The Black Press, African American Celebrity Culture, and Critical Citizenship in Early Twentieth Century America, 1895-1935

Home , Atlanta Daily World, Atlanta Independent, Aubrey Lyles, Celebrity culture, Charles Alston, Daily World (Opelousas)

LOOKING AT THE STARS: THE BLACK PRESS, AFRICAN AMERICAN CELEBRITY CULTURE, AND CRITICAL CITIZENSHIP IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICA, 1895-1935

A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION

by Carrie Teresa May 2014

Examining Committee Members:

Carolyn Kitch, Advisory Chair, Media and Communication Susan Jacobson, Journalism & Mass Communication, Florida International University Andrew Mendelson, Media and Communication Linn Washington, External Member, Journalism

ABSTRACT

Through the development of entertainment culture, African American actors,

athletes and musicians increasingly were publicly recognized. In the mainstream press,

Black celebrities were often faced with the same snubs and prejudices as ordinary Black

citizens, who suffered persecution under Jim Crow legislation that denied African

Americans their basic civil rights. In the Black press, however, these celebrities received great attention, and as visible and popular members of the Black community they played a decisive yet often unwitting and tenuous role in representing African American identity collectively. Charles M. Payne and Adam Green use the term “critical citizenship” to describe the way in which African Americans during this period conceptualized their

identities as American citizens. Though Payne and Green discussed critical citizenship in

terms of activism, this project broadens the term to include considerations of community-

building and race pride as well.

Conceptualizing critical citizenship for the black community was an important

part of the overall mission of the Black press. Black press entertainment journalism,

which used celebrities as both “constellations” and companions in the fight for civil

rights, emerged against the battle against Jim Crowism and came to embody the spirit of

the Harlem Renaissance. The purpose of this project is to trace how celebrity reporting in

the black press developed over time, distinct from yet contemporaneous with the

development of yellow journalism in the mainstream press, and to understand how black journalists and editors conceptualized the idea of “celebrity” as it related to their overall

construction of critical citizenship.

The evidence in support of this project was collected from an inductive reading of the entertainment-related content of the following black press newspapers over the time period 1895-1935: Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, New York Age, New

York Amsterdam News, Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, Cleveland Gazette,

Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, Savannah Tribune, and Atlanta Daily World. In addition, the entertainment content of Black press magazines The Crisis, The Messenger,

The Opportunity and The Negro World was included.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to my advisory committee, Carolyn Kitch, Andrew Mendelson,

Susan Jacobson, and Linn Washington, without whom this project would never have

come to fruition. You were the best committee I could have asked for. Thank you.

To Carolyn, my advisor, mentor, friend, and the person who first introduced me

to the Black press – words cannot express how grateful I am to you for all you have

done for me over the years. Thank you.

I was fortunate to share this journey with the members of Temple’s Media and

Communication program, whom I will miss dearly. Perhaps the best thing about this

process was getting to know Kathryn Beardsley, a gifted scholar and dear friend. I

would also like to acknowledge the valuable assistance provided by Temple staff

members Nicole McKenna, Kristina DeVoe, and Aslaku Berhanu.

Thank you to my parents Carl and Terri, for giving me the confidence to pursue

my dream. I am grateful to my sisters Annmarie and January, my brother-in-law

Rudolph, my niece Isabelle and nephew Charlie, my Uncles Ed and Larry, and my

Aunt Liz for cheering me on. Thank you to those in my life who blur the line between

“friend” and “family”: Liz and Ben Campanella, the Wysocki family, Taylor Rainier,

Molly Byrne, and Aubrey and Chris Emrich.

I do not know where I would be without my boys, Brendan and Paddington. To

Brendan, I will let e.e. cummings speak for me: “and it’s you are whatever a moon

has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you.”

Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to the memory of the journalists and

performers discussed in the following pages.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii LIST OF TABLES ...... v LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

CHAPTERS 1. “WHAT DOES AN ARTIST OWE HIS RACE?” ...... 1 2. “LET US HAVE A LITTLE RACE PRIDE” ...... 16 3. “WHAT OTHERS SEE AND FORGET, THE JOURNALIST MUST REMEMBER” ...... 47 4. “A RAINBOW OF HOPE” ...... 74 5. “ELEVATED BY THE SUCCESS OF INDIVIDUALS” ...... 100 6. REFUSING TO “OBSCURE OUR TALENTS FOREVER UNDER THE BUSHEL OF PREJUDICE, JEALOUSY, STUPIDITY” ...... 127 7. “THE TOASTS OF FILMLAND” ...... 157 8. MAKING SENSE OF THE “JUNGLE SYMPHONY” ...... 189 9. “LEVELING THE CRESTS OF AMERICAN PREJUDICE” ...... 216 10. THE ENDURING ROLE OF THE “ENTERTAINER-ACTIVIST” IN AFRICAN AMERICAN CELEBRITY JOURNALISM ...... 249

NOTES ...... 275 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 308 PRIMARY SOURCES ...... 323

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 2.1 – Trends in employment for African American men, 1890-1910 ...... 22

TABLE 2.2 – Employment among African American males, 1910 ...... 22

TABLE 2.3 – Employment among Black and White males, 1910 ...... 23

TABLE 2.4 – African American population by city, 1900-1930 ...... 30

TABLE 2.5 – Gains in labor among Black Americans, 1910 ...... 33

TABLE 2.6 – African Americans’ gains in professional employment, 1910-1930 ...... 36

TABLE 3.1 – Rates of illiteracy among African Americans, 1930 ...... 49

TABLE 3.2 – Illiteracy rates among the Black population, 1890-1930 ...... 52

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 5.1 – “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor” ...... 124

FIGURE 5.2 – “Black Patti Troubadours will be here next week” ...... 125

FIGURE 5.3 – “The late Mrs. Etta Johnson” ...... 125

FIGURE 5.4 – “Across the river” ...... 126

FIGURE 5.5 – “Joe Gans” ...... 126

FIGURE 5.6 – “Aida Overton-Walker as the public knew her” ...... 126

FIGURE 6.1 – “Bert Williams, famous comedian, dead” ...... 154

FIGURE 6.2 – “Brown Skin Models” ...... 155

FIGURE 6.3 – “Lottie Gee” ...... 155

FIGURE 6.4 – The Messenger cover, January 1924 ...... 156

FIGURE 6.5 – “Is the star of the Folies-Bergere really married?” ...... 156

FIGURE 7.1 – “He’s the emperor” ...... 186

FIGURE 7.2 – “That’s fine honey” ...... 187

FIGURE 7.3 – “Their drama poignant” ...... 188

FIGURE 8.1 – Front page, Philadelphia Tribune, December 25, 1936 ...... 214

FIGURE 8.2 – “Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington” ...... 214

FIGURE 8.3 – “Juvenile director” ...... 215

FIGURE 9.1 – “Jesse Owens just normal American boy” ...... 242

FIGURE 9.2 – “Champion Benny Leonard pays his respects to Joe Gans” ...... 242

FIGURE 9.3 – “Don’t be silly like poor Mister Battling Siki” ...... 243

FIGURE 9.4 – “Tolan/Metcalfe” ...... 244

FIGURE 9.5 – “Jesse Owens: Popularity is somewhat worrisome to sprinter” ...... 245

FIGURE 9.6 – Front page, Pittsburgh Courier, September 28, 1935 ...... 246

FIGURE 9.7 – “On top of the world” ...... 247

FIGURE 9.8 – “Floored Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber,’ with terrific jolt ...... 247

FIGURE 9.9 – Front page, Pittsburgh Courier, June 29, 1935 ...... 248

vii

CHAPTER 1

“WHAT DOES AN ARTIST OWE HIS RACE?”

In the June 27, 1931 edition of the Baltimore Afro-American, one of the leading

Black press newspapers of the day, entertainment columnist Ralph Matthews pondered,

“What does an artist owe to his race?” Matthews posed the question in response to the

news that two of the Black community’s biggest celebrities, actor Paul Robeson and tenor

Roland Hayes, had both defected to Europe, “denouncing America and incidentally the

American racial group to which they belong.”1 Racial strife in the United States, the author posited, “makes some demands of the Negro artist, who has caught the ear of the dominant classes, and he should lend his efforts to break down as much as possible, those barriers which are raised against those less fortunate than himself.”2 In Matthews’ view,

African American celebrities seemed to carry with them the obligation of considering the

entire Black community; personal success in artistic achievement was only one aspect of

their role as “celebrity.”

Matthews’s critique was part of a larger discussion unfolding in the pages of the

Black press that coincided with the development of entertainment culture in the United

States during the early twentieth century. Entertainment culture during this period

consisted of public amusements that were widely available to (most) audiences, including

performances in theatre, ranging from small vaudeville circuits to the Broadway stage; in

short films that played in nickelodeon theatres or as part of vaudeville performances, and

later, Hollywood features that captured the collective imagination of American

audiences; musical performances, first in night clubs and cabarets, and later broadcast

over the radio; and a wide array of sporting exhibitions, from college athletics to heavily

promoted boxing matches to the Olympic Games.3 Given the increasing rate in which

entertainment evolved during the beginning of the twentieth century as a result of

technological innovations in photography, film, and radio, 4 African American actors,

athletes, and musicians became popular, widely recognizable symbols within the Black

community.

In the mainstream press, these celebrities were subjected to the same snubs and

prejudices as ordinary Black citizens. In the Black press, however, these celebrities

received great attention, and as visible and popular members of the Black community

they played a decisive yet often unwitting and tenuous role in shaping Black journalists’

conceptions of how the Black community should engage in the fight for their civil rights.

As Black press historian Patrick Washburn pointed out, the Civil Rights Movement did

not emerge out of nowhere; rather, Black newspapers (and magazines) set the stage by

continually discussing and debating key issues that affected the Black community under

Jim Crow-era segregation and oppression.5 Discussion of these issues – which ranged from strategies of community-building to political participation and activism to expressions of race pride and loyalty – were informed by a shared collective mindset that

Charles Payne and Adam Green have described as critical citizenship, which is “the

belief that Blacks realized full public participation in this country to the extent that they

acutely noted its hypocrisies or outrages concerning themselves or others.”6 That is,

African Americans “read” their roles as American citizens through the lens of oppression

with the collective goal of winning their civil rights. In considering how the Black press

determined which celebrities embodied this idea of critical citizenship, I use the term

collective representation as “a concept and a practice – the key first ‘moment’ in the

cultural circuit.” 7 Celebrities served as collective representations of the race itself and

served as a common ground for journalists to discuss issues of community-building, activism, and race pride – the main considerations of critical citizenship.

My primary contention in approaching celebrity journalism in the Black press is

that African American journalists and editors used the symbolic value of “celebrity” as a

means to explore and promote a conceptualization of critical citizenship that was directly

related to the fight for civil rights under Jim Crow. Celebrity journalism in the Black

press may have developed alongside reporting trends in the mainstream news media, but

the ways in which the idea of “celebrity” was framed by journalists and editors suggest

that the term had a significantly different and more complex meaning in the Black

community.

This project began with a simple question: What does an African American

celebrity “owe” his race? If, as scholars have suggested, celebrities are “popularly elected

gods and goddesses” who offer “an idealized concept of how people are expected to be or

expected to act,” then what symbolic role did African American celebrities play in

shaping the Black community’s conception of critical citizenship?8 And, if celebrities

operate as symbols constructed in “gossip, public opinion, magazines, newspapers and

the ephemeral images of movie and television screen[s],” as scholar Daniel Boorstin

suggested, then how did Black journalists and editors frame discussions of these

celebrities?9

My inquiry into the roots of African American celebrity culture begins in 1895 – against the backdrop of the judicial and legislative rejection of freed Blacks’ basic civil rights, so-called “scientific” theories about the “inferiority” of the Black race, and the

routine lynching of Black citizens across the country – and ends in 1935, the symbolic end of the Harlem Renaissance, which coupled with increasing activism over the period,

drastically redefined what it meant to be Black, American, and “free.” The evidence in

support of this project was collected from an inductive reading of the front pages, sports

sections, and entertainment sections of the following Black press newspapers over the

time period 1895-1935: Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, New York Age,

New York Amsterdam News, Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, Cleveland

Gazette, Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, Savannah Tribune, and Atlanta Daily World.

In addition, I also examined all entertainment-related content of the following Black- centered magazines over the same time period: The Crisis, The Messenger, The

Opportunity, and The Negro World. The newspapers and magazines listed here represent what Black press scholars have collectively considered the most influential Black- centered periodicals of the time, and their inclusion in this project was based on a consideration of both circulation and regional population figures.

Circulation figures for these periodicals are difficult to pin down, and often are not representative of the actual readership of the newspaper; therefore, I also took into

account the regions in which Black populations saw the most steady growth over the

forty-year period. It was typical for newspaper copies to be shared among several

members of the community or read aloud informally in public places, like church

gatherings or other social events. Therefore, actual readership numbers may be triple or

even quadruple the circulation figures recorded. The idea of a “high” or “respectable”

circulation fluctuated widely over the time period covered in this project. For example,

prior to 1910, figures were generally much lower than twenty years later based on

illiteracy rates and the ability of the average Black citizen to afford a newspaper

subscription. A typical “respectable” circulation circa 1910 would have been around

3,000 copies (which was the Afro-American’s circulation during that period). By the

1920s, newspapers like the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier were selling well

into the six figures. Therefore, to discount a publication based on “low” circulation

figures is problematic. For instance, though The Messenger, a New York-based

magazine, only had a circulation of about 18,000, there is no doubt that it was shared and

traded among the multiplicity of Black citizens that resided in Harlem during the early

1920s. Therefore, perhaps a better indicator of influence is a less direct but related

statistic: population figures. Therefore, these newspapers represent the major Black-

centered publications of their respective regions – regions that during this period boasted

large numbers of literate Black residents relative to the rest of the country.10

Historians agree that good research should be guided by a thorough examination

of the primary source documents in their own context; as David Copeland advised, “Let

the original [primary sources] enlighten you before you apply the interpretation.”11 The historian’s job is not to seek out an “objective” rendering of the past, but rather to

“construct our interpretations responsibly, with care, and with a high degree of self- consciousness about our disabilities and the disabilities of our sources.”12 I employed a

method of historical analysis described by Maryann Yodelis Smith as adduction, whereby

the researcher “respond[s] to a search question with multiple measures” exploring primary sources until a “satisfactory ‘fit’ is obtained.”13 This method is also akin to a

process Marion Marzolf called “content assessment,” whereby the researcher engages in

“reading, sifting, weighing, comparing and analyzing the evidence in order to tell the

story.”14

I approached the content of these publications with two goals in mind. First, operating under the assumption that journalists craft a “first draft of history,” I sought to

“map out” the story of African American celebrity journalism over time as it played out in Black newspapers and magazines and as it coincided with cultural, institutional, and technological trends that influenced not only the dissemination of entertainment culture, but also the ways in which journalists gathered news. Second, arguing that journalism is a cultural production which reveals not only the facts of a news story but also offers important insights into the cultural climate in which the story was produced, I sought to explore how the idea of “celebrity” was framed by black press journalists and editors writing against the backdrop of Jim Crow-era oppression. To provide a theoretical

framework with which to approach this material, I relied on narrative theory, memory

studies, and framing theory. Therefore, in approaching Black press content, I sought to answer the following specific questions:

RQ1: What was the overall narrative structure(s) that emerged in Black press celebrity coverage during the period 1895 through 1935? What personalities, events, and stories emerged as most important to Black journalists and editors?

RQ2: How was the idea of “celebrity” constructed by the Black press during the

same period? How were African American celebrities framed both visually and textually

in the Black press? How did journalists’ reflections on celebrity culture relate to Payne

and Green’s idea of critical citizenship?

RQ3: To what degree did Black journalists reflect on African American lived

experience in their discussions of celebrity culture? To what degree did mainstream

racial stereotypes influence celebrity journalism in the Black press?

African American celebrities from across theatre, film, music, and sports came to

life from the front pages, gossip columns, and sports and feature pages of Black press

newspapers and magazines. Well-known celebrities such as Jack Johnson, Duke

Ellington, Josephine Baker, and Paul Robeson shared the spotlight with lesser-known or

forgotten greats Black Patti, Harry Wills, Florence Mills, and Charles Gilpin as

journalists attempted to establish just what it meant to be Black and famous under Jim

Crow. Throughout this work, I made a concerted effort to let the journalists’ voices come

through as clearly and as unmediated as possible; as Washburn noted in his own work on

the Black press, “to appreciate the strong emotions that were aroused…it is necessary to

let the words ring out, no matter how jarring or disquieting to our sensibilities.”15 These

writers, who include among them Matthews, Fay Jackson, Harry Leavitt, William G.

Nunn, Al Monroe, Chappy Gardner, Theophilus Lewis, and Jessie Fauset, not only

conveyed a sense of dedication to their work, but also offered some of the most insightful, passionate, and uplifting writing of the period. When Fay Jackson proclaimed

in 1934 that “Hollywood was growing up,” the hopefulness she conveyed over the idea

that maybe old stereotypes of Blacks in film were finally on the wane no doubt translated

to her readers.

Washburn and others who have written about the Black press continually note the

important role of Black newspapers in the everyday lived experience of African

Americans during this period. As the popularity of Black newspapers and magazines

attests, Black audiences actively sought news about Black-centered issues, events, and personalities, and reading Black press newspapers for many community members became an important act of critical citizenship. Black celebrities in theater, film, music, and sports emerged to the delight of African Americans seeking images of talented individuals to which they could relate. Accordingly, Black fans “went batty over their heroes.”16 There is an absence of substantive discussions of celebrity journalism in the

Black press in cultural histories that specifically explore the evolution of celebrity culture

and tabloid journalism in the United States. This absence suggests that historians have not

fully explored the complexity of the concept of “celebrity” as a cultural and historical

production, and have overlooked the importance of Black journalists and editors in

contributing to contemporary notions about how “celebrity” was meant to function

symbolically within the African American community.

The importance of celebrity journalism in the struggle for civil rights has also

been largely overlooked or undermined by Black press historians. The earliest scholarship on the Black press is I. Garland Penn’s impressive The Afro-American Press

and Its Editors, published in 1891. Since then, Frederick Detweiler, Roland Wolseley,

Armistead Pride, Clint Wilson, Patrick Washburn, and others have attempted to establish

a coherent narrative of the history of the Black press, offering summary accounts of the production of individual Black press newspapers.17 African American Studies scholars and journalism historians have previously drawn out the relationship between the Black

press and the everyday lived experience of its readers in terms of the fight for their civil

rights. In doing so, these authors have focused on a wide range of issues including the

fight for Emancipation, suffrage, campaigns against lynching, and Blacks’ participation

in American military conflicts. Interpretive histories of the Black press have very much

followed the trajectory of American journalism history generally, by focusing on progress

and achievement; professional and institutional development; the impact of technological

innovation; and the relationship between journalism and cultural forces.18

These authors have also focused on the “big” personalities of the press – lauded

editors, war correspondents, and muckraking reporters. Largely, the figures most

celebrated in the story of the African American press have been those who were most

intimately connected with the fight for civil rights, those who were the most successful at

selling newspapers, or those who were active in other areas, leaving their careers as

journalists as an afterthought. Robert S. Abbott, T. Thomas Fortune, and Ida B. Wells, for

instance, garner a great deal of attention for their laudatory work in exposing the evils of

lynching. Abbott and his rival, Robert Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier, have also received

attention for their early 1940s circulation war. W.E.B. DuBois, perhaps the most prolific

author of the period, is remembered for his sociological works, Souls of Black Folk and

The Philadelphia Negro, at the expense of his work as editor of the NAACP’s official

publication, The Crisis. This body of scholarship has tended to embody what James D.

Startt and William David Sloan lament as “sentimental and impressionistic portrayals” of specific institutions or personalities at the expense of others.19

The retention of most printed material from these publications in publicly held and digital archives has made these newspapers accessible to a new crop of scholars, who over the past fifteen years have increasingly studied them, and have expanded the interpretive approaches previous scholars have taken. In considering the relationship between journalism and cultural values, Kim Gallon has explored discussions in the

Black press pertaining to marriage between Blacks and Whites; Chris Lamb and Brian

Carroll have investigated the role Black journalists played in the desegregation of Major

League Baseball; and Sarah Jackson has compared Black press and mainstream media conceptions of contemporary Black celebrities.20 This project joins the effort to expand the way African American Studies scholars and journalism historians have understood the influence of the Black press in the everyday lived experience of ordinary Black citizens. Specifically, this project is concerned with the way in which Black journalists framed for their readers the symbolic meaning of “celebrity” as a weapon in the fight for civil rights.

Though I do not mean to suggest that the readership of Black newspapers and magazines during this period was a homogenous group, there were certain commonalities of experience that united Black citizens in their singular act of reading a Black newspaper or magazine. As scholars have pointed out, the Black community was not a monolithic whole; rather, the Black population was stratified along geographic, class, and gender lines that caused great distinctions and, at times, contention between Blacks with

differing social and political values.21 Henry Louis Taylor and Song-ho Ha argued that

the Black community was held together through “ideals of self-help, pride, and

solidarity,” through expressions of race pride and loyalty, and out of mutual need. The

idea of “community” also held symbolic power; it represented “a set of common

experiences and shared traditions, rituals, beliefs, and values, organizations, and

institutions.”22 Reading, sharing, and engaging with the material in Black newspapers

and magazines was a primary way for the Black community to engage with each other in

conceptualizing critical citizenship.

Similarly, Black citizens’ engagement with entertainment also became a way to

engage with issues of critical citizenship. Historian Davarian Baldwin noted that there

seemed to be a “growing investment placed in mass culture as a site for regulating public

behavior and more specifically for staging race pride and respectability.”23 This greater attention to mass culture, which included entertainment, was borne out of the Great

Migration to northern cities in the late 1910s; “The epic experiences of Black migration shaped the material inner workings of mainstream culture industries and the meaning of mass-cultural spaces” for the Black community in urban areas.24 Indeed, migration – or

the ability to move freely from city to city – was itself “perhaps the most tangible

expression of freedom after slavery,” and allowed for Black entertainment culture to

thrive. African Americans began to travel from place to place to attend festivals, sporting

events, concerts, and other Black cultural events.25

Once African Americans began to settle in northern cities, celebrity culture

developed into an important way to connect with others in the alienating and sometimes

overwhelming urban space. Celebrities provided “a constellation of recognizable and

familiar people” which represented a sense of shared beliefs, values, and aspirations that

connected their audiences with not only themselves, but with each other as well.26

Black journalists almost immediately understood the symbolic power of celebrities, and quickly began to pursue news stories about them, which often appeared on the front page of their publications. According to historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “as members of a purportedly debased race, [Black entertainers] transgressed prevailing ideas of culture, art, and leisure whenever they experimented with any cultural expression that diverged” from prevailing racial assumptions.27 By simply pursuing fame, these

noteworthy individuals were engaging in a subversive act, challenging the notion of

white superiority and “specialness” – the underlying assumptions of fame. Scholar

Daphne Brooks argued that bodily performance during this period was a way in which

Black performers could “rewrite the ubiquitous master narrative of minstrelsy.”28 Brooks argued that a major theme of early Black performativity was “registering the disorienting condition of social marginalization and the resourceful ways that African Americans rehearsed methods to transform the notion of ontological dislocation into resistant performance so as to become agents of their own liberation.”29 She called these

performances “Afro-alienation acts,” whereby African American performers rejected the

“tragic spectacle of suffering endemic in nineteenth century racial melodrama” that are

evident most obviously in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin,

but are also evident in Carl Van Vechten’s Harlem Renaissance-defining novel N****r

Heaven and Fannie Hurst’s Imitation of Life, one of the most popular films of the 1930s.

Brooks asserted that, increasingly, Black performers rejected these kinds of melodramas in favor of “cultural expressiveness and a specific strategy of cultural performance” that included Black characters that showed depth, range, and agency in their actions.30 In contemplating Brooke’s argument, the 1933 Paul Robeson film Emperor Jones immediately comes to mind as a prime example of an “Afro-alienation act.” Necessarily, then, in considering celebrity journalism in the Black press, I took into account the degree to which Black journalists and editors framed specific performances by Black celebrities as transgressive or oppositional.

