions rather than their substance.