I have organized the following chapters to reflect first the historical, institutional, and cultural contexts of my analysis of celebrity journalism in the Black press from 1895 through 1935. Therefore, Chapter 2 provides an overview of how the Black community began to formulate strategies in the fight for civil rights against the backdrop of Jim

Crow-era segregation and oppression. Chapter 3 connects the content and functions of the

Black press with the negotiation of critical citizenship and collective representation; explores the development of celebrity journalism as it emerged in the newspapers included in this study; and explicates my methodological approach in analytically

“reading” the Black press. Chapter 4 examines the way in which the Black press engaged with celebrity culture as a symbolic site of critical citizenship generally.

Chapters 5 through 9 represent my analysis of Black press celebrity journalism. In the following pages, I argue that the evolution of celebrity culture in the Black press began to evolve with the increased commercialization of leisure practices at the turn of the century, but truly took off after the conclusion of World War I. I argue that, in their

approach to covering celebrities, Black press journalists and editors closely mirrored the

sensational, “yellow” practices of the mainstream urban press. Therefore, Chapter 5

acknowledges the antecedents of African American celebrity culture from 1895 to 1919,

a period during which celebrity journalism was beginning to come into its own, while

chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 represent the period during which celebrity journalism in the Black

press truly takes off – 1920 through 1935.

These chapters examine the influence of the most frequently discussed celebrities

across theatre, film, music, and sports, respectively, to reveal how Black journalists and

editors connected celebrity culture with critical citizenship through engagement with

entertainment culture; by framing individual celebrities in terms the collective

representation of the Black community against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance

and, later, the Great Depression; and in contemplating their own roles as gatekeepers of

culture. Chapter 10 revisits the research questions posed in this introduction, provides an

overview of the themes that emerged from my analysis, and offers some ideas for how

contemporary celebrity journalists writing for Black-centered publications have been

influenced by their historical counterparts in discussing celebrities in terms of their contributions to the African American community.

African American celebrity culture emerged as a powerful symbolic force in the unfolding battle against Jim Crowism and the fight for civil rights, and the purpose of this project is to explore how the idea of “celebrity” was conceptualized and connected to the idea of critical citizenship by Black journalists and editors. Some celebrities deftly

negotiated the complicated political and social terrain of the early twentieth century to

14 become icons of the Black community while others’ fumbles and missteps caused great irritation. However, the Black celebrities who emerged during this period carried with them the burden of collective representation inherent in being a publicly visible member of the African American community. These celebrities, in the way they presented themselves professionally and publicly, were scrutinized in the pages of Black newspapers and magazines as exemplars of African American community. What, in the view of Black journalists and editors, did these figures “owe” to their race?

CHAPTER 2

“LET US HAVE A LITTLE RACE PRIDE” – CONCEPTUALIZING CRITICAL CITIZENSHIP AND COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATION IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY, 1895-1935

Let us have a little race pride about us, and use what we have until we are able to get better. – Baltimore Afro-American, 191131

In order to trace the story of African American celebrity culture during this period, it is pertinent to first acknowledge the troubled historical backdrop against which these journalists were reporting. From 1895 to 1935, Black Americans experienced a multitude of changes that were born from upheavals in geographic location, economic conditions, political leadership, and cultural expression. Despite these upheavals, the

African American community became more cohesive rather than less, as they worked together to negotiate the most effective means of obtaining first-class citizenship under a regime of disenfranchisement and oppression meant to cripple any chance of truly achieving equality among whites. Historians Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Song-ho Ha argued that the Black community – though a disparate group consisting of citizens of different sexes, classes, occupations, and geographic dispersal – was held together by mutual need and by shared ideals of self-help, pride, solidarity, and loyalty. These ideals necessarily informed how Black Americans envisioned their status as citizens and how they negotiated the collective representation of their community. This period is marked by the evolution of race consciousness and race pride that would ultimately set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement. In order to understand the role that Black newspapers and magazines played in conceptualizing critical citizenship, and to critique the ways in

which celebrity culture helped or hurt the battle for civil rights, we must turn our attention to the lived experience of ordinary Black citizens during this period. The following information has been collected from African American seminal survey histories like John Hope Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom; C. Vann Woodward’s The

Strange Career of Jim Crow; Cary Wintz’s cultural history of the Harlem Renaissance,

Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance; and Harvard Sitkoff’s A New Deal for

Blacks. Other secondary sources, including essays and book chapters, were used to further illuminate issues concerning trends among the African American community in migration, urbanization, and community-building; studies of comparative anatomy and genetics, which informed social theories about the inherent “inferiority” of African

Americans; participation in socialist and labor movements by Black workers; and

political participation and activism within the Black community. Finally, primary source

materials – particularly U.S. census data and works by Black writers of the period – were used offer first-hand insight into the lived experience of ordinary Black Americans during this period.

In 1832, entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Rice developed a song and dance designed to amuse white audiences, “Jumpin’ Jim Crow,” which was based on the movements Rice purported to have seen an elderly, disabled slave perform. Rice’s

version was an exaggerated pantomime performed with burnt cork smeared across his

face.32 The popularity of “Jumpin’ Jim Crow” among white audiences would go on to

symbolize three of the most troubling aspects of African American history: the

disenfranchisement and persecution of African Americans under a political, social and

ideological regime in the north and the south known as Jim Crowism; the reduction of the

Black community to exaggerated, ridiculous, and negative stereotypes; and the

perpetuation of those stereotypes in entertainment as a means to entertain and comfort

white Americans and psychologically oppress newly freed Black citizens.

The term “Jim Crow,” though it dates back a previous 60 years, was used

systematically during the 1890s and early 1900s to describe a set of laws put in place to

strip African Americans of their civil rights. 33 Jim Crowism symbolized the rejection of

the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Equal protection under the law was

disregarded all together, replaced instead with a system of segregation that all but forbade

equality between the races in any sense of the term. Suffrage was challenged by poll

taxes, literacy tests, “white-only” primaries, physical intimidation, and any other strategy

that would infringe upon the Black community’s participation in political life. Jim Crow

laws replaced the gains that Blacks had made as newly freed citizens in post-bellum

America, replacing one “peculiar institution” with another one.

The institution of Jim Crow laws in the South were “due not so much to a

conversion as it was to a relaxation of the opposition…a general weakening and

discrediting of the numerous forces that had hitherto kept [racial persecution] in check.”34

Key to the development of Jim Crowism was the Supreme Court’s post-bellum rejection

of Blacks’ basic civil rights. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of

1875 unconstitutional. A decade later, the Supreme Court handed down the Plessy v.

Ferguson decision, which institutionalized separate but equal facilities for Blacks and

Whites and “firmly established racism as the law of the land.”35 By 1890, legislators had

tapered off the submission of civil rights bills; by 1900, the active disenfranchisement of

African Americans had begun in the South, and Congress and the Supreme Court refused to intervene. The Reconstruction amendments and legislation meant to empower the

African American community by this period, according to Howard Sitkoff, “were dead.”36

Jim Crow laws emerged as a series of concessions to the underlying assumptions

of racial inequity that were just as prevalent in the northern mindset as they were in the

southern mindset. According to C. Vann Woodward, during the period of “Redemption”

that immediately followed southern Reconstruction, “Northern opinion shifted to the

right, keeping pace with the South, so that at no time were the sections very far apart on

race policy.”37 The trend, as it were, saw the North increasingly adopt “the Southern

Way as the American Way.”38 Jim Crow laws were instituted on both a state and local

level in the South to institute legal, political, and social oppression of the Black population, and shortly thereafter also took hold in the North, so that by the early 1900s

the systematic segregation and persecution of African Americans was commonplace all

over the country.

Jim Crowism rested on two main strategies: disenfranchisement, beginning with

voting restrictions placed on African Americans so that by 1900 Black voter registration

fell by 96% as compared with four years earlier; and the segregation of all forms of

public space, from restaurants to restrooms to water fountains as a result of Plessy vs.

Ferguson. John Hope Franklin pointed out that “[t]he expense of maintaining a double

system of schools and of other public institutions was high, but not too high for advocates

of white Supremacy who kept the races apart in order to maintain things the way they were.”39 The Jim Crow mentality of the early 1900s extended far beyond legal sanctions;

the laws “are not an adequate index of the extent and prevalence of segregation and

discriminatory practices,” not only in the south but all over the country.40

The “logic” of segregation during this period rested on the idea that the races were

organized hierarchically, with Whites at the top and Blacks at the bottom. Work in various aspects of comparative anatomy at the turn of the century provided the rationalization for the belief that the races were not only inherently different, but that this difference was also indicative of hierarchical order of the races as a product of evolutionary trends.41 According to Stuart Hall,

The body itself and its differences were visible for all to see, and thus provided the ‘incontrovertible evidence’ for a naturalization of racial difference. The representation of ‘difference’ through the body became the discursive site through which most ‘racialized knowledge’ was produced and circulated.42

Photographs and early amusements, like P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, became

commercialized visual “evidence” of inferiority.

According to Gregory Michael Dorr, notions about Blacks’ physical and

evolutionary inferiority began as early as 1875, with the publication of R.L. Dugdale’s

“The Jukes”: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity, which posited that

crime, pauperism, and general degeneration were heredity traits. This work, as well as

later studies by Charles Darwin, Louis Agassiz, Henry Goddard, and others, provided the

scientific foundation for the eugenics movement which sought to “breed out” “socially

inadequate” individuals who included “the feeble-minded, insane, criminalistics,

epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and dependent.”43 Around 1900,

geneticist Charles B. Davenport began to make claims about the racial inferiority of

Blacks, arguing that it was “nature, not nurture, [that] accounted for superiority of white

over Black.”44 Davenport formed the Eugenics Records Office, and by 1912 – with his

protégé, anatomist Harvey Ernest Jordan – began publicly advocating policies of segregation and sterilization to maintain the “racial integrity” of the white race that was threatened by miscegenation, or intermarriage, between Blacks and Whites. Jordan, in particular, believed in the “forced altruism” of a legally enforceable sterilization policy, and “termed eugenic marriage, segregation, and sterilization laws ‘peculiarly public and racial health measures’ that ‘should form part of the health code, to be administered under the State Police Powers.’”45 According to Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, “voluminous

literature of the biological and social sciences…described in meticulous detail all

instances of African American immorality, illegality, and even unemployment as the

product of immutable racial characteristics.”46

The unofficial war on Blacks was also being waged by individual community

members in cities and small towns all over the country, where murder was often passed off as “vigilante justice.” The widespread lynching of Black citizens – and Black men particularly – plagued the Black community. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, there were more than 2,500 lynchings, mostly taking place in Mississippi,

Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.47 Between 1900 and the start of World War I, 1,100

more lynchings took place, and not just in the south; lynchings in the Midwest during this period proliferated as well.48

Scholars have suggested that the proliferation of lynching in the South had little to do with the perceived threat of sexual violence by African American men against white women but rather resulted from the stress of economic competition between Black and white men for agricultural jobs.49 African American men steadily gained employment – particularly in agricultural work – during the beginning of the twentieth century. Table

2.1 highlights the trends in employment among African American men from 1890 through 1910:

Table 2.1. Trends in employment for African American men over time, 1890-1910 Profession 1890 1900 1910 Agriculture 1,300,658 1,561,153 1,830,424 Other employment 800,721 1,114,344 1,348,130 Unemployed 544,792 506,153 458,832 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 504.

Table 2.2 shows the proliferation of employment in agricultural pursuits for Black men in the rural South as of 1910:

Table 2.2. Employment among African-American males, 1910 (by region) Profession South % of pop. West/North % of pop. Agriculture 1,795,610 56.6 46,628 10.1 Other employment 985,623 31.1 350,693 75.7 Unemployed 392,930 12.4 65,902 14.2 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 502.

More than half of the male African American population worked on farms performing tasks that included turpentine farming, gardening, dairy farming, and fruit-growing. Of the total number of Black men employed in agriculture, 54.5 percent were laborers, 45.4

percent were operators or farmers, and 0.1 percent were foremen or managers.50 “Other employment” included “some form of unskilled or semiskilled labor in the various lines of service, trade, and industry,” which included work as servants, porters, waiters, and janitors; carpenters, and to a lesser extent blacksmiths and masons; and work at saw mills, in coal mines, on steam railroad lines, and in road and street building and repairing, respectively.51

Table 2.3 shows that, proportionally, African American men depended more

frequently on agricultural jobs than did whites, who had opportunities in other skilled and semiskilled professions:

Table 2.3. Employment among Black and white males, 1910 Profession Black % of pop. White % of pop. Agriculture 1,842,238 50.6 8,929,937 26.9 Other employment 1,336,316 36.7 17,800,410 53.7 Unemployed 458,832 12.6 6,433,882 19.4 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 502.

Nonetheless, of the proportion of gainfully employed males in 1910, 87.4 percent of

Black men compared with 80.6 percent of white men were employed, meaning that

proportionally, Black men were working just as regularly in agricultural jobs as white

men were. Often, Black workers would work harder, longer hours for lower wages; there

was no concern of Black laborers organizing during this period, either, because labor

unions – under the direction of the newly formed American Federation of Labor – refused

to allow Black members. These factors made Black workers attractive employees for

many Southern farmers and potential threats for white, non- or semi-skilled laborers.

There was little systematic investigation into incidents of lynching; rather, claims

of theft, murder, or rape perpetrated by lynching victims went unchallenged by local

authorities and mainstream newspapers. Black citizens were left to deal with the problem

of lynching on their own. Black newspapers, like the Chicago Defender and the New

York Age, routinely covered incidents of lynching on their front pages, denouncing the

practice and the bogus notions of “justice” that disguised what the act truly was – murder.

One Tennessee-based Black press journalist, Ida B. Wells, made it her mission to expose the evils of lynching. Wells routinely interrogated the claims made by mainstream newspapers regarding the circumstances and presumed guilt of lynching victims. She argued that lynching was not about protecting white women but rather was “[a]n excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the race terrorized.” According to historian David Mindich, Wells employed much of the same tactics of muckrakers of the period, often visiting lynching sites undercover and interviewing witnesses. 52 After one of her inflammatory articles resulted in the

destruction of The Memphis Free Speech press, she moved to New York and gained even

greater visibility as a journalist for the New York Age, which had a larger circulation.

Patrick Washburn argued that Wells used the New York Age as an “official record of the

chilling acts of racial abuse.”53 In her first story, “Exiled,” Wells urged Blacks to defend

themselves against such violence. She wrote,

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every Black home…When the white man knows he runs a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro- American yields and cringes and begs, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.54

Wells’ brand of activism was one part of an unfolding discussion between disparate but

related groups concerning the most appropriate strategies for Black citizens in the fight

for civil rights.

Prior to World War I, Black citizens organized politically in such a way that

various groups, as August Meier summarily noted,

…roughly correlated with each other, so that the gradualism, conciliation, middle class virtues, racial solidarity, self-help…tended to cluster together to form a ‘conservative’ outlook, while agitation for civil and political rights, advocacy of immediate and complete integration, interest in the labor movement…tended to cluster together to form a ‘radical’ outlook.55

The conservative faction was led by Booker T. Washington, whose strategy of

accommodation stressed “intelligent management of farms, ownership of lands, habits of

thrift, patience, and perseverance, and the cultivation of high morals and manners” but

that also seemingly encouraged African Americans to accept a position separate from,

and for many Blacks necessarily subordinate to, Whites. At the Atlanta Exposition in

1895 Washington famously proclaimed, “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”56

To many of Washington’s contemporaries, his position seemed to stress the

“humble and menial role” of the African American community.57 Washington’s writings

were “used to fashion a myth of Southern Blacks being content with the conditions of

life” while few were willing to acknowledge the work Washington did to privately fund

battles against restrictions placed on African Americans from voting and from serving on

juries. There was also a sense that Washington and the “Tuskegee Machine” were

unwilling to compromise with other viewpoints; historians agree that Tuskegee’s

influence over the Black press by financially pressuring editors to align with

Washington’s political views created a certain amount of de facto censorship in the press.

According to Edgar Toppin, “By placing or withholding ads, the well-endowed Tuskegee

clique persuaded many Black editors, most of whose publications were in financial

straits, to carry these materials favorable to Washington’s views.” Toppin also pointed

out that Tuskegee secretly funded several newspapers during this period, “controlling

them unbeknownst to the public.”58

Washington had close ties to the Republican Party, particularly with Theodore

Roosevelt, who both invited Washington to dine at the White House in 1901and visited

Tuskegee in 1905. 59 African Americans had forged a tenuous alliance with the Republic

Party; in exchange for votes, the Party “rewarded Black supporters with a few political

appointments and some patronage rather than with a strong civil rights platform and

concerted action,” though conflicts between the white faction (the Lily White

Republicans) and the Black faction (the Black and Tans) plagued Black participation in

the party in the 1880s and 1890s.60 However, as Roosevelt’s term wore on, he “not only

ceased breaking bread with Blacks but reduced the amount of traditional Black patronage

and supported the efforts of ‘lily-white’ Republicans in the South against the ‘Black and

Tan’ delegates.”61

Washington was aggressively challenged by the symbolic leader of the radical

faction, W.E.B. DuBois, who accused Washington of “practically accepting the alleged

inferiority of the Negro” and called for an end to accommodation.62 In 1903, DuBois

presented his solution for how racial uplift and ultimately equality would be attained;

“The Negro, like all races,” he wrote, “is going to be saved by exceptional men.”63 These

“exceptional men,” whom DuBois coined as the “Talented Tenth,” were a conceptual group of elite, noteworthy men who “strove by word and deed to save the color line from becoming the line between bond and free,” who “set the ideals of the community in which he lives, direct its thoughts and heads its social movements.”64 DuBois’s Talented

Tenth included teachers, preachers, physicians, civil servants – “leaders of thought and

missionaries of culture among their people,”65 and was largely concerned with arguing for educational initiatives for Black men. DuBois’s essay argued that, among the African

American community, ten percent of the Black community would be capable of attaining

the level of academic and professional achievement necessary for the overall

advancement of the race. The essay advocated for a curriculum emphasizing

“intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the

relation of men to it.”66 Washington’s emphasis on technical education, according to

DuBois, discouraged Black students from pursuing degrees as institutions of higher learning – degrees meant to ensure that the Black community would have competent educators in their schools. DuBois’s “much-ballyhooed” theory was controversial but nonetheless influential; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, and even the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters formed around this idea.67

In 1905, DuBois organized the Niagara movement and two years later began

publishing its official organ, The Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line. In 1910, he

abandoned Niagara to take a position with the nascent National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP’s mission was to

promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice…to advance the interests of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law.68

The organization was comprised of both “radical” Black leaders and a group of

sympathetic white activists. One of DuBois’s chief duties with the NAACP was to edit

their magazine, The Crisis.

The Crisis was the official organ of the fledgling NAACP, and its mission was to

“set forth facts and arguments to show the dangers of race prejudice; serve as a newspaper to record important events and movements bearing on interracial relations; review books and press comments; and publish a few appropriate articles.”69 Both

rhetorically and visually, The Crisis attempted to frame discussions around African

American issues, achievements and activism. It was a vehicle for visual representation of

African Americans as “proof” of their achievements. DuBois was particularly interested in the idea of using photography in the pages of his magazine; according to Walter

Daniel, “the white press used Black Americans’ photographs only when they had committed crimes, and the Black press [i.e., Black newspapers] used them only if the personalities paid for the privilege.”70 The Crisis reached a circulation of 9,000 by the

end of 1910, which increased steadily. At its height the magazine reached more than

116,000 Black and white Americans.71

Around this time, Black populations in the North exploded. For example, between 1910 and 1930, New York City’s Black population more than tripled, while

Chicago’s swelled from 44,130 to 233,903, thanks in large part to the Chicago

Defender’s Great Northern Migration campaign.72 However, as Cary Wintz noted, it was

not only the appeal of the North that encouraged migration. Rather, “push” factors, like

the boll weevil infestation that began in 1910 in Georgia and soon spread throughout the

south, led to a crisis in the southern farming economy that meant fewer jobs for Black

workers there.73 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1900, New York, Pennsylvania,

Illinois, and Ohio represented the non-Southern states with the largest Black populations,

ranging from about 85,000 (Illinois) to 156,000 (Pennsylvania). These numbers only

increased in those regions over time, so that by 1920 Illinois had 182,000 Black residents,

New York had 178,000, Ohio had 186,000, and Pennsylvania had 285,000.74

The southern Black population was not decimated, however. During this period

Missouri saw growth in its Black population, from 161,000 to 224,000. Georgia’s and

Maryland’s Black populations remained static over the thirty-year period – representing the only other states with significant Black populations that did not experience a large scale emigration to the North. In 1920, Georgia’s Black population comprised 47% of its overall population (about 1 million Blacks), while Maryland’s Black population of

235,000 comprised about 20% of its overall population. By 1930 every other Black

population in the South had decreased significantly, while in the North New York,

Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio saw their Black populations continue to rise. The

average Black populations in those areas ranged from 309,000 to 430,000. By 1930, 1.3

million Black residents – 32.4 percent of the population – had migrated North.75

Most African Americans settled in northern cities where, according to Henry

Louis Taylor, Jr. and Song-ho Ha, “The Black experience in the industrial city heightened racial consciousness and caused Blacks to think and act as a people with a common history and destiny, despite being fractured along class and gender lines, and spatially dispersed.”76 Southern cities in Missouri, Georgia, and Maryland all grew, albeit at a slower rate. Table 2.4 shows the population growth in a selection of northern and southern cities during the Great Migration through the beginning of the Depression:

Table 2.4. African American population by city, 1900-1930 City 1900 1910 1920 1930 North: New York 60,666 91,709 152,467 327,706 Philadelphia 62,613 84,459 134,220 219,599 Pittsburgh 20,355 25,623 37,724 54,983 Chicago 30,150 44,103 109,458 233,903 Cleveland 5,989 8,443 34,451 71,899 South: Baltimore 79,248 84,749 108,322 142,106 Kansas City 17,567 23,566 30,719 38,574 Savannah 28,090 33,246 39,179 38,806 Atlanta 35,727 51,902 62,796 90,075 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 95-103; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920- 1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 56-63.

As millions of African Americans migrated to big northern cities, competition for industrial jobs in the North became just as tense as it was for agricultural jobs in the

South. In 1911, the Urban League was established to help Black residents adjust to urban life and obtain professional training. The organization “eschewed public protest in favor of friendly appeals and the goodwill of the white community, especially employers.”77

The workplace and the urban neighborhood became the most contested sites between

Blacks and Whites for dominance.

America’s intervention in World War I in 1917 created a deep chasm in the experience of African American citizens, for both better and for worse. Woodrow

Wilson, a Democrat, was in the White House, and for a brief period there was a sense that new leadership would mean new opportunities for Black citizens; Wilson actively courted the Black vote during his election. Instead, the exact opposite happened: as

Franklin noted, “The first Congress of Woodrow Wilson’s administration received the greatest flood of bills proposing discriminating legislation against Blacks that had ever been introduced into Congress.”78 Wilson was especially concerned with maintaining systems of segregation. Therefore, when the United States entered World War I in April

1917, Wilson made Black participation as difficult as possible. Those who did serve were mostly segregated to labor battalions.

Though DuBois was far more militant than Washington, insisting that “protest, not accommodation, was the only way for Blacks to secure their civil and political rights,” his 1918 Crisis editorial, “Close Ranks,” galvanized Black citizens in support of the war effort.79 Arguing that “that which the German power represents today spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and democracy,”

DuBois proclaimed:

Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly, with our eyes lifted to the hills.80

That is precisely what over 360,000 Black soldiers did. Despite President Wilson’s

decree that enlisted Blacks were to serve only in labor battalions, many fought for and

obtained the right to fight at the front lines for their country. 81 However, the war made

racial tensions worse, not better.

In the South, the Ku Klux Klan was formally organized, emboldened in part by

D.W. Griffith’s racist epic film, The Birth of a Nation, which was released to great

acclaim and controversy in 1915. The KKK, according to Franklin, was determined to

“terrorize Blacks into submission.”82 During the summer of 1919, racial tension came to a head as a series of race riots broke out in both major cities and rural areas all over the country – or, as Franklin noted, “wherever Whites and Blacks undertook the task of living together.” The riots “were indicative of a thoroughly malodorous situation in race

relations” and marked “war in the full sense of the word” between the races. In all, 25

race riots were reported and over 70 African Americans – many of them war veterans –

were lynched. In Chicago alone, where one riot lasted 13 days, 15 Whites and 23 Blacks

were killed. Racial violence was so widespread during these months that writer James

Weldon Johnson coined it the “Red Summer.”83

Symbolically the war changed the mindset of the African American community, as new opportunities and ideas crept in to the daily lived experience of Black Americans.

Table 2.5 shows the increases in semi-skilled and skilled labor post-war:

Table 2.5. Gains in skilled and semi-skilled labor among Black Americans, 1910 to 1930 Industry 1910 1930 Mining 62,755 55,055 Manufacturing 657,130 1,024,030 Transportation/communication 276,648 396,399 Trade (Banking, insurance, warehousing) 131,999 181,683 Service 1,170,309 1,712,221 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 510; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920- 1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 287.

Economically, the war opened up opportunities for African Americans in the labor industry in the North in iron and steel manufacturing and in the meat-packing, ship- building, and automotive industries in the absence of the European immigrants who had previously comprised that workforce. Post-war gains in all industries by Black workers – save in the mining industry – continued through the 1920s, even as white soldiers returned home to claim their previous occupations.

Ideologically, news of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution “excited the imagination of many Black Americans, who applauded the emergence of a revolutionary regime pledged

(at least on paper) to racial and ethnical equality and the brotherhood of the working

class.”84 Russia, according to the Baltimore Afro-American, became “a real ‘melting pot,’ but in a civilized, sane, above-board way.”85 These changes bore a renewed hope that

first-class citizenship could be attained, and fostered closer symbolic connections between Black citizens. 86

Despite these gains, Woodward argued, “there was no apparent tendency toward

abatement or relaxation of the Jim Crow Code [sic] of discrimination and segregation” by

whites when the war ended.87 Sitkoff argued that no matter what Black leadership tried,

“the basic problem remained the inability of African Americans to compel necessary

alterations in their status and the absence of a compelling rationale for whites to modify

their treatment of Blacks.”88 In 1925, the New York Amsterdam News pointed out

the unfair attitude of the American white man towards his brother in Black – that same brother who went to the front lines of France with a cheer and a hope that the very thing of which we are about to speak would be a thing of the past upon his return to the land for which he so readily and willingly gave of his blood and of his treasure.89

Despite their belief that participation in the war effort would lead to a change in attitude

among white Americans, few material conditions changed for African Americans.

Urban living proved to be challenging in the 1920s as families settled into post- war life. Poor living conditions in cramped slums led to the proliferation of tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, and other diseases among Black populations. Despite decreases in death rates in the Black population overall (most notably in youth mortality rates), death rates in cities by 1930 were 19.8 per every 1,000 Black residents as compared with 14.2 in rural districts. Death rates among Blacks remained proportionally higher than among

Whites in all areas. 90 One Howard University physician, writing in 1935, argued that “it

has been definitely established…that tuberculosis is associated with poverty and

unhygienic conditions. The high rate of tuberculosis among colored people in the United

States…is due almost entirely to conditions under which they live rather than racial disposition.”91

Scientific theories concerning the hierarchical order of the races persisted. By the

mid-1920s, American eugenicists like Harry Laughlin and Madison Grant contended that

“for a period of three generations – sixty years, beginning with the end of the Civil

War—the noble American racial stock had been contaminated by the inundation of

defective lineage: low-grade Europeans and African Americans.” Laws enforcing

sterilization, limiting immigration, and prohibiting intermarriage all lent legislative

support to the “protection” of the superior white race. In 1924, Carrie Buck – a white

Virginia woman whose adoptive parents considered her mentally disabled – became the

first American sterilized. These ideas drifted to Europe, where Adolph Hitler (who took over as Chancellor of Germany in 1933) – in collaboration with U.S. funding sources, like the Rockefeller Foundation – continued eugenic research.92

There were some gains; more Black students received college educations than ever before, and found greater employment opportunities in education, medicine, and

law. This created what Taylor, Jr. and Ha described as a “cultural middle class” who

shared and embodied the Black community’s “dedication to family and work.”93 Instead

of creating antipathy, differences in economic status among Black citizens often meant

instead that the middle class actively advocated for the working class and poor among

their community. Table 2.6 shows the gains that were made by Black Americans in a

handful of professions that required higher education:

Table 2.6. African Americans’ gains in professional employment, 1910-1930 Profession 1910 1930 School teacher 29,432 54,439 Clergyman 17,495 25,034 Musician 5,606 10,583 Nurse 2,433 5,728 Physician/surgeon 3,077 3,805 College professors 242 2,146 Lawyers/judges 798 1,230 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 512-525; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 337-359.

For example, in Baltimore, a group of Black physicians (along with an advisory board of

whites) worked together to create a memorial fund specifically designed to finance a

research facility dedicated to finding a cure for tuberculosis. Thomas R. Smith, chairman

of the committee, promised, “The hospital will be managed by Negroes for

Negroes…And it should prove of great benefit to the entire Negro race in America.”94

Feelings of race pride and a new sense of urgency in the fight for civil rights lent to the popularity of increasingly militant and radical Black-centered fringe political movements that capitalized on the momentum of Black workers post-World War I. New

York became the center of Black radicalism, acting as headquarters for the Liberty

League of Afro-Americans, the African Blood Brotherhood, and the Universal Negro

Improvement Association, as well as the publishing site for The Messenger and the Negro

World. Members of the African Blood Brotherhood – including Messenger editors A.

Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, and labor organizers Hubert Harrison and Ben

Fletcher – became the nucleus of the Black membership of the American Socialist Party

in the mid-1920s.95 The Socialist Party “consciously targeted Blacks and in a highly

visible manner championed the cause of equal rights at a time when mainstream

American political parties ignored racial injustice.”96 The Black leaders of the Socialist

Party has a massive impact on Black workers. For example, the Industrial Workers of the

World actively recruited Black workers wherever it operated. In 1925, Randolph

organized the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black-led labor

organization to be recognized by the American Federation of Labor.

In 1917 in Harlem, the president of the Headwaiters and Sidewaiters Society of

Greater New York, William White, asked Randolph and Owen to edit his union’s

periodical, Hotel Messenger. Shortly thereafter, the editors parted ways with White and

took over sole responsibility of the magazine, which became known as simply The

Messenger. The publication “fought American officialdom and the ‘Old Crowd’ among

Blacks that allied with them,” paying especially critical attention to DuBois, whom

Randolph and Owen saw as “reactionary, opportunistic, and insensitive to class struggles among Blacks and workers who opposed the establishment.”97 Rather, The Messenger

focused its efforts on promoting the concept of the “New Negro” and giving voice to the

Harlem Renaissance’s literary figures, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston.

It reached a circulation of about 18,000. In 1926, Wallace Thurman took over editorship

of the magazine, and its influence as a truly radical publication began to wane. As Wintz

noted, The Messenger “had earned the dubious reputation among Black readers as

vacillating between a radical or socialist paper and a Black society sheet, depending on

who was paying the bills at the moment.”98

As historian Winston James pointed out, the influence of the Socialist Party was

minimal in comparison with Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement

Association (UNIA)’s Black Nationalist movement, which by the mid-1920s had nearly

two million members.99 Though the two groups shared a united vision of a liberated, self- sufficient African American community, Black Socialists disagreed with Garvey that “the

Negro’s greatest needs could be achieved by an all-Black movement.”100 Garvey had

started the UNIA in 1914 in his native Jamaica to promote a brand of racial pride that appealed primarily to Black citizenss seeking a connection with their African roots, asserting that “Blacks had a noble past…and declared that American Blacks should be proud of their ancestry.”101

The UNIA leader borrowed much of his educational philosophy from

Washington, and much to the chagrin of DuBois and others, his appeal to working-class

African Americans gained traction through the early 1920s. According to Franklin, “The basis for Garvey’s wide popularity was his appeal to race pride at a time when African

Americans generally had so little of which to be proud. The strain and stress of living in hostile urban communities created a state of mind upon which Garvey capitalized.”102 He

began the Black Star Steamship Line, African Motor Corps, Black Eagle Flying Corps,

Universal Black Cross Nurses, and the Negro Factories Corporation in a bid to create

Black-centered businesses in every industry. The Negro World preached Garvey’s

philosophies of “Black-consciousness, self-help, and economic independence,” and like

the NAACP’s The Crisis, was far-reaching in its influence. Former New York Age editor

T. Thomas Fortune was a regular contributor to the publication. The periodical enjoyed an international circulation of 200,000, reaching the Caribbean, Central America,

Canada, Europe and Africa.103 At the height of his popularity in 1921, Garvey organized

the Universal African Legion, which attempted to spearhead a mass migration to Liberia

and drive out white colonists from the region. When his Liberia plan failed, he organized

the Empire of Africa in Harlem.

Garveyism was deeply influential but short-lived. In 1923, Garvey was convicted

on mail fraud charges in connection with fundraising for his steamship line, and was sent

to prison. In 1927, President Coolidge pardoned and deported him. Though some scholars

have dismissed Garvey’s movement as “strange,”104 others have noted that the popularity of his movement “indicated the extent to which [African Americans] entertained doubts

concerning the hope for first-class citizenship in the only homeland they knew.”105

Garvey was one of the first Black leaders to compellingly articulate the frustrations of

Jim Crowism and doubts that true equality could ever be achieved. According to

Franklin, “Caught up in the controversies of which Garvey was at the center, of brooding over the conditions in American life to which he pointed, many Blacks began to write about them, as though reacting to Garvey’s harangues, even if they seldom agreed with them.”106

A “sudden outpouring” of artistic expression began in New York as “new poets

and novelists gained national attention by giving voice to the ancient wrongs, the brooding sorrows, and the mounting indignation of their race.”107 The “Harlem

Renaissance” was comprised of a vocal group of Black intellectuals and activists who led

a cultural movement that extolled the virtues of African American life and art, and

encouraged a renewed interest in their African roots. This group of talented writers

included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Fauset, Wallace Thurman, Claude

McKay, and James Weldon Johnson. They promoted a new brand of racial pride,

characterized by “a sense of community, a feeling that they were all part of the same

endeavor” with a focus on “race and race-consciousness.”108 The movement, lasting

roughly from 1919 to 1935, sought to undermine established stereotypes and instead

advocated for “self-respect, self-dependence and racial unity.”109 It started, of course, in

Harlem, New York, but extended to most major northern cities with sizable Black

populations; scholars have argued that the participants of the movement “were in the

vanguard of the attempt to come to terms with Black urbanization.”110

The Harlem Renaissance is characterized at its core by changing attitudes of both

Black and (some) whites against the backdrop of the “roaring twenties.” In 1925, Alain

Locke published the New Negro, using the term to denote the new brand of racial pride

and activism that he had witnessed during the first half of the decade, particularly among

young Black men. The term “New Negro” originated in 1895 as a way to describe “a new

class of Blacks with education, class and money” but morphed over time to reflect a “the

culmination of extensive social and intellectual developments within the Black

community in the years following Reconstruction.” 111 According to Locke, The distinction between the “Old Negro” of the Civil War/Reconstruction era and the “New

Negro” of the 1920s was simply “true social or self-understanding” that came about as a

result of migration, of increased economic opportunities, and increased social activism

among the community.112 The Renaissance gave a sense of structure and coherence to the

idea of the “New Negro.” For Renaissance writers, the “New Negro” was characterized

by “primitiveness, a close tie to jungle rhythms, a sensuality…These were the gifts that

the Black race could restore to the west.”113

The movement was not for – as Langston Hughes put it – “ordinary Negroes” but was rather perpetuated by middle-class Blacks and interested Whites, who increasingly traveled to nightclubs in Harlem to experience “Black bohemia.” In fact, one of the most famous cabarets associated with the movement – the Cotton Club – did not allow Black patrons; only Black performers gained entry. The artistic output of the Harlem

Renaissance – which manifested itself not only in literature, but in theatre and music as well – “could be packaged and delivered to those less daring [whites], who were content to experience Harlem vicariously.”114 The most popular novel to emerge at the time was

even written by a white man, Carl Van Vechten, in 1926. Van Vechten’s N****r Heaven

was a “sympathetic white observer’s examination of Harlem life at the onset of the

Harlem Renaissance,” which “cast American prejudice in a distorted, absurd, and even

monstrous role.”115

The influence of these writers penetrated the editorial missions of both The

Opportunity (the Urban League’s monthly publication) and The Crisis. In 1923, Charles

S. Johnson took over editorship of The Opportunity, and began to shift the magazine’s

focus to the “analysis and promotion of the cultural life of Black America.”116 This move represented a significant shift in the way in which Black leaders and intellectuals had

41 approached Black culture. Previously, DuBois and others had believed that art must always operate in favor of racial uplift. In “Criteria of Negro Art,” written in 1926,

DuBois argued that “all art is propaganda, and ever must be.”117 Langston Hughes described the tension between these opposing viewpoints when he wrote:

…they had seen their race…made a servant or a clown always in the movies, and forever defeated on the Broadway stage, that when Negroes wrote books they wanted them to be books in which only good Negroes, clean and cultured and not- funny Negroes, beautiful and nice and upper class were presented.118

The major disconnect between DuBois and the writers of the Renaissance was that the former believed that literature must always function as “propaganda” while the latter emphasized the artistic value of their work, often seeking to capture the multiplicities of life in Harlem – whether they constituted “positive” representations of Black citizens or not. DuBois resented these writers’ investment in “ghetto realism,” arguing that it would lead to the exacerbation of racial stereotyping and resentment.

This disparity between the functions of Black-centered art and literature led to discord within The Crisis. Jessie Fauset, one of the most prolific female writers of the period, was also a regular contributor to the magazine and DuBois’s close friend. While the Urban League’s The Opportunity became more progressive about what kinds of content to include in its pages, The Crisis under DuBois’s leadership continued to emphasize political participation, as DuBois himself became more deeply invested in the labor movement and Bolshevism. Fauset was “impressed by the involvement of The

Opportunity in literary activities and wanted The Crisis to give the arts parity with the economic-political reporting,” according to Wintz.119 In 1926, Fauset ceased contributing to the publication altogether.

As the decade came to a close, the Renaissance began to lose its momentum,

largely because there was a lack of new Black writers participating in the tradition. In

1931, Locke penned an official “obituary” for the movement, but its true end came in

March 1935, when a riot broke out in Harlem based on a false rumor that a group of

white police officers had beaten a Black child to death. Looting and violence ensued

overnight, and by the morning three Black residents had died and there was more than $2

million worth of damage done to Harlem storefront businesses. A committee was

immediately formed to investigate the underlying causes of riot; they concluded that

“resentments against racial discrimination and poverty in the midst of plenty” were to blame for the outburst.120

In general, the modest gains that the African American community enjoyed in the

1920s in the form of increased education and economic opportunities, new political

leadership, and a more prominent place in entertainment were replaced in the early years

of the 1930s by hardship and hopelessness. The Great Depression impacted nearly every

American citizen, but none as virulently as those in the Black community. Labor jobs,

which had been particularly steady employment for Black workers after World War I,

were lost to whites who were forced to downgrade their employment. By 1932,

unemployment among African Americans was fifty percent in the South and in the large

urban areas of the North (Harlem, Chicago, and Philadelphia). More Black citizens

migrated to the North during this period in search of public assistance – which was almost impossible for Blacks to obtain in the South – but found little reprieve.121

In November of that year, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office among

13,000,000 unemployed Americans, and immediately instituted a set of government

programs – the New Deal – to bring recovery, relief, and reform to the American public.

Roosevelt was not particularly interested in helping African Americans, and like Wilson

– the only other Democrat to have held office in the previous 30 years – pandered to

southern voters at the expense of Black voters. However, Roosevelt was deeply influenced by his progressive wife, Eleanor who, through her friendship with the

NAACP’s Walter White, became increasingly concerned with improving conditions for

African Americans. By 1934, the Roosevelts together began to publicly acknowledge the

plight of Black citizens, and the New Deal included some provisions to assist them.

The New Deal did not make sweeping changes to the material conditions of Black

Americans, but it did represent a symbolic change in the way in which government

engaged with the Black community. As Sitkoff noted, the New Deal “made explicit as

never before the federal government’s recognition of and responsibility for the plight of

African Americans,” and created “an atmosphere that made possible a major campaign

for civil rights.”122 The New Deal – for the first time since Emancipation – encouraged

African Americans’ political participation. For example, voter registration among Black

citizens soared during this period.

Specific New Deal programs worked to increase the income and education level

of Black Americans. The Farm Security Administration guaranteed that Black farmers

could purchase land and taught new farm owners innovative methods of production and

marketing. The Public Works Administration created playgrounds, hospitals, colleges,

and community centers for Black residents all over the country. The Works Progress

Administration offered material relief and some employment, while the Federal Public

Housing Authority created construction jobs and built new homes in Black communities.

Youth programs, like the National Youth Administration and the Civil Conservation

Corps, taught wartime and environmental trades, decreased illiteracy rates among Black

children, and even allowed participants to continue their education upon completion of

the program. Though the implementation of these programs on a local level – particularly

in the South – at times proved challenging, overall they undermined traditional patterns

of discrimination and afforded Blacks opportunities they had not seen before.123

Socialism and the labor movement continued to play a vital role in the life of

ordinary Black citizens. The Socialist party continued its efforts to actively court African

American members, even funding the defense of nine boys who were accused of raping

two white women in a freight car in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1935, the Committee for

Industrial Organization (CIO), which sought to organize workers in mass-production industries, made specific inroads into improving the conditions of Black workers all over

the country by making it “clear that it sought to organize workers regardless of race.”124

Across industries, Black workers took up with CIO affiliates, and they were “the most eager to join, took the greatest risks to do it, and were the last to give up.”125 The CIO

received support from both the NAACP and the Urban League in their efforts to recruit

Black workers. Participation in labor organizations during this period gave Black workers the opportunity to have greater agency in their relationships with white workers and

employers, and fostered “a feeling of security and belonging” that had never existed

before.126

This time period encompasses both the most devastating blows to the fight for

civil rights as well as triumphs that invigorated the daily fight for equality by Black citizens of all ages, classes, and across geographical lines. What is most remarkable about this time period is that, though there was a multitude of competing voices and agendas often clashing with each other, the Black community during this period was also cohesive, cooperative, and united under one basic goal: the attainment of their civil rights. Key to the shared feelings of racial pride, activism, and cohesiveness displayed

during this period was the Black newspaper industry, which acted as a symbolic site for

Black citizens all over the country to meet and discuss issues pertinent to their daily lived

experience. The fight against Jim Crowism was waged in the pages of these influential

newspapers.

CHAPTER 3

“WHAT OTHERS SEE AND FORGET, THE JOURNALIST MUST REMEMBER” – BLACK JOURNALISTS AS CRITICAL CITIZENS, 1895-1935

…Memories covering a period of ten years that only this mad newspaper career could have preserved because what others see and forget, the journalist (I flatter myself) must remember. Every experience must be tagged and tucked away into a pigeon hole to be snatched out on a moment’s notice. – Ralph Matthews, Baltimore Afro-American, 1934127

The turn of the twentieth century was a pivotal period for the Black press. The overarching dilemma of Black newspapers was, according to Patrick Washburn, “Would

[the Black press] be accommodating…or would they aggressively continue to push for more rights, despite the fact that this probably would anger whites and might lead to drastic repercussions?”128 During this tumultuous period, the Black press was left to

make sense of “the aspirations and frustrations of its people from the rise of the NAACP,

World War I, the Harlem Renaissance, a major Black nationalist movement, and the

Great Depression.”129 During a period whereby discrimination, disenfranchisement, and segregation were countered by race pride, solidarity, loyalty, and cohesiveness, the Black press emerged as the primary site of the negotiation of symbolic forms of critical citizenship and collective representation.130 In their mission to “bluntly and reliably ridicule anyone perceived as standing in the way of Black progress,” journalists and editors of these newspapers would routinely editorialize throughout their reporting.131

The Black press viewed celebrity culture as an important component in lived experience of their readers, and they covered celebrities extensively in their pages. Gossip columnists, Hollywood correspondents, theatre critics, and sportswriters often connected

their stories with larger issues of racism, practices of segregation, and the struggle for

equality. Without the Black press, it is difficult to imagine how African American celebrities would have captured the public’s collective imagination. Necessarily then, a discussion of African American celebrity culture must begin with a close examination of the formation, function, and prevalence the Black press.

The Black press was a “public forum for Blacks to debate among themselves strategies for their own liberation.”132 Through news stories, columns, editorials, and

letters to the editor, journalists, community leaders, and citizens actively engaged in

debates about the most appropriate actions to obtain true liberation and equal rights. As

Black press historian Gunnar Myrdal argued, the Black press told “the individual how he should think and feel as an American Negro and create[d] a tremendous power of suggestion by implying that all other Negroes think and feel in this manner.”133 In that way, the Black press was a gatekeeper for Black political, cultural, and social expression; the Black press “offered its readers a definition of the Black community.”134

Simply put, the Black press was the only forum in which the Black community

could obtain and share news about themselves. Black newspapers, according to Patrick

Washburn, “offered something that big ‘white’ newspapers left out: pictures and stories

about Black doctors, lawyers, politicians, business folk, society ladies, church leaders,

and other ‘Negroes of quality.’”135 Trumpeting African American achievement was a

tactic regularly used by Black press journalists to bolster the morale of the community

and to combat negative stereotypes. For example, Freedom’s Journal, the first Black

press newspaper, “devoted much attention to chronicling school programs, intellectual

accomplishments and lifestyle of the emerging northern Black middle class.”136

Though the readership was largely educated, middle-class African Americans, the

act of reading these newspapers was truly a communal activity. Newspapers were passed

around communities (often to the chagrin of editors trying to make ends meet through

subscription fees) and read aloud to citizens unable to read for themselves. This oral

component allowed for the sharing of ideas and the participation of all segments of Black

society. According to historian Hayward Farrar, “The importance of the press in creating,

maintaining, and changing the social order of an urban community cannot be

overemphasized…The Black press not only expressed Black dissatisfaction with

American racism but also helped, create, maintain, and mold the Black communities it

has served.”137

Black newspapers were particularly pivotal in the process of community-building in large cities. As a result of the great migration of the late 1910s, northern cities experienced exponential growth in their Black populations, where illiteracy rates were systematically lower than in southern cities. However, the greatest disparity was between the urban and rural populations in both the North and in the South.

Table 3.1. Rates of illiteracy in urban, rural, and rural-nonfarm African American communities, 1930 Rural- Urban % Rural % nonfarm % South 321,664 13.2 788,339 23.0 306,414 22.6 North 71,873 11.4 6,276 20.0 15,885 19.3 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 80.

Table 3.1 shows that, while overall more Black citizens were becoming literate, the rate

at which inhabitants of rural areas learned how to read lagged behind. By 1930, many of the cities with the largest Black population also had the lowest rates of illiteracy compared with other urban centers. For example, New York’s illiteracy rate was 2.1 percent; Chicago’s was 2.2 percent; and Philadelphia’s was 3 percent. In the South,

where illiteracy rates were generally higher, Kansas City’s rate was 4.4 percent,

Baltimore’s was 7 percent, and Atlanta’s was 10 percent.138 Most Black press papers

reported frequently on news of local interest; this “indirectly created ethnic bonds and

gave Blacks a sense of cohesion in the face of the multiplicity of a large city.”139

Despite their popularity in Black communities, many newspapers faced issues of

low circulations and had trouble securing advertisers, which meant constant financial

insecurity. It was not unusual for newspapers to make specific appeals to readers to either

pay their subscription fees (which the Baltimore Afro-American did regularly on their

front page) or to patronize certain businesses that advertised in their pages. For instance,

the Philadelphia Tribune asked of its readers:

When you are about to make purchases of any kind, first look in the advertising columns of your Negro newspaper and select from the business houses listed there the places where you will spend your money. And – in making your purchases, merely mention to the clerk or manager that you saw his advertisement in your Negro newspaper.140

Those most likely to fund the newspapers through subscription – Black working-class

readers – had little cash to spend on “an inessential item like a newspaper,”141 while

middle-class Black readers sometimes snubbed Black press newspapers, which at the

time were typically short (four-to-eight pages in length) and reprinted (often without

permission) news from other sources. One journalist of the time charged that middle-

class Blacks “thought such newspapers were beneath them, that they were too intelligent

and classy to be caught with such a publication around their house.”142 Most of the Black

press papers that were founded during this period disappeared quickly, and those that

survived did so mostly because they were subsidized by the Republican Party, “subsidies

which the party then expected those newspapers to repay by mobilizing Black voters

behind its candidates.”143

Another issue affecting the Black press was a lack of qualified full-time editorial

and writing staffs. According to the 1910 U.S. Census, only 247 Black workers

identified their primary occupation as journalist or editor. By 1930, the number increased

only slightly to 376.144 As Farrar pointed out regarding the successful Baltimore Afro-

American, “many [Black journalists] were only part-time journalists who were occupied

full-time as teachers, politicians, lawyers, or ministers.”145 For example, the Pittsburgh

Courier’s Robert L. Vann began moonlighting with the paper only after establishing a

successful career as an attorney. As his biographer, Andrew Buni, noted, “Vann accepted

the offer [of editorship], undoubtedly motivated more by his passion for journalism than by his pursuit of prosperity; though the editorship would consume a good deal of Vann’s time it paid him very little.”146 The typical compensation for a journalist was two to three

dollars per column.147 This was hardly any incentive for a young African American

hoping to break into the middle class through a career in journalism, and as Buni pointed

out, these part-time correspondents “needed constant reminders of deadlines.”148

Post-bellum, Black press newspapers interested in promoting the transition of the

newly freed Black population into mainstream American life began to take shape,

replacing abolitionist newspapers like Frederick Douglass’s North Star. Armistead Pride

estimated that by 1890, 575 Black press newspapers had been established. This trend

was one result of skyrocketing literacy rates at the turn of the century. Black illiteracy

rates had dropped 27 per cent, from 57.1 in 1890 to 30.4 per cent in 1910. Table 3.2

shows the sharp decline in illiteracy among Black citizens coinciding with the

establishment of the African American newspaper industry:

Table 3.2. Illiteracy rates among the Black population, 1890-1930 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 Population 3,042,698 2,853,194 2,227,731 1,812,162 1,513,892 Percent 57.1 44.5 30.4 22.9 16.3 Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 233.

Black press scholar Clint Wilson noted that there was a shift in content after the war,

when “the dominating subject of slavery was replaced with material of great variety,”

which included church, education, and society news.149 By the turn of the century, these

newspapers began to regularly cover sports and theatre; during the 1920s, coverage of film and popular music also became commonplace.

The Baltimore Afro-American, Cleveland Gazette, Philadelphia Tribune, New

York Age, Savannah Tribune, and Kansas City/Topeka Plain Dealer emerged in the late

1800s and, despite early financial instability, survived to become the most prevalent and widely read Black press newspapers in the country. By 1910, the influential New York

Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier commenced publication.

Twenty years later, the first Black daily was founded, Atlanta Daily World. All of these

newspapers engaged with entertainment news and celebrity culture in their overall

mission to support Black progress.

The Cleveland Gazette was founded in 1883 by H.C. Smith. Known for his

staunch Republican principles, Smith was regarded as an expert editor, and even received

commendation by Douglass shortly before his death, who wrote to Smith: “I do exhort

your readers to stand by you in your effort to lead the colored citizens of Ohio to wise

political action.”150 Cleveland had long been the home of a burgeoning Black newspaper

industry, beginning in 1853 with the publication of the short-lived Alienated American

and later the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Gazette was part of a network of local

Cleveland newspapers, including the Globe and the Recorder, published in order to fight

local race prejudice. In the August 25, 1883 issue of the Gazette, one writer proclaimed,

“We want absolute impartiality in newspaper treatment, and when we fail to get it from

white papers we forthwith go to publishing and editing newspapers ourselves – hence the

Globe, the Recorder, and other papers published to proclaim the wrongs, and demand

redress for the people.”151

The Philadelphia Tribune was established in 1884 by Christopher J. Perry, and

remains the nation’s oldest continuously published Black newspaper. Perry, born free in

1854 in Baltimore, was dissatisfied with Maryland’s segregated education system and moved to Philadelphia where he wrote for various white dailies. Perry attributed the success of the Tribune to its status as a paper “of the people and for the people.”152 In his

obituary, the Tribune credited Perry with “honesty of purpose and unfaltering integrity,”

noting that Perry, until his death in 1921, was the sole owner of the paper, having

“successfully resisted the hundreds of appeals made by individuals and those representing syndicates to secure part ownership of the paper.” The article also noted that, “The

vigorous fight made by Mr. Perry through the columns of The Tribune for better political

conditions in Philadelphia attracted the attention of political leaders of 30 years ago.”153

According to John A. Saunders, a subsequent Tribune editor, “Negro life in Philadelphia today would not be the same had Christopher Perry not left his native Baltimore for

Philadelphia.”154 The paper was taken over by Perry’s son-in-law, Eugene Washington

Rhodes, in 1922, and was subsequently expanded into a twice-weekly publication.

The Savannah Tribune emerged against the backdrop of “radical Reconstruction”

to act as “the colored man’s much needed ‘advocate.’”155 The Tribune was founded by

Georgia Negro Militia member John H. Devereaux in 1875, and was published for the

next 85 years (minus a seven-year hiatus). Devereaux controlled the paper until his death

in 1909, when staff member Sol C. Johnson, also a militia member, took the helm.

According to Pride and Wilson, the Savannah Tribune “adopted a tone of benevolence

and forbearance” against the tense backdrop of the post-Civil War South.156 Though the

Savannah Tribune shared the mission of obtaining equal rights and basic civil rights for

the African American community under Jim Crow, they also sought to “break down the

existing prejudice of the race and establish friendly relations” with whites; or, as Pride

and Wilson suggested, they chose to “take the high road.”157

As was the case with most Black press papers at the time, the Baltimore Afro-

American was created as the side project of individuals primarily involved with another

Black-centered institution which, in this case, was the church. Reverend William

Alexander of Sharon Baptist Church, Reverend George F. Bragg Jr. of St. James

Episcopal Church, and John H. Murphy Sr., Sunday school teacher at Bethel African

Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church joined forces in 1892 to create the newspaper, with the intention of creating local and nationwide reform in the realm of education and politics. The Afro-American was one of the first Black press papers to own its own

printing press; other leading papers of the time relied on outside firms to print their

issues. However, in 1896 the press went bankrupt and was sold at auction to Murphy, a

founder and frequent contributor. The paper most clearly stated its mission in a 1905 editorial, in which Murphy wrote, “At present, the mission of the AFRO-AMERICAN is twofold. First to present to the world that side of the Afro-American that can be had in

no other way, and in the second place to as far as possible assist in the great uplift of the

people it represents.”158

One of the major challenges in studying the Black press is following the lineage

of name changes for many early newspapers, and the Kansas City/Topeka Plain Dealer is a typical example of the way in which newspapers frequently changed their name according to leadership interests. Entrepreneur Nick Chiles purchased the failing Topeka

Call in 1893. He changed the name to the Topeka Plain Dealer which, like most other

Black press papers at the time, focused its content on fighting discrimination, disenfranchisement, and lynching. Under Chiles, the paper reached 11 southern states

and had a healthy circulation. When Chiles died in 1930, the paper was purchased by

local corporate interests which changed the name a third time to the Kansas City/Topeka

Plain Dealer, but quickly failed under new leadership. Like the Gazette, the Plain Dealer

was short – only eight pages in length – and therefore lacked sections. It relied largely on

news from mainstream sources and larger urban newspapers, often reprinting news

stories rather than sending out its staff to obtain stories for itself. For instance, when the

Harlem Renaissance hit New York, correspondents from Philadelphia, Chicago, and

Baltimore were often on-hand to report on theatrical openings and cabaret shows, but the

Plain Dealer never seemed to have the financial stability to send its reporters out to

gather news.

New York, with its large potential readership, could carry two successful Black

press newspapers: the New York Age and the New York Amsterdam News. The New York

Age is the best-known example of Booker T. Washington’s influence in the Black press.

The Age, edited for several years by the “dean of Black journalism in America,” T.

Thomas Fortune, was a hugely influential Black press newspaper established in 1887 by

Fortune’s brother, Emmanuel Jr., from the remnants of the New York Freeman.159 In

1891, Emmanuel died and Thomas took over as editor, a position he held for nearly 20

years. According to Pride and Wilson, Fortune “wrote editorials that drove home points

on racial questions with telling acuteness and established both Fortune and the Age as the

foremost molders of opinion of their day.”160 Fortune’s work was so compelling that it garnered the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, who once remarked, “Tom Fortune, for

God’s Sake, keep that pen of yours off me.”161 In 1914, poet and novelist Wallace

Thurman took over editorship of the newspaper.

It was not unusual for Black press newspapers to reflect the political and social movements that were unique to their regions and therefore of particular interest to their subscribers. For instance, the New York Amsterdam News, founded in 1909 by James H.

Anderson, championed the early unionization of Black workers in Harlem. Their slogan

“Don’t Buy Where you Can’t Work,” became a local rallying cry for Blacks in Harlem who began to boycott shopping in segregated stores and from merchants who refused to hire them.162

In general, celebrity coverage in these newspapers was sparse before 1920.

Indeed, of the newspapers examined, the Baltimore Afro-American and the Cleveland

Gazette were the only newspapers to cover entertainment before 1920 to any extent or as

a particularly newsworthy phenomenon. Though limited, celebrity coverage during this

early period suggests a tension inherent between what might be considered highbrow

versus lowbrow entertainment. For example, British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

received extensive front page coverage in the Baltimore Afro-American in 1903 and

1904, compared with boxer Joe Gans, who was the first African American to win a world boxing title (as lightweight champion) in 1902 but who received virtually no coverage in the Black press until his death in 1910. In 1910, when Jack Johnson won the heavyweight championship title from Jim Jeffries – the first Black man to do so – conversations about

Johnson in the press were more concerned with whether pugilism was an “appropriate” activity in which Black men should engage.

Shifts in mainstream news reporting during the late 1910s had a marked effect on

the amount of attention these newspapers paid to entertainment culture as many of them

embraced a new reporting and presentation format called “yellow journalism.” “Yellow

journalism,” so-called after the Yellow Kid character from the Hogan’s Alley cartoon

published in the late 1890s first in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and later in William

Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, relied on large, eye-grabbing headlines;

photographs and other visuals; and fundamental changes in what was considered

“newsworthy” in order to sell newspapers to working-class urban audiences. Yellow

journalism was “a technique that matched aggressive reporting with dramatic storytelling and vivid descriptions using conversational language;” it also relied heavily on the power of visuals, including photographs and bolder, Blacker typeface, in conveying meaning to its audience.163

Writing about the development of celebrity culture, P. David Marshall argued,

“It is difficult to separate the histories of journalism and the emergence of the

contemporary celebrity system.”164 Burgeoning tabloid culture fed off of burgeoning

celebrity culture, making prominent figures in theatre, film, sports and music even more

visible to everyday audiences. As Marshall noted of these early twentieth century

newspapers, “Profiles of celebrated individuals emerged alongside the development of

what were perceived to be more salacious stories and muckraking to discover scandal.”165

Historian Paula Morton, in tracing the roots of tabloid culture in the U.S., argued that

increasingly with the development of camera technology “the photojournalist supplanted

the sketch artist” previously tasked with illustrating the news. By the 1920s, in

58 conjunction with yellow journalism practices, newspapers began to publish

“incriminating photographs…exactly what a jazzy tabloid in the Roaring ’20s required to feed a scandal.”166

For the first time, thanks to technological advances in printing and the simplified process of reproducing photographs in newspapers – as well as steadily increasing literacy rates – the Black press as a whole enjoyed as-yet-unheard of circulation figures and financial stability in the late 1910s. These successes, however, came at a price, as many criticized the most successful Black papers of adopting the sensational tactics of the mainstream “yellow” press in order to sell newspapers. For example, as Farrar points out, the Afro-American undermined its stated goals of racial uplift by putting “front-page emphasis on the more embarrassing aspects of Black life” by reporting on “vulgar, illicit and criminal behavior in the Black community.”167

The Black press very much aligned with the mainstream sensational press in establishing coverage of entertainment culture as particularly newsworthy. By 1922, the

New York Amsterdam News had established an entertainment section. Three years later, both the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier followed suit. In 1929 and 1930, respectively, the Philadelphia Tribune and Baltimore Afro-American also began to dedicate a section of their newspaper to coverage of celebrities and popular culture so that by the early 1930s, entertainment sections were commonplace in Black press newspapers. Analysis of newspapers from this period revealed that by the mid-1920s, discussions of celebrity culture became more prevalent, and shifted from discussions about race representation to more sensational coverage of celebrities’ personal lives. For

instance, by the end of 1926, laudatory articles about tenor singer Roland Hayes’s

contribution to the race were replaced with discussions about his complicated love life.168

The Philadelphia Tribune, a conservative newspaper which rarely devoted front page

column space to anything other than stories devoted to politics and education, began to

cover celebrities more aggressively to compete with other Black newspapers in the

northeast. It even began to run a column called the “Tribune Theatrical Night Life Page”

which featured society news and “theatrical chit chat.”

Coverage of entertainment culture during this period was also spurred on by the

development of a news service designed specifically to cater to the Black newspaper

industry. In March 1919, former Defender staff member Claude Burnett created the

Associated Negro Press (ANP), which distributed news releases to all of the major

newspapers around the country. Its initial members were the Afro-American, New York

Amsterdam News, and even Garvey’s magazine, the Negro World. By 1924, the Courier

has also begun to use the ANP. The ANP headquarters were based in Chicago, but by

1925 the ANP had “executive correspondents” in 11 of America’s largest cities,

including Los Angeles, where Fay Jackson and Harry Leavitt began reporting on Black

actors in Hollywood in 1933.169

It is no surprise, then, that the newspapers that emerged during this period were also among the most successful: the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the

Atlanta Daily World. The Baltimore Afro-American also enjoyed increasing success during this period under new leadership. Scholars have tended to focus in particular on the importance of Abbott’s Chicago Defender as the leading “national race paper.” The

Defender was founded in 1905 by Robert Sengstacke Abbott, a Georgian who ran the

first issues of the Defender out of his landlady’s Chicago dining room. As historian

Davarian Baldwin acknowledged, the Defender “crusaded against injustice, coordinated

the Great Migration north, contained one of the first freestanding entertainment sections,

and republished notorious ‘Folks We Can Get Along Without’ cartoons and ‘do’s and

don’ts’ lists aimed primarily at the public-amusement behaviors of migrants.”170 Indeed, at times the Defender read as much like a “how-to” guide on public engagement and behavior as it did a legitimate news source. By 1915, the Defender had an international readership of 230,000.171

The paper was most notorious for regularly adopting the attention-grabbing tactics

of the mainstream “yellow” press, publishing stories on sex, crime, and violence, but it

was no more scandalous than its main competitor, the Afro-American. The Afro-

American’s turn toward sensationalism paid off. Murphy controlled the paper from 1897

until his death in 1922, when it was passed down to his son, Carl. By 1910, the paper had

a respectable circulation of about 2,910, which doubled in the next five years to 7,500 by

1915. Thanks to its sensationalized formatting overhaul, along with an aggressive

distribution and marketing plan, its circulation grew by 600 percent by 1919, to 19,200,

making it the best-selling Black newspaper on the east coast. This growth was spurred on

by the contribution of Ralph Matthews, who joined the staff in the early 1920s and acted

as the “Afro-American’s answer to H.L. Mencken,” acting as theatrical critic, city editor,

and managing editor. Matthews also wrote two popular entertainment articles: “Looking

at the Stars” and “Watching the Big Parade.”172 By 1932, it was a bona fide competitor

with the Defender and the Courier, reaching circulations of over 45,000.173 At its height,

the Afro-American boasted a circulation of nearly 200,000. 174

Robert L. Vann’s Courier began to rival the influence of the Defender and the

Afro-American in the 1930s, employing many of the same tactics those newspapers did.

Vann was previously the founder of another periodical, Black or White, but was brought

in by a group of Methodist clergymen determined to save the failing Courier in 1910.

According to Roland Wolseley, the Pittsburgh Courier set itself apart from the familiar

pattern of the Black newspaper industry (in his words, “printing sensational news for the

sake of sales, running campaigns in the news columns, printing editorials on behalf of

readers, and struggling for advertising”) by attracting and retaining on its staff some of

the most notable and ground-breaking Black journalists of the first half of the twentieth

century, including George S. Schuyler, P.L. Prattis, William G. Nunn, and later Wendell

Smith, whose coverage of Jackie Robinson for the Courier set the stage for the campaign

for desegregation of major league baseball in the Black and alternative presses.175 By

1926, the Courier’s circulation under Vann had risen to close to 50,000; by 1935, it had

overtaken the Defender, selling 100,000 copies on the strength of its extensive coverage

of up-and-coming boxer Joe Louis.176

The Great Depression nearly crippled the Black newspaper industry, as its main

subscribers – working-class, urban Blacks – became among the most adversely affected by the stock market crash. For example, the Defender’s circulation dipped to less than

75,000 – nearly a third of what it was at its highest. Some newspapers, like the Courier,

actually thrived during this period, in large part because they shifted their focus almost

exclusively to coverage of the community’s greatest hero, boxer Joe Louis. Nevertheless,

the Atlanta Daily World emerged to beat the odds to become the country’s first Black

daily newspaper. Wolseley called the Atlanta Daily World “the most important

newspaper founded” between World War I and World War II. Within four years of its

initial publication, the newspaper expanded from weekly to a semi-weekly, then

triweekly, and finally a daily in 1932. Like the Afro-American, the Daily World started

as a family operation. The paper was founded by William Alexander Scott in 1928,

though his span with the paper abruptly ended when he was murdered by an unknown

assailant in front of his home in 1934. The paper was then taken over by Cornelius A.

Scott who, like those in charge of the Savannah Tribune, took a politically conservative

stance in Jim Crow South; the World was “the one exception among the papers that

generally have supported Black revolt” between world wars, when racial tension was

particularly high.177 The World was part of a larger newspaper syndicate established in the South by the Scott family in 1931 which included papers from Alabama, Arkansas,

Georgia, South Carolina, Illinois and Florida.178

Historiography on the Black press has generally focused on a few of the most

largely successful papers, namely the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier,

which were established after 1900, but admirable work on some earlier papers, including

Farrar’s cultural history of the Baltimore Afro-American, published in 1998, have

expanded knowledge of these important earlier newspapers. Consistently, new and

revealing information on individual newspapers and their staffs has been published to

shed a light on the institutional culture of the Black press collectively. However, at

present this collective body of knowledge tends to focus this institutional culture in favor

of closely examining content. Most of the cultural histories published on the Black press

are biographical or encyclopaedic in nature. For example, much of the existing literature

on the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the New York Age focuses on

editors Vann, Abbott, and Fortune, respectively, rather than on delving into the content of

the publications themselves or even discussions about contributing journalists. Other

works, like Wolseley’s Black Press, U.S.A., are comprised of short entries summarizing

the major points of interest for each notable newspaper and, again, focusing largely on

the editor most frequently associated with the publication. Where histories do examine

content, as in Washburn’s excellent Voice of Freedom, the examples the authors drew

from often have to do with broad social issues – such as segregation, voting

disenfranchisement or the Civil Rights Movement – or with the Black press’s reaction to

major newsworthy events. For example, both Washburn and historian Lee Finkle devote

quite a bit of attention to debates within these newspapers surrounding Black

participation in U.S. military efforts in World War I and World War II.179

Previously, few Black press historians paid any attention to the Black press’s

engagement with entertainment culture, though it was a prominent focus of many of these

newspapers. For instance, in writing about filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Robert Jackson

noted that, “Prominent Black newspapers around the country…diligently reported on the scores of new Black film production companies and their products,” but the author does not critique the substance of those discussions. 180 This too is changing; Chris Lamb’s

newly published Conspiracy of Silence, for example, chronicles the Black press’s role in

integrating Major League Baseball. His is one of a few examples of scholarly work that

investigates how entertainment coverage drove social change.

Both cultural historians and celebrity biographers tend to make the assumption

that the Black press was unilaterally supportive of any successful Black public figure.

For instance, in the case of controversial heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, Harvey

Young insisted that, “Evidence of the Black community’s support for the prize fighter

appears in various Black newspapers…which chronicled with great frequency and detail,

the near-daily events in the boxer’s life throughout his championship reign.”181 This

assertion is true; Johnson’s name appears in many “news in brief”-style pieces. These

articles serve to highlight the interest that the Black press had in Johnson, but do not give

a strong indication of what Black journalists made of his tumultuous public life as

expressed in feature articles and editorials.

As previous scholars have noted, the Black press’s main priority was to promote solidarity among the Black community through racial pride and to extol the belief that

“Blacks had the right, just like whites, to determine their own destinies, whether it was in education, work, politics, or anything else.”182 However, as Ralph Matthews noted, “what

others see and forget, a journalist must remember;” therefore, the press had another

function – to make sense of the “big picture” of African American lived experience as it

unfolded in the pages of their newspapers. In discussing the entertainment content of the

Chicago Defender, Mark Dolan suggested that Black newspapers and magazines during

this period as the “staging ground for African American history.”183 The notion that

journalists were tasked with creating a “first draft of history” is especially resonant in

Matthews’s quote as it captures the overall mission of the Black press. Therefore, it is

important to explicate the two underlying assumptions regarding the relationship between

journalism and culture that drive this inquiry into Black press content.

The first assumption guiding this inquiry is that, though the conventions of

journalism and reporting may have changed over time, news has always operated as “a reservoir of stored cultural meanings.”184 Cultural scholars of journalism understand the

news as “a form of culture incorporates assumptions about what matters, what makes

sense, what time and place we live in, and what range of considerations we should take seriously.”185 News stories should be treated as “texts that news organizations produce as

an artifact of culture that represents key values and meanings” whether reporters or

editors are conscious of it at the time.186

The second underlying assumption guiding this inquiry has to do with the charge

that the Black press practiced a divergent type of news reporting – specifically, this

project rejects the notion that that its relationship to broader culture was any different

than that of the mainstream press. According to journalism scholars Juan Gonzalez and

Joseph Torres, the twentieth century Black press “exemplified an aggressive new style of advocacy journalism” that emerged against the backdrop of “a period of breakneck industrial expansion, of a widening gap between rich and poor, and of the rise of an

American colonial empire.”187 Black press scholars have suggested that the Black press flouted “objective” journalism as it developed in the 1920s and 1930s in favor of “civic” or “advocacy” journalism, which was specifically interested in promoting the interests of the African American community in the fight for their civil rights. There is no doubt that

the latter assertion is true, as discussed in this work and in others; the investment in the

fight for civil rights was often unconsciously evoked in the coverage. Yet, the idea of

“objectivity,” as Schudson noted, was a misnomer of sorts – “a natural and progressive

ideology for an aspiring occupational group at a moment when science was God,

efficiency was cherished, and increasingly prominent elites judged partisanship a vestige

of the tribal nineteenth century.”188 “Objectivity,” as it were, was historically situated.

The Black press was certainly activist in nature; sifting through the pages of

Black newspapers reveals a group of journalists and editors across regions, political, and

institutional affiliations and reporting styles all dedicated to the purpose of fighting for

the civil rights of its readership and exposing the unjust and sometimes revolting

treatment of that community under Jim Crow. However, to categorize the Black press as

particularly “un-objective” in comparison with its contemporary mainstream counterpart

is misleading. Rather, as Michael Schudson noted of all journalism, “News is not a mirror

of reality. It is a representation of the world, and all representations are selective.”189 He defined the idea of “objectivity” associated with mainstream news institutions as “an allegiance to rules and procedures created for a world in which even facts were in question …. Facts here are not aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it.”190 At this time, “consensually validated statements” about the world

included ingrained ideas about race and racism. For example, in his comparative reading of lynching reports in the mainstream and Black press of the 1890s, David Mindich argued that “cultural biases cannot be eliminated by ‘objectivity;’” that is, the racism inherent in American society in the late 1890s could not be escaped by simply objectively

67 reporting the facts about lynching.191 Instead, institutional and individual biases against the Black population pervaded narratives that treated lynching as an unfortunate but necessary strategy for “civilized” Whites to regulate the “savagery” of Blacks.192 All news narratives are ingrained with certain point of views and biases that make it impossible to distinguish between what can be considered “objective” reporting.

Therefore, it is a mistake to characterize the Black press as somehow divergent from the norms of journalism at the time; rather, Black press journalists and editors were reporting on their views of the world, which was necessarily viewed through the lens of oppression, with the shared goal of achieving civil rights.

This project approaches the narrative structure of Black press coverage of celebrities in two ways. First, it considers how the Black press approached covering celebrities from the period 1895 through 1935 by taking into account the newsworthy people, events, and issues that were repeatedly evoked. It pays attention to when they were evoked; how their coverage took shape over time; what ideas and themes – or frames – journalists used to describe and explain them; and what their stories suggest about cultural beliefs, values, and aspirations generally. Second, it considers the Black press content that, though viewed through this historical lens, in its own time was actively constructing the collective memory of celebrity culture by evoking past figures, events, and issues to frame then-contemporary news stories.

The term frame was first used by Goffman to describe “social interaction and everyday cognitive structures.”193 Goffman’s frames constituted a system of classification whereby people “actively classify, organize, and interpret our life

experiences to make sense of them.”194 This general concept of frames was also used by

communication scholars to describe the way in which news discourse is packaged and presented to its audiences.195 According to William Gamson, a news frame is “an

implicit organizing idea.”196 Gaye Tuchman argued that news organizations “both

circulate and shape knowledge” by implementing frames that “turn nonrecognizable

happenings or amorphous talk into a discernible event.”197 For Tuchman, a news frame

“organizes everyday reality [and] is part and parcel of everyday reality.”198 News frames

consist of “persistent selection, emphasis and exclusion;” they operate as “tacit little theories about what exists, what happens and what matters.”199

Framing theory is particularly useful for assessing meaning in visual texts.

Drawings, illustrations, photographs, photo-illustrations and other graphic devices, “like text, can operate as framing devices insofar as they make use of various rhetorical tools – metaphors, depictions, symbols – that purport to capture the essence of an issue or event graphically.”200 As Andrew Mendelson argued, “Culture influences the communicative meaning attached to a subject and being part of a culture means seeing the world in similar ways according to cultural myths and ideology.”201 With advancements in

printing technology that allowed for newspapers and magazines to cheaply print pictures

in their pages, Black press newspapers and magazines often relied on visuals to convey

meaning in place of text as a novel and competitive way to attract readers from rival

papers. For example, in the 1920s, the Afro-American began to include on their front

page portraits of noteworthy African-American women. Some of these women were

famous, while others simply paid to have their photograph published. Either way, their

perpetual presence on the front page was no doubt a way for the paper to garner more

(likely male) readers. However, these photos served another purpose: they also seemed

to have dictated beauty ideals and defined sexual norms of Black women of the period.

Framing theory allows for an exploration of the cultural meanings in visual imagery that,

though absent of text, are inherent and collectively understood by audiences. As

Mendelson noted, “cultural ways of seeing obstruct the constructed nature of

photographs, making certain meanings appear to be the only way to interpret a

photograph; even the meanings of gestures, poses, and expressions are highly culture

bound.”202

Robert Entman argued that there is “the stock of commonly evoked frames” that

are simply a shared system of beliefs and common myths among the audience.203

Narrative analysis is a methodological framework that brings into focus the ways in

which these commonly held beliefs and values are articulated across news stories.

Narrative analysis considers what commonly understood tropes, stereotypes, and myths

emerge within the stories told, and consider both what is included in the narrative and

what is excluded, and how the narrative changes over time.204 Like framing theory, narrative analysis treats journalists as conveyors of cultural norms and values; according to S. Elizabeth Bird and Robert Dardenne, “journalists operate like traditional storytellers, using conventional structures to shape events into story – and in doing so define the world in particular ways that reflect and reinforce audiences’ notions of reality.”205 For many scholars, “the impulse to tell stories is a universal characteristic,”

and studies of journalism have explored these narratives in terms of formalized

structures; as extensions of oral and folklore narratives; and as myths.206

Stories offer their readers definitions, judgments, and lessons regarding the world

around them. In writing about journalism, Carolyn Kitch argued that narrative analysis may be employed to “understand the connotative as well as denotative meanings of language and imagery – what is suggested generally about culture as well as what is literally presented. ”207 The choice of narrative structure is also ideological; according to

Emily West, “the choice of what stories to tell and how to tell them involve judgments

about what is important, and what is right and wrong.”208 According to Walter Fisher,

narrators have a purpose behind how they structure their stories; a given narrative is

“advisory; it says how one should think, feel and act in a given case where certainty cannot be achieved.”209

Relatedly, this project considers the narrative structure of Black press content

through a memory studies theoretical framework; that is, it considers narratives that

emerge as ways to remember or commemorate past events with contemporary needs and

goals in mind. According to Maurice Halbwachs, the past is not preserved in individual

thought but rather is “reconstructed on the basis of the present” based on collective

frameworks,210 which are “the instruments used by the collective memory to reconstruct

an image of the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thoughts of

society.”211 Eviatar Zerubavel argued that collective memories are constructed to

“integrat[e]…various different personal pasts into a single common past that all members

of a particular community come to remember collectively.”212 However, though a

71 favored version of the past may emerge for a certain community, there is continual contestation over the correct way to interpret the past and even what ought to be remembered.213 Barbie Zelizer argued that collective memory is processual – the act of remembering is not an event but a continually developing process to “account for transformations that occur within the act of remembering.”214 Memories of past figures, events and issues in news coverage are evoked when journalists are attempting to explain

“the causes of the present dilemma” – these commonly understood narrative tropes emerge as another way for journalists to make meaning.215

The Black press was no doubt a force in the collective mindset of the Black community during this period, and by shedding light on the cultural meanings embedded within the coverage, we may gain a greater understanding of how the idea of “celebrity” was constructed by the Black press as a way of conceptualizing critical citizenship for

Black Americans through the pages of these important papers. The Black press clearly engaged with the entertainment of its time, and celebrities operated as vehicles for expressing the collective achievements and concerns – of essentially negotiating the collective representation – of the African American community. By shifting the focus of inquiry to the content of these articles, it becomes clear that, for Black journalists, Black entertainers were a representative entry point for talking about issues of critical citizenship in a parlance common across their diverse readership.

The burgeoning celebrity culture developing in the early twentieth century provided fodder for this mission as more and more Black entertainers emerged to the delight of Black, and later white mainstream, audiences. Black press coverage of

athletes, actors, singers and musicians betrayed the hope that celebrity meant more than

just being merely “entertaining” or diversionary. By focusing their readers’ attention on

the best segments of the African American community, Black press editors hoped these

achievements would help Black community members to define their own roles as free

citizens.216 The question that drives this project is how did celebrities’ achievements fall

in line with journalists’ overriding mission of defining critical citizenship in Black newspapers? What symbolic role did celebrity culture play in the fight for civil rights?

CHAPTER 4

A “RAINBOW OF HOPE” – THE ROLES OF BLACK PRODUCERS, PERFORMERS, AND JOURNALISTS IN THE CONTESTATION OF NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES IN ENTERTAINMENT, 1895-1935

To the Negro performer, that means much. It means that notwithstanding the suppression; the prejudice; the handicaps and the struggle directly due to race; that the pinnacle of every American performer’s ambition may be reached. This show is a “rainbow” of hope and encouragement to every artist of the race.” – Baltimore Afro-American on Shuffle Along, 1921217

For the Black community, participation in entertainment culture represented a new opportunity in the fight for civil rights. Over time, the Black community increasingly used entertainment as a site for community-building, expressions of race pride and racial uplift, and activism – that is, for the negotiation of critical citizenship. The cultural influence of the Harlem Renaissance played a significant part in the development of a unique “Black aesthetic,” as entertainment became “an especially hopeful and harrowing site” for African American expression.218 African American celebrity culture, therefore,

developed as an attempt to both offer Black audiences a way in which to connect to each

other and also as a means to collectively express their community’s “full and complex

humanity” through performance.219 To understand the ways in which discussions of

African American celebrity culture in the Black press were framed in terms of critical

citizenship, we must first understand the ways in which African Americans participated

in early iterations of entertainment culture.

Like every other aspect of African American lived experience during this period,

participation in entertainment operated under the Jim Crow regime, both economically

and symbolically oppressing Black citizens. Stereotyping played an influential and damaging role in determining how Black Americans experienced entertainment.

Stereotyping, according to scholars Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, was “a way of seeing

based on superficial triggers” which was a “persistent social, cultural and mental

practice” tied to immigration, industrialization, and urbanization beginning in the early

1800s. It was a process by which groups of people became “reduced to a few essentials,

fixed in nature by a few, simplified characteristics.”220 Negative stereotypes of African

Americans emerged as early as 1830 with Blackface minstrelsy shows which were

characterized by what African American Studies scholar Kevern Verney called “the

appropriation of African American culture by white entertainers in a way that

maximized” negative imagery associated with Black collective identity.221 Traveling

minstrel shows, and later vaudeville shows, continued to play on negative Black

stereotypes through the remainder of the century, even as African American performers

were slowly being integrated into performance troupes like Ziegfeld’s Follies. According

to Bert Williams’ biographer Camille Forbes, minstrelsy “provided its urban white

audiences a venue in which to release through laughter their uncomfortable feeling about

Blacks – who lived in cities among them,” operating as “a space in which whites could

reject the notion that Blacks needed to be incorporated into society…by demonstrating

Blacks’ immanent inferiority.”222

In the United States, industrialization and urbanization exacerbated the use of

racial stereotypes as a way to make sense of the changing world. Along with the

emancipation of millions of African American slaves, the influx of millions of

immigrants from Ireland, Eastern Europe, Southern Italy, and China between 1850 and

the early 1900s posed a threat to “those ‘old immigrants’ coming from British and

Teutonic stock,” who “feared that their control over America’s future was on the wane,

soon to be supplanted by members of less advanced races.”223

The increasing emphasis on the visual nature of entertainment through the

development of first photography and later motion picture technology strongly influenced

prevailing attitudes toward race, though not positively. Visual entertainment quickly

became a reservoir for one-dimensional, offensive and false depictions of African

Americans that served only to feed into mainstream assumptions about a racial hierarchy

in which Whites were at the top and Blacks were at the bottom. During this period

“images of African Americans in U.S. mass culture continued to reflect the needs and

insecurities of white Americans rather than to represent the realities of Black life.”224

Writing about stereotypes in advertising at the turn of the century, William Van DeBurg noted that African Americans were subjected to visual representations that portrayed them as “feeble-willed noble savages, comically musical minstrel figures, and dehumanized brutes,”225 which served as the rationale for denying them equal political,

social, and economic participation. In 1922, Walter Lippmann’s work, Public Opinion, argued that racial stereotypes were “an inexorable by-product of the surrounding culture, a perceptual reflex that imposed itself between people’s eyes and the world they believed they were seeing.” In recounting this tumultuous period, Ewen and Ewen argued that,

“These stereotypes provided people with narratives, stories that encouraged them,

without reflection, to see certain things, in predetermined ways, regardless of

countervailing evidence.”226

Visual entertainment was designed to subvert any gains Black citizens may have

made, not only politically and socially, but also psychologically. As historian Henry

Sampson pointed out, even performances by Blacks fed into negative stereotypes of the race. According to Sampson, “it was the widespread popularity of [“coon” songs], performed by Blacks and Whites in blackface, that did much to sustain and legitimize the negative racial stereotypes that eventually became a deeply embedded theatrical tradition significantly influencing the way Blacks have been portrayed” in entertainment.227

Performed by the likes of Ernest Hogan and the comedy duo Bert Williams and George

Walker, “coon” songs and their accompanying Cake Walk dance served to both introduce and undermine Black performers’ place into entertainment culture. Productions like singer M. Sisserieretta Jones’s (known by her stage name “Black Patti”) “At Jolly

‘Coony’-ey Island” did little to challenge prevailing impressions of the race, but instead commercialized negative images of Black citizens. The early recording industry also played upon these stereotypes by further popularizing “coon” songs.228 As in minstrelsy

itself, a handful of early Black performers – like George Johnson, Bert Williams and

George Walker, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers – participated in the industry but were

expected to fulfill the stereotyped roles laid out before them by mainstream culture.

This system was not in any way mutually beneficial. Though by the end of the

1890s, “coon” songs and productions were “all the rage,” there were no Black-owned or -

operated theatres, no Black music publishing companies, and no Black booking agencies.

Black audiences, especially in the South, were rarely allowed in vaudeville theatres, and in the North, they were exclusively relegated to balconies rather than the better parquet and orchestra sections.229 By the 1910s, Blacks had broken into the operations side of the

theatre business, but in relatively low numbers in comparison to whites. For example,

Sampson estimated that 93 Black entrepreneurs held jobs as theatre owners, managers

and officials compared with 11,209 Whites. There were 1,279 Blacks employed as actors as compared with 26,877 Whites.230 Blacks were relegated only to one-dimensional

public parody performances – they were not able to reap the benefit of active

involvement with the production, marketing, or distribution of their labor.

Racist stereotypes of African Americans in mainstream entertainment were especially problematic because “they coincided with the systematic introduction of racial segregation that reduced the scope for interracial contact.” 231 While Black citizenss were

being unfairly portrayed in entertainment culture, they were also being segregated from

it. Black spectators were denied access in all arenas of public amusements, from parks,

circuses and tent shows to sporting events, both as spectators and participants. Though

some early Black athletes succeeded in crossing the color line in sports such as

horseracing and boxing, sports historians David Wiggins and Patrick Miller noted that

“the vast majority of Black people were excluded from mainstream organizations and

broad-based municipal associations and were thus compelled to create their own sporting

institutions.”232 As segregation became commonplace, these reductive and often negative

images of African Americans were the only representations of the Black community

available to white Americans.

Negative stereotypes followed African Americans wherever they had a public

presence; even their most triumphant moments were tarnished by race prejudice. For

example, Jack Johnson’s victory over Jim Jeffries in the 1910 “Fight of the Century” was

marred by negative publicity that reduced Johnson – a smart, skilled, and patient as well

as physically intimidating fighter – to merely a stereotypical “brute.”233 According to

Johnson’s biographer Randy Roberts the promotion of the fight was designed purposely

to play upon race tensions, and mainstream newspapers largely bought into the

dichotomy of the “hope of the white race” versus “Negroes’ deliverer.”234 Yet, as W.

Fitzhugh Brundage noted, in the introduction to his edited work on early African

American entertainment, every public performance by an African American was a potential political act,235 and Johnson’s victory over Jeffries galvanized the Black

community. It represented a rupture in the typical dynamic between Blacks and Whites in

public space, temporarily revising the narratives of chattel slavery and minstrelsy.

The primary goal of Black newspapers was to frame Johnson’s victory in terms race

pride and racial uplift while undermining the negative publicity the outspoken boxer

received in the mainstream press. Johnson’s biographer Geoffrey Ward argued that some

Black newspapers were reticent to discuss the fight in terms of race “hoping trouble could

be forestalled if people saw [the fight] as simply a contest between two heavyweight

boxers who happened to be Black and white.”236 However, the Black press’s support for

Johnson leading up to the fight was unequivocal – several articles chronicled his strength,

agility, and youth as guarantees of victory over the older, slower, paunchier Jeffries.

Rather than espousing his physical attributes directly, Black newspapers tended to enlist

79 boxing “experts” to attest to Johnson’s overall athletic superiority without specifically evoking his physical demeanor. For instance, the Baltimore Afro-American declared,

Johnson has whipped every man he has been asked to since gaining the championship, and he will have the title when his bout with Jeffries is over. Johnson is great now. Jeffries was great. That is the whole story.237

The Cleveland Gazette claimed that, “The consensus of opinion of the best experts who saw [Jeffries] in Cleveland last week – ‘Doc’ Payne, the ‘Napa’ trainer, says Johnson will win.”238

The experts were correct. On July 4, 1910 in Reno, Nevada, Johnson beat Jeffries to a pulp before being stopped by Jeffries’ handlers in the fifteenth round, just before

Johnson could knock him out. The Black press’s reaction was, as expected, celebratory, and in the immediate aftermath Black journalists framed the victory in terms of race pride. According to the Savannah Tribune, “Now that it is all over, we are glad to know that the best man won, that the champion of the world is represented be a Negro, and that a fair field and no favor was the order of the day.”239 The Amsterdam News argued, “The negro race rejoices over the victory, and why not? The white people would have done the same if the results had been opposite. We needed a Booker T. Washington, a Kelly

Miller, a Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and certainly a Jack Johnson.”240 By placing Johnson alongside Washington, Miller, and Dunbar – race leaders – Black journalists acknowledged the symbolic power Johnson, as an athlete and celebrity, held as well.

The aftermath of the fight was bittersweet as the fear of race clashes as a result of the fight – no matter what the outcome – was soon realized. As the Black community celebrated, fights broke out all over the country, in urban centers and in small towns in

both the North and the South. The extent of the post-fight violence is unclear. The

Savannah Tribune noted at the time, “the tension that existed everywhere vented itself

chiefly in street scuffles …In no cases did the brawls amount to a serious race riot.”241

Ward recounted three lynchings, though accounts have varied, and there is no doubt that several more were at least attempted. In all, at least 11 and as many as 26 people were killed during the post-fight riots, with hundreds more injured. For Black journalists, the violent reaction of many whites to Johnson’s victory was no surprise. The Cleveland

Gazette pointed out that “The mob spirit seemed to rise whenever a negro cheered for

Johnson after the fight, or permitted his exultation over the victory to grow to an extent that made it offensive.”242 The riots were framed as simply status quo race prejudice – as

the white population’s predictable rejection of African American achievement.

The footage of a Black man beating a white champion into submission was so

horrifying to white audiences that, as a result of the riots, Congress placed a ban on the

inter-state shipment of all boxing films, just to prevent the image of a triumphant Johnson

looming over a prostrate Jeffries from garnering a national audience. According to then-

Congressman S.A. Roddenberry of Georgia, “No man descended from the old Saxon race

can look upon that kind of contest without abhorrence and disgust,” calling the Johnson-

Jeffries fight “the grossest instance of base fraud and bogus effort at a fair fight between a

Caucasian brute and an African biped beast that has ever taken place.”243 In

contemplating the symbolic value of Black bodily performance during this period,

Harvey Young argued that the still image of Johnson looming over Jeffries, reproduced in newspapers and magazines all over the country at the time, represented the “reclaiming

and reappropriation” of the “disempowered Black body.”244 Young’s main contention

was that the stillness of the Black body historically represented Black bodies

shackled together, either loosely or densely packed in cargo holds; forced to stand motionless on auction blocks as they were poked, prodded, groped, and inspected by doctors and potential ‘masters;’ tied to whipping posts on plantations; placed in jails and prisons at disproportionate rates in the post-emancipation period to the present day.245

Johnson, in that position of power over his white opponent, publicly became “the master

of ‘Mr. Jeffries’” – a horrific symbol to those, like Roddenberry, who were determined to devalue and disenfranchise Black citizens.246

Visual imagery continued to play an increasingly vital role in the struggle for civil

rights as the Age of Spectatorship began to develop in the United States thanks in large

part to the development of the film industry and popularity of urban neighborhood

nickelodeons in the 1910s. By 1900, 15-second “films” were regularly shown in

vaudeville theaters and Penny Arcades. By 1912, feature films were being shown in

nickelodeons to nearly 5 million moviegoers per day. In conjunction with the

development of early film, the idea of public recognition, or “celebrity,” was established

as actors, singers, musicians, and athletes were increasingly present and visible

entertainers. 247 Visual entertainment quickly became a site where stereotyped depictions

of racial groups took hold of the collective imagination.

Film scholars have identified a few of the standard stereotypes of African

Americans that were adapted from the minstrel tradition and translated onto the screen.

These stereotypes include the “Tom,” based on Harriett Beecher Stowe’s protagonist in

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a “submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind” type

that is seemingly content with his inferior position; the “coon,” or comedic buffoon; the

“tragic mulatto,” who is often female and falls victim to “a divided racial inheritance;”

emblematic of the “problem” of miscegenation; the “mammy,” a robust older woman

who often acts as comedic counterpoint to the coon character; and the “buck” or “brute,”

“a barbaric Black out to raise havoc,” and the character with whom D.W. Griffith’s 1915

The Birth of a Nation was largely concerned.248

The apex of the pre-Hollywood film industry was marked by the 1915 release of

The Birth of a Nation, a racist epic whereby southern Night Riders (the early iteration of

the Ku Klux Klan) were depicted as heroes and defenders of “white womanhood, white

honor and white glory” against villainous Black perpetrators in the Reconstruction-era

South, which was enthusiastically received by critics and audiences despite its racially

inflammatory content.249 Considered the “most slanderous anti-Negro movie ever

released,”250 the film was an “advanced technical rendering of the traditional stereotypes of docile, loyal slaves, glad to be a part of the benign, paternal slave system” depicted

against Black men as “brute and vicious rapists of white women.”251 The power of

Griffith’s epic was almost entirely visual; Griffith made a spectacle out of “a vast

reservoir of racial fear within his audience.”252 Contemporary film critic Richard Brody

called the film “the founding work of cinematic realism.”253 For African Americans,

according to John Hope Franklin, “the film did more than any other single thing to

nurture and promote the myth of Black domination and debauchery during

reconstruction.” He noted that “lynchings and other forms of violence increased”

subsequent to its release.254

The NAACP mounted successful boycotts and demonstrations against the film,

and managed to get different scenes cut in different cities, with five states and nineteen

cities banning the film altogether for fear of riots. The Crisis monitored these censorship

efforts in its pages – in one issue even offering its readers a rundown of which specific

scenes were cut.255 In the same issue, a Crisis contributor noted, “It is impossible to

overestimate the importance of such alertness on the part of Massachusetts, and we cannot too seriously impress upon other states the need of continued and determined action. Our fight is not over.”256

The Black press’s response to Birth of a Nation was intensely critical, and the

Defender led the campaign against the film. For example, the October 2, 1915 edition

announced in a large banner headline, “Birth of a Nation Kicked Out of Ohio.” In

“Supreme Court Rules Out Birth of a Nation,” the writer claimed, “Farreaching decision

will benefit race wherever attempt is made to show film.”257 Journalist Evans Ford

proclaimed,

The entire picture is one for the purpose of creating race prejudice and in it is seen a complete exaggeration of history…The picture is shown simply to create prejudice and stir up strife and it is beyond my reason to find how the great men and women of my race and of this great metropolis can rest contented and submit to such an indignity.258

Other newspapers soon joined in. According to the Afro-American, “Criticisms agree that

the film, while purporting to be, is not in reality historically true, and that the ‘pack of

pictured lies’ is produced for no other reason than to increase racial hatred now

existing.”259

The film had a lasting impact on all audiences, and lingered in theatres (in cities

where it was not barred) for years after its initial 1915 release. As late as 1933 the

Philadelphia Tribune boasted that they had successfully blocked a screening of the film at the Spruce Theatre in west Philadelphia, having responded to a reader’s letter expressing concern over the film. At the end of the article the Tribune noted that “The

TRIBUNE is always alive to the best interests of the city in general and its citizens of color in particular and hopes that others knowing of matters which unfavorably affect our

Negro citizens will do as did the reader mentioned above.”260 The Black press followed

Birth wherever it appeared, refusing to give in quietly to its racist message, despite the

film’s popularity and its increasing influence over the nascent film industry.

The success of Birth of a Nation in many ways forestalled the emergence of the

“star system” that emerged across the film industry and in newspapers and magazines to

promote and sell individual personalities as “celebrities.” Joshua Gamson argued that,

because of the popularity of the film, “studios began to draw on established actors from the stage to promote these new, more expensive films.”261 Scholars have suggested that

1915, the year the film was released, was a turning point for celebrity culture when “the

presentation of movie actors…shifted from a focus on their acting life to a sole focus on

the actor as a larger-than-life entity, an image.”262 Stars were increasingly promoted by

studios to help finance more expensive films. Lillian Gish, one of the stars of Birth, was

among one of the first products of this new marketing system. By the 1920s, film studios

were capitalizing not only on technological innovations to make feature-length

productions, but were also marketing to audiences actors themselves as commodities.263

Movie studios quickly realized that “audiences responded better to a personality than to a

movie title.”264 Despite the critical thematic issues surrounding Birth of a Nation, in part

at least, the culture of celebrity that developed during this time was largely influenced by

its success.

Celebrity culture found a particularly welcome home in urban newspapers, where

celebrities themselves functioned to symbolically connect alienated urban audiences

together. As P. David Marshall argued, coverage of these stars provided “a constellation

of recognizable and familiar people who filled the gap and provided points of

commonality for people to reconnect both with celebrities and with each other.”265

Audiences’ connections with celebrities became important markers of identity, often sharing in the same beliefs and values as their audiences.

“Celebrities” were not relegated only to actors. Filmed versions of boxing matches were also popular with urban audiences, making stars out of the athletes featured, and with the development of sound technology in the late 1920s, musical performance became an important part of the film industry as well. By the early 1920s, the most popular celebrities were actors, musicians, and athletes.266 Audiences sought

out personal connections to celebrities, and as Andrew Mendelson noted, journalists

served to “confirm the real person behind the image” presented on the screen or playing

field.267 Scholars Richard Dyer, David Marshall, Joshua Gamson, and others have

acknowledged that celebrity culture was “an acknowledgement of the public’s power –

indeed, the celebrity is in many ways the embodiment of the collective power of an

invested audience in a particular person.”268 Marshall argued that celebrity profiles in

newspapers and magazines “began to change from carefully choreographed studies of

public moments involving these people to revelations about their private lives and how

that intersected with their public lives.”269 As celebrities became more pervasive, the

public’s desire to consume information about them became greater. Audiences sought out

the story “behind” the star.

Scholars have noted that journalists who covered celebrities during this period

adhered to a standard story, or narrative, which provided for readers a symbolic

connection between themselves and their stars. In the pages of newspapers and

magazines, stars were lifted from the context of their public persona and instead portrayed as “prettified versions of the folks who lived just down the block.”270 The so- called “success myth” became integral to the perpetuation of fame, and a means through which to invade celebrities’ private lives and pasts. According to Dyer, the myth relied on four components: first, that ordinariness is integral to stardom; second, that the star system “rewards talent and ‘specialness’” that is discovered within the context of an otherwise ordinary life; third, that a star’s career is based on “lucky breaks;” and finally that a star’s success can be sustained only through hard work and professionalism.

Inherent in the success myth is the belief that “the class system, the old-boy network, does not apply to America.”271 News stories about celebrities emphasized the

commonalities between the star and his or her audience. As Jackie Stacey noted, “one the

one hand, [audiences] value difference for taking them into a world to which their desires

could potentially be fulfilled; on the other, they value similarity for enabling them to

recognize qualities they already have.”272

Inherent in the notion of mainstream celebrity is the promise of upward social and

economic mobility – the hope that hard work plus God-given talent will equal financial success and public admiration. Marshall argued that, “Celebrities represented heightened examples of individual achievement and transformation and thereby challenged the rigidity of class-based societies by presenting the potential to transcend those categories.”273 But that kind of mobility during the early twentieth century was all but

closed off to Black Americans. Under Jim Crow segregation and discrimination, the

likelihood of “transcending” their station as second-class citizens deprived of basic rights

was miniscule for most.

Therefore, the “success myth” of the mainstream star system could not apply to

African American lived experience. Black Americans did not engage with entertainment

simply as a means of fantasy, diversion, or escape (though those aspects were, to a

degree, enjoyed by Black audiences). Rather, African Americans approached

entertainment and resulting ideas about celebrity primarily as opportunities to counter

reductive and negative stereotypes prevalent in mainstream depictions of the race –

entertainment was a means to “provide alternative images of themselves.”274 As African

American Studies scholar Waldo Martin noted, “Precisely because African Americans

have had more control over their own culture than many other aspects of their world,

culture has always been a critical battleground in their freedom struggle.”275 However,

the journey to a fully formed sense of critical citizenship in entertainment culture was a

long and sometimes tumultuous one, as the formation of a visual and thematic “Black

aesthetic” was negotiated, contested, and compromised.

Despite their desire to create what film historian Thomas Cripps labeled a “Black

aesthetic” – that is, a brand of artistic expression that worked inter-textually across genres and embodied Black cultural values, experiences, and commonalities – most early attempts by Black producers and performers to create a separate, autonomous version of

Black-centered entertainment fell short during this period. Lack of resources, experience, and opportunity all hindered its development early on. Cripps argued that, in response to the Birth of a Nation debacle, a handful of Black filmmakers and actors attempted to create a Black aesthetic by making films financed and cast by African Americans only, focusing on plotlines related to Black culture and experience. The so-called “race films” that resulted from this handful of production companies “shared the common goals of producing movies with Black investments in plotlines, Black characterizations with human dimensions, dramatic conflict based upon the facts of American racial arrangements, and a conscious effort to make the tools of the filmmaker speak to Black needs.”276 However, many of the race film companies folded due to bankruptcy, and

many films never went beyond the prospectus phase of production. The Lincoln Motion

Picture Company lasted the longest, from 1916 through 1921, but folded when founding

partner Noble Johnson left the company to pursue a career as a Hollywood extra. Oscar

Micheaux, a Black independent filmmaker, enjoyed some success in the 1930s, but only

because he agreed to accept funding from white producers, severely comprising the Black

film aesthetic he was trying to establish.277

Not all attempts to create a Black aesthetic failed, and increasingly African

Americans found some measure of success in creating successful institutions of

entertainment on their own terms. For example, Black show business was transformed in

the 1910s with the opening of Robert Motts’ Pekin Theatre in Chicago, which was the first evidence that “a well-managed theatre, located in a Black community and presenting clean, first-class entertainment to predominantly Black audiences, could be an immensely profitable exercise.”278 Several years later, in 1919, E.C. Brown and Andrew Stevens,

Jr., successful Philadelphia bankers, followed suit and opened the Dunbar Theatre.

Under the direction of John Gibson (who bought the failing theatre from Brown and

Stevens in 1921), the Dunbar reached great success.279

Early attempts to fashion a Black aesthetic in theatre reveal the degree to which

Black creators and producers struggled to meet the needs and desires of their commercial

audience; compensate for insufficient funding and industry support; and craft a product

that successfully embodied the experience of Black Americans. One of the first Black-

centered productions to achieve this balance was Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s Shuffle

Along. In April 1921, the Dunbar hosted the musical production, which was co-produced

by vaudeville team and Pekin Theatre alums Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, and

written by up-and-coming composers Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. Miller, Lyles, Sissle,

and Blake had a larger vision for Shuffle Along, though, and with the financial support

from a white producer, Al Mayer, and the Cort theatrical family, the musical became the

first Black-centered Broadway production, debuting at the Cort Theatre on May 23,

1921.280 Shuffle Along was based on Miller and Lyles’ “Mayor of Dixie” vaudeville

routine, and was a combination of slapstick comedy, song, and dance.281 The

Philadelphia Tribune advertised the musical, noting that “’Shuffle Along’ will be here

for one week only, with matinee every day, and is headed for Broadway.”282

Tim Brooks, writing about Black musicians’ participation in the early recording

industry, noted, “Black musical theatre had been practically moribund since the days of

Williams and Walker” in the early 1900s, and Broadway in particular “had shown little

interest in Black talent of any type, aside from old-timer Bert Williams, the token Black

comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies.”283 The Black press closely followed Shuffle’s

Broadway run, as it had regularly covered theatre news since the opening of Mott’s Pekin

Theatre. Shuffle represented a real triumph for the Black community. As the Afro-

American acknowledged:

“Shuffle Along” is an established artistic success; without regard to the commercial possibilities, which are great. To the Negro performer, that means much. It means that notwithstanding the suppression; the prejudice; the handicaps and the struggle directly due to race; that the pinnacle of every American performer’s ambition may be reached. This show is a “rainbow” of hope and encouragement to every artist of the race.”284

The success of Shuffle Along, which at its height made about $9,000 per week,285 was a

significant achievement. Shuffle Along’s success laid the groundwork for later Black-

centered theatrical productions through the 1920s and 1930s including Sissle and Blake’s

Chocolate Dandies, Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds, and Green Pastures (1929), Broadway’s

first all-Black production. These productions established the careers of stars such as

Josephine Baker, Fredi Washington, Ethel Waters, and Paul Robeson, among others.

The success of Shuffle created a genre all its own – what Broadway historian

Larry Stempel called a “Black musical,” a term that “underscores both the significance of

an African American presence in musical theatre and its separation from the cultural

mainstream – a presence and an absence, as it were.”286 Stempel argued that Shuffle’s

success “effectively legitimized the Black musical as commercially viable entertainment

in the American cultural mainstream.”287 Its stars were borrowed directly from the stages

of Harlem nightclubs and cabarets, but the final production had little to do with the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance espoused by local writers and activists. Rather, Shuffle was far

more structurally similar to the minstrelsy tradition; it featured musical and comedic elements, as well as extravagant dance numbers, and subverted or at times all together disregarded a narrative plot. From a contemporary perspective it is tempting to dismiss the cultural impact of Shuffle, but in its own time it was immensely important to Black urban audiences who, for the first time, enjoyed a production that at least attempted to encapsulate their own values, beliefs, and experiences.

Shuffle’s success inspired a new generation of Black producers and performers, who began to craft increasingly successful Black-centered productions as they embraced

feelings of Harlem Renaissance-era race pride and connected more intimately with their

African roots. The Black aesthetic that early artists like Sissle and Blake had attempted to create did emerge, but to the chagrin of many Black journalists, was quickly

commodified and sold to White audiences. As the Courier’s James Bowen lamented,

“White actors, actresses, and bands are commercializing Negro subjects every day.”288

Indeed, the roaring twenties saw an increased interest in African American music, with white audiences regularly flocking to New York’s Harlem neighborhood to hear the syncopated arrangements of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong. Jazz music was appropriated by the white mainstream as early as 1924 by the Paul Whiteman

Band, despite the fact that prominent Black ensembles in Chicago and New York were

being paid less to play the same arrangements.

Harlem in the 1920s was the locus of Black-centered cultural production, as

writers and poets, editors and journalists, and singers, actors and athletes congregated

there at the exclusive parties thrown by Madam A’Leila Walker and in cabarets and night

clubs all over town. Black newspapers around the country paid attention to Harlem,

though the seemingly unbridled hedonism of the area was overwhelming and

disconcerting. The Courier referred to Harlem as the “Gotham underworld.” Marvel

Cooke of the New York Amsterdam News labeled Harlem audiences as a “whistling, wise-

cracking, gum-snapping, foot-stomping” group who too often “mistakes smut for art.”289

Jazz music became a particularly fruitful yet controversial site for the emergence

of a Black aesthetic, as it became increasingly popular in Harlem – its adopted home. In

1927, The Jazz Singer debuted in theatres as the first successfully marketed sound motion

picture. According to Cripps, talkies

…revived Black dilemmas of aesthetics; for while there was white monopoly over cinema production, the rage for Blacks on the screen was made possible by Black music. For years Negro intellectuals and leaders had been divided by the sticky aesthetic problem presented by Black music: Were Negroes uniquely musical and rhythmic?290

The popularity of jazz music set the stage for the development of Black-centered

productions in other media, such as theatre and later film, but perpetuated reductive

notions about Blacks by suggesting that, as Cripps put it, they were “uniquely musical

and rhythmic.”

Often, when the white mainstream appropriated some measure of Black culture,

the resulting product harkened back to the well-worn, problematic stereotypes that

continued to plague Black citizens. For example, in August of 1929, a new radio show

(originated on Chicago local radio as The Sam n’ Henry Show) was picked up nationally

by NBC. Amos n’ Andy was created by two white entertainers, Freeman Gosden and

Charles Correll, and centered on the experiences of two bumbling working-class Black

migrants in the North.291 According to Verney, the cultural resonance of Amos n’ Andy

was twofold: one the one hand, the legitimately witty dialogue chronicled the “transition

from rural to urban life, an experience that many Americans shared for real in the 1920s,”

and was especially popular among Black working-class audiences. However, the show –

capitalizing on the popularity of African American-centered art – also relied on

stereotypes in order to convey humor. According to Verney, “The well-meaning but

gullible Amos was a modern version of the ‘Jim Crow’ character of the 1830s…Similarly

Andy, who was lazy and ignorant, but also domineering and self-important, shared many of the traits of the ‘Zip Coon.’”292

The Black press’s reaction to Amos n’ Andy was varied and complicated. On the

one hand, newspapers like the Philadelphia Tribune saw the success of the radio program

as indicative of white American audiences’ increasing interest in African American

culture. The Tribune wrote, “From coast to coast everybody is talking about Amos n’

Andy. These two comedians are cashing in on the widespread desire for Negro

entertainment. The public wants to be amused. They will pay for it.” Later, the article

advised Black readers to cash in on the trend: “Negroes had better be up and doing before

the public reaches the conclusion that a white man with a Black face can give them Negro

entertainment better than those who are permanently Black.”293 The New York

Amsterdam News was similarly equivocal about the cultural merit of the program. In

“Why Amos n’ Andy Make ‘Em Like It,” the author spent most of the article marveling

at how the actors, Correll and Gosden, pulled off the many varied impressions that they

presented in the program. 294 Other newspapers were not as complimentary. For

example, the Pittsburgh Courier reprinted remarks from Reverend William J. Walls,

which condemned those who listen to the program as “laughing themselves into semi-

slavery;”295 however, the author of the article opted to not weigh in on the program

himself. The Black press’s response to the popularity of Amos ‘n Andy – which at the

height of its popularity had 40 million listeners – was tentative at best.296

There are strong indications that the show represented fragmentation along class

lines within the Black community, which Black newspapers had some trouble

negotiating. Amos n’ Andy was popular with urban, working class audiences who could,

on some level, identify with the everyday experiences of the two main characters.297 The

characters of Amos and Andy represented perhaps the only iteration of Black workers’

own identity they had experienced in entertainment. However, for educated Black

listeners, Amos n’ Andy represented everything that was erroneous about mainstream

culture’s (mis)understanding of Blacks. On February 15, 1930, in a letter to the editor of the Afro-American, Howard University student Clarence LeRoy Mitchell lamented that

Black audiences “enjoy hearing Amos ‘n Andy tell us how ignorant we are, we are not only as ‘patient as a jackass,’ but just about as sensible,” and that the show represented

“the white man’s lack of knowledge of our better selves.”298 A few weeks later, staff

writer Roy Wilkens retorted, “I ask you if the suppression of Amos and Andy will make

Emmett Scott known to any greater number of people in Washington, D.C., or Peoria,

Illinois? ...If Negroes turn their dials, boycott the Black Crow records and read the New

Republic instead of the Saturday Evening Post, would the ‘better selves’ be any more prominent or of any more use than they are now?”299 Amos n’ Andy presented an identity

crisis not only for Black audiences, but for Black newspapers as well, who were torn

between espousing their ideals of critical citizenship and staying commensurate with the

attitudes of their working class readership.

As the 1930s wore on into the Depression years, “a new social consciousness had

infiltrated the motion picture industry” which, albeit clumsily, attempted to rectify its

previously unfair treatment of Black citizens.300 According to film historian Donald

Bogle, “Roosevelt’s election, the New Deal, the growing liberalism of the country, and the Depression itself had brought to American films a new world view and a new social order whereby many of the old racial properties were starting to be discarded.”301

Imitation of Life, starring Louis Beavers and Fredi Washington, came out in theatres in

1934, and challenged stereotypes of Blacks in a popular Hollywood film that was overall warmly received by both Black and white audiences. Imitation was very much a product of the Harlem Renaissance; the author of the novel on which the movie was based,

Fannie Hurst, was one of Zora Neale Hurston’s white patrons, and had invited her fellow author to live with her as her secretary, friend, and “driving companion.” According to

Cary Wintz, Hurston was the inspiration for Hurst’s novel.302

Imitation of Life wasn’t necessarily a rejection of racial stereotypes; as Verney

noted, Beavers as Delilah embodied “the part of a loyal and plump family cook,” typical

of the “mammy” figure, while Washington as Peola fell victim “to her desire, as a tragic

mulatto, to be accepted as white.”303 In the story, two mothers – Bea, who was white, and

her Black maid, Delilah – went into business together to promote Delilah’s family

pancake recipe as a means to support their daughters. Though the pancake mix became a

great success that allowed both women to live comfortably, Delilah stayed on as Bea’s

maid. Delilah’s light-skinned daughter, Peola, resented her identity as an African-

American, and disowned her mother in a vain attempt to live as a white woman, only to

return to mourn the death of her deserted and heartbroken mother.

Imitation was wildly successful with audiences; it became the highest-grossing film of 1934.304 The Chicago Defender proclaimed, “The story is great; the directing

marvelous and the acting almost unbelievable. ‘Imitation of Life’ is a film that brings facts home to you in drama that is superb. See it.”305 Despite their relatively stereotypical roles, the Black press feted both Washington and Beavers. The Kansas City Plaindealer called Beavers’ role as Delilah, “one of the most important ever held in a picture by a sepia artist.”306 H.S. Murphy of The Atlanta Daily World commented that “Undoubtedly

Louis Beavers and Fredi Washington steal the whole show from Claudette Colbert and

Warren William in ‘Imitation of Life.’”307

However, Murphy and other Black writers challenged the realism allegedly

depicted in Imitation, especially when it came to Peola’s attitude towards her race.

Murphy wrote,

But perhaps the greatest error, so far as the portrayal of the emotions of the Negro of mixed blood is concerned, lies in the attitude of Peola towards being Black. Such a rabid resentment of an alliance with color is absolutely unknown as a typical thing. Any person who knows anything about Negroes surely regards Peola as not only abnormal but as far from the typical as is possible to be.308

Imitation inhabited a liminal space between being a truly transformative work that reflected actual African American experience and being simply an example of what

Daphne Brooks called the “spectacle of suffering” inherent in early mainstream depictions of African Americans. The “spectacle” to which Brooks referred was the product of the lingering popularity of the controversial abolitionist bestseller Uncle

Tom’s Cabin. Couched very much in the realist tradition, Uncle Tom’s tragic story, though originally published in 1852, was adapted and performed in different iterations through the beginning of the twentieth century. Between 1903 and 1927, for instance, at least nine film productions of the book were made. Many traveling theatre productions were performed as well. The tragic end of Imitation, particularly in Peola’s intense self- hatred and painful rejection of her race, could be read as such a spectacle, designed to exploit the suffering of Peola as a “tragic mulatto” for the benefit of white audiences who

– consciously or not – ascribed to her suffering.

As early as the 1830s, theatrical productions were perpetuating problematic images of Black Americans that wrongfully labeled the race as bumbling, inarticulate, wholly corporeal, and not at all cerebral. These images became codified as entertainment culture developed, turning into a language in which white audiences could “understand”

Black experience. Even when these images were not wholly negative – when, say, they focused on Black musicality – they remained one-dimensional and reductive. In response,

Black Americans used entertainment as a tool with which to contest negative stereotypes

and to create a Black aesthetic that embodied the beliefs, values, and experiences of their

audience, absent of negative stereotypes. Black newspapers quickly recognized the

symbolic value of these depictions, and began to deliberately frame discussions about

entertainment in terms of critical citizenship.

This project is an effort to examine the African American celebrities who

emerged in entertainment culture on their own terms through the eyes of Black journalists

and editors who covered them, and who believed that they could be transformative agents in the fight for civil rights. In discussing Shuffle Along, the Afro-American posited that

“achievement is possible only to those who may possess exceptional talent, originality and the willingness to work, to illustrate…All in all it means brace up – be clean – have talented initiative – and you may work with reasonable hope of just rewards.”309 The

difference is that the “reasonable hope for just rewards” was not fame and fortune but

rather full and complete participation as American citizens. The rhetoric of celebrity may

superficially sound similar, but the definition of “success” espoused by Black journalists

could not have been farther from the ideals perpetuated by mainstream star system.

The contention of the next several chapters is that that the definition of “celebrity”

in the Black community evolved as a result of the limitations placed on the community

under Jim Crow. Therefore the idea of “making it” had far less to do with economic

mobility than it did with engaging in political and social action in a way that was deemed

meaningful and appropriate by the symbolic gatekeepers of the community – the Black press.

CHAPTER 5

“ELEVATED BY THE SUCCESS OF INDIVIDUALS” – BLACK JOURNALISTS NEGOTIATE THE ANTECEDENTS OF BLACK CELEBRITY CULTURE, 1895- 1919

“So if it is true that races are nowadays elevated by the work and success of individuals and not so much by the efforts of the masses then the height reached by Bert A. Williams in the theatrical world is not along in his success, but that of the Negro [sic].” – Lester Walton, Baltimore Afro-American, 1911310 Though the Black press understood the power that entertainment could have over its readership, journalists early on were not as certain how to frame discussions of individual celebrities. Between 1895 and 1919, there was generally very little coverage devoted to celebrity culture, but what did make the pages of African American newspapers conveys the sense that journalists realized early on that celebrities had the symbolic power to influence their community as a whole. The antecedents of African

American celebrity culture existed in vaudeville theatres, boxing rings, and music halls, and prompted discussions concerning how the idea of “celebrity” could be used as a guidepost for critical citizenship, with rules to help decipher appropriate interests and behavior for the Black community.

The antecedents of Black entertainment culture evolved from two of the largest and most influential institutions in Black life during the period: the church and education.

Largely, community entertainment centered on local churches, which were the sources of entertainment-minded news and advertisements until the mid-1910s. Churches held concerts, fundraisers, social galas, and dance parties, though as the Afro-American noted of the dance pavilion erected by the A.U.M.P. Church, “prayer and praise meetings put

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dancing pavilion out of business – folks have other matters to look out for.”311

Nonetheless, many of the prominent singers during this period received their start in their

local church choir, including M. Sisserietta Jones and E. Azalia Hackley. Notable Black-

centered educational institutions founded in the nineteenth century, namely Howard

University (established in 1867) and Lincoln University (established in 1854) also

offered entertainment to Black audiences. These schools were not just revered for their

academics; their sporting teams were widely popular with Black spectators around the

country. Howard-Lincoln football matches often received extensive front-page coverage

in Black newspapers in the 1910s, with headlines like, “Howard and Lincoln play

scoreless game – 3,000 rooters see the game.”312

These institutional forms of community entertainment were no doubt important to

the daily lived experience of Black Americans, but they were hardly established sites in

which community members sought out entertainment. These events were local or

regional at best; even the extensive coverage of Howard-Lincoln was limited to coverage

in the northeast. Leisure was not the primary concern of these institutions; these activities, though popular, were secondary to their missions, which promoted critical

citizenship through worship or education, not entertainment. For example, a 1901 front-

page article about the Lincoln football team began: “Lincoln University opens this season

with quite an increase in number of students. The freshman class is well represented, and

very few took examinations for the higher classes.”313 The football team’s training

regimen is described briefly in the following paragraph; it is framed as an afterthought to

the more important information about the student body itself.

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Instead, increasingly entertainment culture overtook the popularity of the

amusements offered by local churches and Black-centered universities. The growth of

entertainment culture during this period is closely tied with changes in the national economy, both in the rural South and the increasingly industrial North, and the consumer

culture it spawned. Improvements in transportation, the growth of national advertising

campaigns, and increasing popularity of magazines – combined with increasing economic

freedom – all contributed to a burgeoning consumer culture which was closely tied to

industrialized leisure and entertainment. As Davarian Baldwin pointed out, “Such

industries drew from the relatively new technologies of moving pictures, recorded sound,

broadcasting, and mass-spectator sports. The ideas and commodities that came from

media were further advertised and exchanged through the accelerated commercial

networks of train, ship, newspaper and airwave.”314 Baldwin argued that entertainment culture acted as a site whereby the Black community could “organize and manifest their

competing desires for ideal social relations through the very acts of production,

circulation, and consumption” of entertainment.315 Consumer culture evolved within the

established institutions that Black citizens relied on in their daily experience. As John M.

Giggie pointed out, Black community members – particularly in the South – relied on the

church not only as a site of worship, but as a site for garnering information on the

growing consumer market.316

The growth of commercialized leisure coincided with early developments in

African American-centered culture and art, which preceded the full expression of race

pride by the Black community that came about after World War I. Drawing directly from

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African American religious tradition, classical music by Black composers was evidence

that cultural refinement was as much a part of Black tradition as it was white, Anglo-

Saxon tradition. Black participation in vaudevillian traveling shows began to slowly

“redefine minstrelsy by updating its Black vernacular elements”317 and introduce

opportunities for female performers. During a period when ropes were being used to

lynch Black men who had the audacity to acknowledge a white woman, African

American pugilists used the ropes of the boxing ring to punish white men for refusing to properly acknowledge them. Finally, as American participation in World War I intervened in the lived experience of most Black Americans, a new musical form, ragtime, emerged in local music halls, and some daring musicians were even toying with the idea of incorporating syncopation, or unexpected and random rhythmic patterns, within their compositions.

Music was an especially potent cultural force during this period for African

Americans; from its earliest iterations in entertainment, music produced by Black

performers was treated as evidence of their cultural contribution as American citizens. As

the Gazette noted in 1912, “Dvorak once said that the Americans had no national music

except that emanating from negro melodies, and that it was to the negro that the

Americans would have to look for creative work in that direction.”318 In 1911, The Crisis noted that, “Caucasians might as well admit the artistic superiority of the Negro in the matter of susceptibility to music.”319 However, Black musicians were regularly Jim

Crowed – barred from performing in concert halls and theatres, or from securing lucrative

record contracts. In Europe, Black musicians increasingly found greater professionals

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opportunities and a more tolerant and welcoming society. The Black press was

fascinated by the seemingly nurturing environment that Europe offered to its Black entertainers and artists. For example, the Baltimore Afro-American wrote of composer

Samuel Coleridge- Taylor,

The wonderful fact shown by Great Britain in treating with the race question has made it possible for the young genius who is the son of the romance between the Sierra Leone Negro and an English girl to pursue the career his talents entitle him to without encountering the obstacle that would here overshadow him in America.320

Though he was not American, Coleridge-Taylor was quickly adopted by the African

American community as a shared symbol of success. Booker T. Washington wrote that

Coleridge-Taylor “is himself an inspiration to the Negro, since he himself, the child of an

African father, is an embodiment of what are the possibilities of the Negro under

favorable environment.”321 Coleridge-Taylor’s groundbreaking work, Scenes from the

Song of Hiawatha, comprised of three cantatas, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898), Death

of Minnehaha (1899), and Hiawatha’s Departure (1900), was based on his interpretation

of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem Song of Hiawatha.

Hiawatha was performed throughout Europe and the United States for several years to

great acclaim. According to his biographer Jeffrey Green, Coleridge-Taylor was

especially attractive to Black journalists because he openly desired to “present positive

images of Black people” in his art.322

To Black journalists, Coleridge-Taylor symbolized the cultural refinement of

African Americans generally; in particular, his work encompassed the ideals of DuBois’s

“Talented Tenth” which emphasized the importance of European culture in influencing

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cultural output by Black American. In critiquing DuBois’s “Talented Tenth” theory,

Nagueyalti Warren wrote, “An identity crisis lies at the heart of DuBois’s belief that average ordinary folk needed to be pulled up to the level of European culture,” which he

“clearly favored.”323 News stories about Coleridge-Taylor indicate that Black journalists’ attitudes toward European culture were commensurate with DuBois’s.

Coleridge-Taylor’s physical appearance also served as proof of his pedigree.

According to the Cleveland Gazette,

In appearance, though colored, the composer has clear-cut, delicate features, and possesses a face of the greatest intelligence; his figure is slender and graceful, and his manner, which is quite English, is most courteous and well-bred.”324

The article also noted that, “The people of Washington are determined to make his

visit not only pleasant but instructive as to the condition, civilization and progress of

the colored folk in the United States.325 The Afro-American regularly published

photographs of Coleridge-Taylor on its front page, using space previously reserved

for noteworthy politicians (like Booker T. Washington) or influential community ministers (see Figure 5.1).

Not all successful Black entertainers were receiving such attention in the pages of

Black newspapers. The lack of coverage of singers, athletes, and other entertainers

during the period 1895 through 1919 suggests that Black journalists were selective in

choosing what type of entertainment merited attention. As Baldwin pointed out,

entertainment culture increasingly blurred the lines between “high” and “low” culture, much to the chagrin of Black journalists. Audiences, awed by technological innovation in photography and sound, focused on moving pictures and recorded sound in favor of “the

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Victorian-era authority of the written text, the museum, [and] the formal theatre.”326 The

Black press was slow follow suit with its audience. As a result, three of Coleridge-

Taylor’s most successful contemporaries, boxer Joe Gans and comedians Bert Williams and George Walker, received comparatively less coverage in Black newspapers and magazines. Public figures in both boxing and vaudeville theatre – though popular with

audiences – were overlooked by the Black press. For example, although Williams is often

referred to as “the first Black superstar of the twentieth century”327 by historians, there is

very little coverage in the Black press to attest to this assertion.

The accomplishments of vaudeville stars Bert Williams and George Walker were

overlooked by then-contemporary journalists who dismissed the duo as profiting from

problematic stereotypes of the race. For instance, the Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer

described their act as “regretfully disappointing to its patrons.”328 The review lamented

the New York Times’s use of the word “coon” in its review of the show, blaming

Williams and Walker for being “responsible for the ‘coon’ absurdities of the day.”329

The pair found great success in vaudeville theatre and later Broadway at the turn of the

century by taking the stage in burnt cork to further enhance the caricature of Blackness in

their performance. Walker became “the grinning, strutting dandy” while Williams

perfected his role as the “slow-moving, dim-witted oaf.”330 Any flattering coverage of the

pair was reprinted from a non-African-American publication. For instance, a positive

review of the pair’s act, which described them as proof of the “evoluting [sic] of the

Negro,” was reprinted from the Kansas City Times.331

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In general, the mainstream press paid far greater attention to Williams and Walker

than the Black press did. In 1902, the pair took their $15,000 production, In Dahomey, to

the New York Theatre on Broadway to great acclaim; one New York Times critic observed that, “At intervals one heard a shrill kiyi of applause from above or a mellow bass roar that betokened the seventh heaven of delight.”332 Strangely, though mainstream

newspapers like the Times covered In Dahomey’s Broadway debut, Black newspapers

and magazines all but ignored it. This is quite unusual because, as Camille Forbes noted,

landing a performance at a Broadway theatre during this period was “every performer’s

dream, whether that entertainer was white or Black.”333

Vaudeville offered an as-yet-unheard of opportunity for Black performers, but

especially for Black women who “exerted immediate influence as dancers, singers and

comedians.”334 Reviews of female vaudeville performers reveal subtle differences in

coverage from male entertainers. In general, female vaudevillians were venerated by the

Black press, while male vaudevillians, like Williams and Walker, were maligned or

ignored. For instance, Sylvester Russell was a particularly strong supporter of George

Walker’s widow, Aida, calling her “the foremost female performer of her race” and

publicly pressuring Williams to join Aida in a new iteration of the Williams and Walker

act after Walker’s death in 1911.335 When M. Sisserietta Jones (called “Black Patti”

because of her similar singing style to the white artist, Adelina Patti) began to tour as a

part of the “Black Patti Troubadours,” the Black press covered her performances positively, even though they reflected the same minstrel style as the Williams and Walker show. As the Afro-American noted, the troupe featured, among other performers, “refined

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coon shouters,” and their act was “a rapid fire melody of song, story, dance with Negro melody, darky fun, the buck dance, the cakewalk, stunning specialties and coon shouters, happily interspersed and climaxed by selections from standard operas.” 336 Black journalists were largely uncritical of the content of the show, preferring to focus on its lighthearted elements. On another occasion, the Afro-American wrote,

The famous Black Patti atramentaceons and infuscated Troubadours will appear at the Holliday Street Theatre week commencing May 9…Thus does pleasure dawn and joy spring up. The coming of these delectable diverters, these merry nigrescent terpsichorean trippers, these thrust-like wondrous warblers and laughters side-splitting and tears of pleasure drawing children of Africa banish care and fill expectation to the brim [sic].337

The rhetoric used to describe the Troubadours, which was infused with alliteration and

hyperbole, mirrored the tone and energy of their performances. With quotes like

“laughters side-splitting” and “tears of pleasure,” Black journalists seemed to be

attempting to create a vicarious experience of the performances themselves for their

audiences, some of whom could not afford to see Black Patti perform for themselves.

The act was clearly popular, attracting an audience of 26,000 at Madison Square Garden

in New York City and 23,000 at the Pittsburgh Exposition. Coverage of Jones in the

1910s was often accompanied by quarter-page full-length photographs of the voluptuous

singer (see Figure 5.2), who by 1913 was deemed by the Chicago Defender as “the

recognized prima donna of the race.”338

Black Patti was one representation of a general trend of Black artists mimicking

or mirroring notable white artists, and perhaps this symbolic equality with white artists is

why the Black press was so reticent to criticize Patti’s performances the way it had

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Williams and Walker’s show. As the Savannah Tribune pointed out in 1902, “The Negro

is ubiquitous. He is in and of everything. There is a Negro Black Patti and a Black

Spurgeon, a Black Sam Jones, a Black Bill Nye, and now five hundred Negroes are trying to be Black Ben Tillmans. Verily the times are changing and men changing faster.”339

“Black versions” of popular artists were viewed by Black journalists as evidence of racial progress.

Conversations about Black vaudevillians suggest that the Black press was keenly aware of the entertainment stereotypes that were being cultivated in the mindset of mainstream, white America, and consistently Black journalists were concerned with how the activities in which Blacks engaged would influence Whites’ impressions of the race.

Boxing was an especially problematic activity, though it was also the site of some of the

Black community’s most notable and visible triumphs. For example, in 1902 Joe “Old

Master” Gans challenged and beat reigning lightweight champion Frank Erne for the title, which he held until 1908. Gans was the first Black boxing champion in any division, and as his biographers have noted, was “the first athlete to break the color barrier.”340 Yet, his accomplishments were not appreciated by the Black press at the time. Rather, there was a sense that Gans’s noteworthy achievements overshadowed those of other, more worthy

Blacks. In a 1902 editorial in the Baltimore Afro-American, the writer lamented that “Mr.

[Joe] Gans gets more space in the white papers than all the respectable colored people in

the state”341 Indeed, this is a point that African American historians have also noted:

Black athletes were some of the first Black citizens to get neutral or sometimes even

positive coverage in mainstream newspapers and magazines.

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In general, the Black press ignored Gans’s championship reign. The Cleveland

Gazette was the only Black press paper to give Gans’s victory over Erne any play, and this overall lack of coverage might exist in part because the fight was short and uneventful. The Gazette recounted that,

After a minute of futile sparring, Gans tapped Erne once on the face, dazing the Bizon, after which the Afro-American landed a blow on Erne’s jaw an sent him down and out. Gans was hardly touched in the mix-up. One minute and forty seconds were consumed in reaching a decision.342

Gans’s 1906 bout with Nielson received a greater amount of attention, but again only in

the Cleveland Gazette. The coverage was less about feting Gans and more about the

aftermath of the fight, which ignited a firestorm of racial tension that spilled into city

streets all over the country. It is not clear how many casualties resulted from the riots in

total, but in Atlanta at least 26 people were killed; all but two victims were Black.343 As a result, some cities – like Gans’s native Baltimore – passed laws prohibiting mixed-race boxing matches. The Gazette lamented that, “After Joe Gans defeated Battling Nelson, his native city, Baltimore, Md., passed a law prohibiting white boxers from meeting

Afro-Americans. Isn’t it rich? How very, very silly in the eyes of the entire country, prejudice oftimes makes southerners and frequently the entire south.”344

Coverage of Gans in the Black press during this period is scant, especially as

compared with heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who emerged six years after Gans’s

championship reign began. Gans is often forgotten in the shadow of Johnson, who was

by all accounts more physically imposing, more flamboyant, and more polarizing than the

strong but mild-mannered Gans was. Throughout his time as a public figure, Johnson did

little to hide his vices, particularly for sex. Even before capturing the heavyweight

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championship title, Johnson was known to travel with a legion of white women, mostly

prostitutes, whom he treated to expensive meals and jewelry. This only exacerbated

negative attitudes toward boxing; Johnson’s antics became symbolic of the hedonism of

the sport itself.

For instance, when Johnson won the championship title in 1908 (for the first time)

over Tommy Burns, Black newspapers did not cover the event extensively. The

Cleveland Gazette haltingly celebrated by noting,

Although the Gazette does not approve of pugilism or pugilistic contests of any kind, believing them barbarous to a very great extent, and wrong from every viewpoint of culture and refinement, and certainly anything except indications of progress of the right kind of civilization, we cannot help but feel a degree of satisfaction over Johnson’s great victory, for natural and obvious reasons.345

The Black press was equivocal about Johnson’s triumphs in the ring. It was heartening to

see a Black American achieve a goal, but the activity in which he engaged had to meet

certain standards of approval. The heavyweight title was certainly no Hiawatha.

Perhaps because of the unusual brutality of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight and its aftermath, criticism of pugilism generally became more acute in the Black press in the weeks and months after the initial positive reaction to the victory. The Afro-American was especially critical. On July 16, not even two weeks after the fight, the newspaper claimed, “Prize fighting is not a race issue. It is brutal enough when confined to its class and kind, and should not be brought into the everyday affairs of the body politic.”346 The

same day, the newspaper reprinted selected reactions from fellow Black newspapers that

all underplayed Johnson’s victory in favor of criticizing pugilism. For example, the

Charleston Messenger excerpt declared the fight a “brutal exhibition” in which the

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boxers “strike each other senseless,” while the Atlanta Independent excerpt argued, “…as

a moral question, neither of these great gladiators deserve enough consideration from

decent people and neighbors to fall out among themselves.” The Advocate excerpt

dismissed Johnson’s victory altogether: “Racial superiority is not decided by tests of

physical and endurance [sic].” The Lodge Journal and Guide argued, “Prize fighting is

becoming a menace to the peace and happiness of the races and ought to be abolished.”347

If Johnson’s chosen profession was deemed inappropriate by Black journalists, then

his out-of-the-ring activities were simply unacceptable by their standards. Johnson was an

infamous womanizer, but his relationship with Etta Duryea, a white New York socialite,

was his first truly public affair. Duryea and Johnson’s relationship was fraught with

infidelity and domestic violence, but somehow the couple persevered and were secretly

married on January 18, 1911 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When news of the marriage

broke nearly a year later, the response by the Black press was muted, and overall, the coverage of Duryea was flattering. Some newspapers even ran photographs of the new

bride – one of the few white individuals to be depicted visually in these papers at the time

(see Figure 5.3).348 The Cleveland Gazette described Johnson’s wife as “a tall handsome young white woman” from a good family.349 Her beauty and wealth were her most-

discussed attributes in the Black press. The Chicago Defender even described Duryea as

having “less racial prejudice than some of the colored people [sic].”350

Johnson’s personal life quickly eclipsed his professional achievements. On the night

of September 12, 1912, Duryea, long suffering from depression, rejection from the white

community, and alleged abuse from Johnson, killed herself in the apartment she shared

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with her husband above the Café de Champion, Johnson’s Chicago nightclub. Café de

Champion was the site of public drunkenness and generally lewd behavior on the part of

its patrons, including Johnson and his many mistresses. Ida B. Wells, writing for the

Gazette, charged, “[Had the police intervened in the doings of Café de Champion] some

of the things which are reported to have taken place in that saloon would have been

prevented and perhaps Mrs. Jack Johnson would not have found life so intolerable as to

be driven to suicide!”351 Things only got worse for Johnson, as his affair with teenage

prostitute (and eventual second wife) Lucille Cameron sparked the Bureau of

Investigation to investigate his activity transporting prostitutes across state lines.352

Though most Black newspapers agreed that Johnson had been “persecuted” rather

than “prosecuted” by the Bureau of Investigation,353 only the Chicago Defender covered

the trial at length and showed outrage over the guilty verdict. The Defender’s flamboyant

editor, Robert Sengstacke Abbott, was a friend of Johnson’s and saw the champion as a

symbol of success for the Black community. According to Randy Roberts, the Defender’s

version of Johnson was a community member “who gave to Black charities, supported

Black businesses, and on Christmas played Santa Claus for Black children.”354 However,

the Defender’s reaction to Johnson’s conviction was uneven at best. On May 17, 1913,

the paper claimed, in a lengthy recap of the verdict, that Johnson had indeed received a

fair trial: “[The Defender] is also satisfied. It had championed the champion when no one else would, its only object being to secure fair play.”355 Two months later paper reneged

its support for the verdict, lamenting that, “Jack is a gentleman beside thousands of white

men who will escape the horrors of the Mann act [sic] simply because white jurors and

113 white courts will not prove as insidious in their prosecution as in the exercise of their hate to bring men to justice regardless of their race or color.”356

Convicted on charges of lewd behavior under the Mann Act and marrying

Cameron, another white woman, only months after his first wife’s death, Johnson had alienated himself from the Black community altogether. Fellow public figures, like Bert

Williams, were left to negotiate their own persona in the wake of Johnson’s public relations nightmare, which created an increasingly critical public climate. As Forbes noted of the relationship between the two, “[mainstream press] critics policed Bert closely,” evaluating him on terms “cleanness” in contrast with Johnson’s brash and, at times, seemingly “threatening” persona. Williams found support from one influential source, Booker T. Washington, who wrote an article reprinted in Black newspapers and magazines that heralded Williams as

a tremendous asset to the Negro race because he has succeeded in actually doing something and because he has succeeded the fact of his success helps the Negro many times more than he could help the Negro by merely contenting himself to whine and complain about racial difficulties and racial discriminations.357

Lester Walton of the Afro-American wrote that,

So if it is true that races are nowadays elevated by the work and success of individuals and not so much by the efforts of the masses then the height reached by Bert A. Williams in the theatrical world is not along in his success, but that of the Negro.358

Compared with Johnson, Williams’s demeanor as “quiet, persistent man who worked within the system” 359 seemed increasingly attractive to Black journalists who felt that

Johnson’s antics were compromising the race itself.

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In 1910, the same year that Johnson fought Jeffries, Williams accepted a position with Ziegfeld’s Follies as their first African American performer. According to Tim

Brooks, Williams “was grateful for what he had been able to achieve against towering odds, and for the doors he had been able to open for so many who followed him.”360 He told Defender contributing editor Eloise Bibb Thompson, “I don’t want to play Hamlet or be a tragedian, but I do want to paint the portrait of the Americanized Negro on the modern stage.”361 Though Williams overall received support from the Black press during his time with Follies, for some journalists, Williams’s self-effacing attitude was unacceptable. For example, Sylvester Russell charged that “we look upon Williams as an example. He is free from the commonplace of cheap other actors, a fact which makes him great and if he had the bravery of his domiciled partner [the late George

Walker]…he would assert these things in his interviews.”362 The astonishing thing about

Russell’s comments is that, when he was alive, the Black press paid little attention to

George Walker, yet in memory, he was evoked as a “brave” representation of his race at the expense of the more passive Williams.

This evoking of dead celebrities was characteristic in coverage that emerged during this period – particularly celebrities that were overlooked or underestimated while they were alive. In writing about American magazines, Carolyn Kitch argued that “media construct celebrities in a way that endows them with sacrificial symbolic status that allows them to live and die for all of us.”363 She identified the death of a celebrity as “an unstable public moment in which people feel compelled to assess their identities and beliefs – to the meaning any major celebrity holds for any social group.”364 This seems

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particularly true of Black entertainment journalism during this period. Over a four-year

period, 1910 through 1914, the Black community lost Joe Gans, George Walker, Samuel

Coleridge-Taylor, and Aida Overton Walker, and honored each with more coverage than

they had garnered during their lifetime.

Limited coverage of Gans during his championship reign suggests that it was not

until later in memory that Black journalists began to see the value in his contributions to

breaking the color barrier in sport. Gans died of tuberculosis during the first week of

August 1910, at the age of 35, at his home in Phoenix, Arizona. Upon his death, the

Afro-American and the Chicago Defender joined the Gazette in remembering Gans. The

Defender honored Gans with a large front-page illustration of the fighter in the ring with

one-time opponent Billie Nolan (see Figure 5.4). The accompanying obituary heralded

Gans as “truly a master at the game…his equal in the fine points of boxing is yet to be found.”365 The Afro-American also honored Gans in its August 13 issue, but its depiction

of Gans instead focused on his status as “gentlemanly in deportment.” The paper declared

Gans,

…by all odds the most remarkable boxer who ever put on a mit – a general in the ring with unerring eye and cat-like agility, cool, calm and determined in or out of a mix- up… Gentlemanly in deportment, free from boasting, stranger to brawls and fistfights – to sum it all up he was a gentleman.366

It ran on its front page a formal portrait of Gans rather than a photograph of him in the

ring (see Figure 5.5) to drive home the distinction.

George and Aida Walker together were remembered as pioneers of Black theatre,

though of the two Aida was the only one to receive flattering (albeit limited) coverage in

her lifetime. George’s untimely death in 1911 after suffering a year in a New York

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sanatorium made front page news in the Afro-American which – though it had basically

ignored his career – described the comedian as “one of the most dignified in the

profession.”367 The Defender dedicated one quarter of its front page to Walker’s death.368

Like Gans, Walker’s legacy emerged only posthumously. With Walker’s death seemed to also come a nostalgic appreciation for the duo’s work together, which no doubt

benefitted Williams as well as Walker’s widow, Aida. Russell declared that “the name of

Williams and Walker is still fresh in the pages of American stage history; so fresh that we

can scarcely afford to stand aside and see that name go to waste; that name which means so much prestige and so very much asset to the Negro professional.”369 Aida, who died

three years later at 34 years old, was also remembered fondly. The Defender ran a photo

of Walker dressed in her stage costume (see Figure 5.6), with the caption, “The Chicago

Defender publishes this picture of the lamented stage favorite at the request of her friends

and associates who consider this one of her best poses when she was at the zenith of her

career.”370

When Coleridge-Taylor passed away in early September 1912, his memory was

constructed wholly in terms of African American experience, despite the fact that he was actually British. The Crisis dedicated several pages of coverage to his life and work in both the October and November issues, even publishing a lengthy poem written by Alfred

Noyes in his honor.371 To The Crisis, Coleridge-Taylor’s work was “true Negro music,”

capturing the “melancholy beauty, barbaric color, charm of musical rhythm and

vehement passion” of the African-American folk song tradition.372 The Gazette reprinted

remarks from Coleridge-Taylor’s student and friend, fellow composer Clarence Cameron

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White, who said, “Mr. Coleridge-Taylor’s life and work meant more to the young Negro

musician and music student here in America than can be told in words…Coleridge-

Taylor will live as long as there is a boy or girl with Negro blood in his or her veins who

has the ‘spirit of song’ in his or her heart.”373

With the deaths of Gans, the Walkers, and Coleridge-Taylor, it seems as if

journalists were just beginning to assess the power of “celebrity” but one beat too late –

in celebrating the death, rather than life, of the individual. Indeed, again upon George

Walker’s death, Sylvester Russell admitted this much, lamenting that, “the one man who

boldly stood up in his exalted position and made it possible for the Negro thespian of his

time, but in whom we did not really discover until after he had passed away.”374

Just as celebrity culture seemed to be gathering some momentum in the Black press, the United States’s intervention in World War I shifted its attention sharply away from entertainment-driven news. When the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, the Black press had little interest in discussing celebrities. Entertainment coverage dipped sharply during this period across all Black press papers, but especially in the Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender and Cleveland Gazette which, more than their contemporaries, valued entertainment culture as particularly newsworthy.

Instead, as many scholars have pointed out, these journalists and editors turned their attention to covering the war effort and fighting for the right of African American men to enlist in the military.375 World War I represented a rupture in the lives of many African

American men and women, who actively participated in the war effort. More than

360,000 Black citizens enlisted in the military and were sent overseas.376 The enlistment

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of thousands of white men into the armed forces created home-front economic

opportunities never before enjoyed by the Black community. Accordingly, coverage of

entertainers sharply dropped during this period in favor of not only war coverage, but

also of the advances being made by Black workers at home. For example, in June 1918,

the Defender declared new “Champions” – not Johnson or Gans, but rather a crew of

Black Bethlehem Steel Co. riveters who broke the world record for number of rivets

driven in nine hours.377

Ironically, this period also marked the beginning of what would become one of

the most frequently discussed aspects of African American entertainment: ragtime and

jazz music. As the United States prepared to go to war with Germany, a group of young

Harlem men enlisted in the military to become the 15th New York Infantry. The 15th was the pride of the Black press; as the Cleveland Gazette noted,

That the Afro-American soldier is in the thickest of the fray, giving a good account of himself, is attested by high French officers, who have nothing but words of praise for the valorous conduct of their Black brothers in one common cause.378

Prominent New York bandleader James Reese Europe (along with a young soldier and fellow New York musician, Noble Sissle) was commissioned to pull together an infantry band, which combined with the 15th and became the 369th Infantry, nicknamed by the

French the “Hellfighters.” On April, 20, 1918, Europe became the first African

American lieutenant of World War I to lead his troops into battle, and his regiment was

among the most decorated of the war. As a collective of musicians, the Hellfighters

combined elements of ragtime and jazz music to create something that Europe described

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as “music which was ours – not a pale imitation of others’.”379 The Defender described

the music Europe made as

…rhythm that is sustained throughout every number, the unique instrumentation, which consists of banjos, mandolins, clarinet, cornet, traps and drums, makes a class of music that has set the society and wealthy people wild…Wealthy society leaders in New York never think their functions are complete without Europe’s orchestra playing.380

The band “mixed syncopated songs, ragtime, blues, plantation melodies, and French

songs,” and delighted American and French regiments stationed all over Germany and

France.381

Europe had previously received positive coverage in the Crisis which under the

leadership of DuBois paid great attention to labor issues as they developed in the Black

community. In 1910, frustrated with the disorganization and exploitation of Black New

York musicians, Europe had founded the Clef Club, an organization of Harlem

musicians, which operated as a labor union and as a central booking agency exclusively

for African American musicians. Because of his efforts, Europe was named “Man of the

Month” in the June 1912 issue of The Crisis. The magazine noted that,

Fully to appreciate the worth of James Reese Europe to the Negro musicians of New York City, one would have to know how the Negro entertainers in cafes, hotels, at banquets, etc., were regarded before the organization of the Clef Club, and how they have been regarded since. Before, they were prey to scheming head waiters and booking agents, now they are performers whose salaries are fixed to contract.382

The New York Age described Europe’s professional association of musicians as “a

clearing house for the Negro musician, who not only found it possible to secure more work but to get better pay.”383

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Europe and his band returned to the States after the war in the spring of 1919 and

immediately embarked on a successful stateside tour. Upon Europe’s return, the New

York Age declared that,

“Jazz music is now all the rage throughout the United States”: Since the return of colored military bands from France to these shores the country simply has gone wild about jazz music….Lovers of syncopation are indebted to the Negro for what is known as ragtime, and despite the false claims of some white writers, the Negro musician is primarily responsible for the introduction of jazz music.384

Though jazz music would become a point of contestation in the Black press, this early

article conveys the excitement that Europe brought home to America with his ragtime band. He spent the first week of May 1919 in Chicago where he was “treated as a celebrity and as a musical authority;” the Defender’s Abbott even entertained Europe in his home.385

However, his success after the war was cut tragically short. A week after his

Chicago visit, band member Herbert Wright fatally stabbed Europe with a penknife,

angry over a critique Europe had made of his performance that evening. The City of New

York gave Europe an official funeral – he was the first African American in the city’s

history to receive the honor. The New York Age called the funeral “one of the largest

ever held in New York for a member of the race.”386 Black newspapers covered the

funeral extensively, as throngs of New York residents – both Black and white – came out

to mourn the band leader. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote that “Not since the day that

Jack Johnson came into town bringing the world’s heavyweight championship with him

has New York’s colored population turned out in such numbers eager to pay respect to

the memory of Lieut. James Reese Europe…who made jazz music famous the world

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over.”387 Again, in commemorating a dead celebrity, the Black press coverage focused on

veneration, and attempted to “write” Europe’s achievements within the narrative of

African American history generally.

Over the period 1895 to 1919, it is apparent that, increasingly, the Black press turned its attention to entertainment and began to negotiate some iteration of stardom.

Journalists were beginning to understand entertainment as a tool for community-building, and as such were beginning to negotiate some guidelines for acceptable behavior among its public figures. As Baldwin noted, journalists viewed mass culture (including entertainment) as “a site for regulating public behavior and more specifically for staging race pride and respectability.”388 Coverage of early celebrities conveys a sense of

negotiating what the idea of “celebrity” was meant to represent to the Black community

generally, for which there seemed to be no clear answer.

Celebrities were judged as more than just the personality putting on the show. For

example, discussions of Johnson that might have otherwise been celebratory instead

turned their attention to whether or not boxing was an appropriate activity in which a

Black public figure should engage. Joe Gans, known to be gentlemanly and mild-

mannered outside of the ring, may have garnered more attention as a classical composer

rather than as a boxer. Black performance was not only contingent upon success, but

rather contingent upon what kinds of goals were pursued in the first place.

Celebrity coverage also conveys the sense that Black journalists were to some

degree consciously attempting to “draft” the history of African American experience as

they reported on it; this is especially obvious in coverage eulogizing dead celebrities.

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Thomas Cripps argued that the Black community collectively during this period lacked a

“usable past,” that is, the idea that, though there was a shared sense of experience among

disparate members of the African American community, there was little sense of an

established, shared narrative within the entertainment that the community produced. As

Cripps noted, “The great myths did not fit as cleanly” in expressions of African American

experience.389 Therefore, revisiting these figures in death was an important way to build

a collective and usable past.

According the Europe’s biographer, Reid Badger, the groundbreaking musician’s

ambition was to “spawn a return of Black artistry to the theatres of Broadway and even

the establishment of a permanent national organization dedicated to the performance of

African American music.”390 Though Europe never lived to see it, the decade after

World War I was in many ways a collective realization of his dream, led by his bandmate

and friend, Noble Sissle. With the end of World War I, opportunities that opened up for

African Americans stateside just as quickly closed again, but this time, emboldened by

their successes during the war, the Black community became far more activist entering

the 1920s. This change in their collective mindset reflected in the entertainment they produced, and in the 1920s and 1930s Black celebrities and celebrity journalists become further entrenched in the fight for their civil rights.

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Figure 5.1. “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor” [Caption], Baltimore Afro-American, December 8, 1906, 1.

Figure 5.2. “Black Patti Troubadours will be here next week,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 8, 1911, 6.

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Figure 5.3. “The Late Mrs. Etta Johnson,” Chicago Defender, September 21, 1912, 1.

Figure 5.4. “Across the River,” Chicago Defender, August 13, 1910, 1.

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Figure 5.5. “Joe Gans,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 13, 1910, 5.

Figure 5.6. “Aida Overton-Walker as the Public Knew Her,” Chicago Defender, October 24, 1914, 1.

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CHAPTER 6

REFUSING TO “OBSCURE OUR TALENTS FOREVER UNDER THE BUSHEL OF PREJUDICE, JEALOUSY, STUPIDITY” – BLACK ENTERTAINERS BREAK THROUGH ON BROADWAY, 1920-1935

Now that the Negro as an integral part of the American theatre has come into being there must be standards by which to judge his ability and achievement. There are Barrymores and Sotherns by which to measure a Hampden. There are Marlowes and Modjeskas by which to measure a Cowl. – Gwendolyn Bennett, The Opportunity, 1930391

Black journalists paid increasing attention to African American celebrity culture, largely because of the sustained success of Black-centered Broadway musicals that rode the coattails of Sissle and Blake’s groundbreaking Shuffle Along. Shuffle and the productions that followed in its wake launched the careers of Charles Gilpin, Paul

Robeson, Josephine Baker, Florence Mills, Bill Robinson, and others. It is no surprise that African American celebrity culture flourished during this decade in New York City where Black cultural expression was in “vogue” – among both Black and white middle- class audiences. As Cary Wintz argued, interest in Black life and art “became a fascination, then almost an obsession, as Harlem and Blacks in general became the latest fad for middle-class America.”392 The success of Black theatrical stars during this period

is closely tied to their geographic and symbolic proximity to the Harlem Renaissance.

Interest in Black theatre dated back to the days of the William and Walker

Company’s productions in the early 1910s; however, as Larry Stempel noted, Black

presence on Broadway was not sustained through the decade. Rather, in the intervening years between the success of Williams and Walker and the resurgence of Black-centered productions, African American presence on Broadway was relegated to renditions of

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which began as

somewhat faithful renditions of the book, but soon devolved into “Tom shows,” which

Stempel charged “transform[ed] a moral drama into an entertainment at times resembling nothing so much as a minstrel show.”393 Tom shows consisted of a combination of

gimmicks – from showcases by Black musicians and dancers to live animal acts – that

were meant to loosely “illustrate” the novel. These shows had been popular from around

the 1880s, and were only briefly challenged by Williams and Walker’s success. However, though Williams and Walker’s comedy act was at times subversive, they billed themselves publicly as “Two Real Coons,” to “distinguish themselves from rival

Blackface entertainers who were not the real thing.”394 As Stempel noted, despite the

success of Williams and Walker Company-produced shows like In Dahomey at the turn

of the century, Black-centered theatre productions did not actually take off during this

period. After George Walker, who ran the business operations of the W&W Co., died in

1911, there were very few interested or qualified Black theatre producers, and waning

interest in telling stories that featured Black characters.

The Harlem Renaissance changed that. As Wintz noted, “The glamour and

excitement that made Harlem a mecca for Black writers also attracted the attention of

white New Yorkers who began regular pilgrimages to the ghetto in search of its exotic

nightlife.”395 This trend had an immediate impact on African American celebrity culture,

but not necessarily Black everyday experience. Venues like the Cotton Club, where all of

the entertainment was provided by Black artists, were still segregated – the average

Harlem citizen did not have the chance to experience some of the highest quality artistic

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expression going on in their own neighborhood. Harlem was starkly divided between the

intellectual and artistic elite who gathered in theatres, nightclubs, and at exclusive parties

thrown by socialites like beauty mogul A’Leila Walker, while ordinary Black citizens

dealt with slum-like living conditions and few real economic opportunities. As Wintz

noted, “most of Harlem’s residents lived, at best, on the verge of poverty, a situation

which contributed to the emergence of this area as the city’s leader in vice, crime,

juvenile delinquency, and drug addiction.”396

This latter portrait of Harlem – as slum-like, depressed, and oppressive – was all

but absent from the pages of Black newspapers and magazines which chose instead to

focus on the burgeoning nightlife and entertainment culture as their primary version of

life in Harlem. It seemed as though the glamor of Harlem’s social scene represented a

fantasy for Black Americans all over the east coast, and Black newspapers fed into that

vision, likely, in order to sell newspapers.

In other parts of the country, however, New York and its theatre stars did not

make the pages of Black-centered newspapers; coverage of Broadway in the Cleveland

Gazette, Savannah Tribune, and Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer is minimal by

comparison to the Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, and Baltimore Afro-

American, as well as, of course, New York based newspapers and magazines, whose

journalists were often reporting from the front row or backstage. The Defender was the lone exception to this general trend; for a time, it devoted a weekly section to Harlem- related news.

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There are two possible reasons for the lack of coverage beyond the east coast.

First, the newspapers that featured the most coverage of Harlem were not only the closest

in proximity, but also the most popular. The Tribune, Courier, Afro-American, and far-

away Defender all had operating budgets that allowed their correspondents to travel. By

comparison, the Gazette, Savannah Tribune, and Plaindealer were plagued with financial difficulties, and likely relied on other sources – like the Associated Negro Press – for

Harlem-related news. Second, with the exception of the Defender, there is no real sense that the doings in Harlem had anything in common with the lived experience of Black

Americans in the South and Midwest. Theatre productions infrequently traveled to these regions, where performers often felt uncomfortable performing in front of white audiences, and Black audiences could rarely afford to buy tickets. As the Plaindealer noted in 1927 when Paul Robeson performed a concert in Topeka, “The west is not favored with the opportunity to see our leading actors, and we think every chance to hear any of them should be taken,” though they rarely were.397 Therefore, it is reasonable to

assume that coverage is scant in these publications also because New York theatre

productions were not considered newsworthy to their local readership.

Coverage of theatrical celebrities revealed new avenues in the well-worn argument between high and low culture that informed the development of African

American celebrity culture generally. Writers like James Weldon Johnson and Langston

Hughes hobnobbed at exclusive parties with celebrities like Florence Mills and Bill

Robinson, but as Stempel noted, “leaders of the Renaissance’s ‘New Negro’ movement…sought access to white respectability through the achievements of Black

130 artists in high artistic endeavors…[T]hey tended to dismiss [Black-centered] musicals for the dubious views of old-Negro life they imparted in the name of entertainment.”398

Renaissance writers were not alone in their skepticism of their value.

W.E.B. DuBois, who was not a part of the Renaissance movement but often supported and encouraged its young Black writers, became deeply invested in gatekeeping Black entertainment, which he argued should be used as propaganda in favor of racial uplift.399 The idea of “art as propaganda” was shared by other Black elites in discussions about the theatre. “With propaganda plays I think wonders may be done for the cause of the Negro,” wrote Willis Richardson in the June 1923 issue of The

Messenger, “In the stage his desire and need for social equality (without which there is no other equality), for equality before the law, equality of opportunity and all his other desires may be shown.”400 However, not everyone agreed that racial propaganda belonged on the stage. Writing for The Opportunity, Rowena Woodham Jelliffee argued that,

Nor should the theatre be considered a medium of propaganda. Undue concern about putting the best racial foot foremost should be forgotten. I believe that the Negro artist achieves in the field of drama in about the proportion to which he is able to escape the bonds of race consciousness. Then is he able, having acquired the necessary perspective, to portray and interpret the life and mood of his race beautifully and truly.401

Debates about cultural and artistic value during this period as they relate to theatrical entertainment were mired in a liminal space between highbrow culture as espoused by

DuBois and the “ghetto realism” of the Renaissance writers; however, neither perspective truly defined what constituted “culture” to begin with. As Nagueyalti Warren argued,

“We can surmise that [DuBois’s definition of “culture”] includes the arts, but he might

131 also mean that the masses of Black people needed to be pulled up from ignorance to knowing. Still one wonders exactly what were they to know, the libretto of an opera or the lyrics of the Blues, the music of Brahms or ragtime?”402 As the entertainment industry evolved, these questions became more and more important to consider as Black newspapers and magazines brought these stories into the homes and consciences of ordinary Black citizens through the pages of their publications.

Bert Williams’s sudden passing in 1922 seemed to represent a symbolic break between the old school of vaudeville performances of the 1910s and a new brand of entertainment influenced by the spirit of the Renaissance. By the early 1920s, Williams was a bona fide stage star, having transcended the racial barriers of Broadway and overcome the loss of his comedy partner, George Walker. He successfully performed with the Ziegfeld Follies as their first Black performer; he enjoyed success as the best- selling Black recording artist of the pre-1920 period; and he had toured the United States and Europe extensively behind productions like In Dahomey, Abyssinia, and Under the

Bamboo Tree, among others. He experienced both harsh criticism and high praise in the pages of Black and white newspapers, both of which he took in stride. As Tim Brooks noted, Williams hoped that “the example he set, the dignity he projected in his private life, and the entrée he helped obtain for others of his race were more important than taking a rigid, probably hopeless, stand” against Jim Crow racism.403

In early 1922, Williams contracted a case of pneumonia while on tour to support

Under the Bamboo Tree, which received positive reviews but was struggling to sell tickets. Though sick, Williams continued to tour, and on February 27, passed out during a

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performance in Detroit. Few papers had time to report on the collapse though, because by

the time the weekly editions were set to print, Williams was already gone. He passed

away just before midnight on March 4; he was 47 years old. As Tony Langston of the

Chicago Defender noted, “The report of Mr. Williams’ death is a bound to be a shock.

No reports regarding his illness had been published, and the fact that he worked up until a few days before his death makes it all the more a matter of surprise.”404 Three funerals

were held for Williams: two private services for the family and one public service, during

which somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 mourners attended.405

As Camille Forbes noted, Williams’s role as a representative for his race was complicated, and upon his death “the public sought to assess his role as a Black man as well as his influence as a performer.”406 Black publications became a staging ground for

negotiating Williams’s public memory. Initially, the obituaries published in leading Black

press papers, like the Defender and the Afro-American, painted a laudatory and

uncomplicated picture of Williams, focusing on his “remarkable” career and financial

success as a stage star. For example, in the obituary he wrote for the Defender, Langston

declared,

No performer in the history of the American stage enjoyed the popularity and esteem of all races and classes of theatregoers to the remarkable extent gained by Bert Williams. He had a wonderful following and his name in the lights in front of any theatre meant ‘capacity’ attendance, no matter what the vehicle.407

A release by the Associated Negro Press vowed that Williams would be “remembered

among the illustrious.”408 In the Afro-American, the author noted that Williams made up

to $100,000 a year, and “On the stage, no colored actor heretofore has attained the

professional or personal standing of the inimitable ‘Bert’…His genius made the other

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race forget the color line.”409 The Defender ran a photo of Williams alongside his

obituary, sans burnt cork on his face, with the caption, “Celebrated comedian answers

final call after remarkable career covering many years upon the stage. Funeral one of the

largest ever held in New York City” (Figure 6.1).

A more nuanced analysis of Williams’s legacy emerged only in the months and

years after his death, and these latter portraits of Williams reposition him as a symbol of

the Renaissance. For example, in the months after his death, novelist Jessie Fauset

published a touching four-page tribute to Williams in the Crisis, in which she noted that,

His role was always that of a poor, shunted, cheated, out-of-luck Negro and he fostered and deliberately trained his genius toward the delineation of this type because his mental as well as his artistic sense told him that here was a true racial vein…His colored auditors laughed but often with a touch of rue, -- this characterization was too near too us; his hard luck was our own universal fate.410

Of the burnt cork Williams wore throughout his stage career to enhance the caricature of his Blackness, Fauset wrote,

If the world knew of his great possibilities why had it doomed this stalwart, handsome creature, to his golden skin, his silken hair, his beautiful, sensitive hands under the hideousness of the eternal Black make-up. Why should he and we obscure our talents forever under the bushel of prejudice, jealousy, stupidity.411

Fauset recalled that upon hearing comedian Eddie Cantor stopped wearing burnt cork,

“my eyelids stung with the prick of sudden tears.”412 Perhaps this is the most

heartbreaking line of Fauset’s tribute – the notion that Williams served as a martyr for his

race, sacrificing his Blackness so that those who came after him need not suffer the

humiliation of a career in Blackface.413

Williams’s reputation as an activist only grew posthumously. In 1925, the

Philadelphia Tribune wrote that,

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He was misunderstood greatly; his motive was misconstrued by many of his own people, especially his friends and it hurt him much, but he never wavered in his efforts to bring about an era of better feeling and a clearer understanding between white and colored people in the theatrical world.414

What is striking about the coverage of Williams in memory is that, in death, he became

the antithesis of what he was in life – symbolically, he became a martyr for the race, though during his career he was routinely criticized for playing up stereotypes of Black

Americans and for not being more vocal about the fight for civil rights. Truly sentimental and sympathetic portraits of him emerged in even the most radical of Black-centered publications. Williams’s role as a representative for the race could only be reconciled by his death. The increased respect bestowed upon Williams posthumously is a product of the increased success Black entertainers found, whether they liked it or not, on the coattails of his so-called minstrel performances; Black journalists had to acknowledge the possibility that there may not have been a Paul Robeson without a Bert Williams to come first.

Williams’s initial success as the first Black performer to grace the Broadway stage was especially important in creating opportunities for Black producers, writers, and actors a decade later; therefore, his legacy was redefined in the purview of this new wave of Broadway performers. A series of Black-centered theatrical productions made it on the

Broadway stage in the 1920s, including Shuffle Along and its follow-up Chocolate

Dandies; Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Have Wings; Lew

Leslie’s Blackbirds; and Broadway’s first all-African American production, Green

Pastures. As Broadway historian Ethan Mordden noted, the Harlem Renaissance

movement “was bound to have an impact on everyone, and most immediately on

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Broadway, where, suddenly, white playwrights tackled Black subjects.”415 Eugene

O’Neill might be the most important and groundbreaking white playwright of this era.

Two of his works, Emperor Jones (1920) and All God’s Chillun Have Wings (1924),

launched the careers of theatre actor and Springarn Medal award winner Charles Gilpin

and film star Paul Robeson.

Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, which commenced in 1920 and ran until 1924,

was a direct challenge to the seemingly flimsy minstrel shows of the pre-1900 era.

Emperor Jones was the story of Brutus Jones, a Pullman Porter who escapes to an

unnamed Caribbean Island to evade prosecution for a murder he has committed in the

United States. Once on the island, Jones convinces the naïve natives that he is a

“magician,” and he becomes ruler. Corrupted by his newfound power, Jones abuses his subjects, who plan a coup d'état against him. He flees into the jungle only to confront demons of his own past; ultimately, he is hunted down by his subjects and shot to death.

Jones was a complicated figure, and a far cry from the comedic portrayal of African

American men that Broadway had become accustomed to in Williams’s work. Of

Emperor Jones, the Afro-American noted that “it should be a source of soul-stirring pride to colored America, and written by the nation’s greatest playwright, has as its star, a man of their race.”416

The role of Brutus Jones was a highly coveted opportunity for Black theatre

actors. As Gwendolyn Bennett of The Opportunity noted, “I am willing to wager that for

many a round year Negro actors will be spoken of in terms of their ability to do O’Neill’s

hectored character.”417 Charles Gilpin was the first to receive a chance to play Jones on

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the Broadway stage, and his career was a delicate balance between juggling the pressures

of the increasingly activist Black community; navigating the hypocritical terrain of the

theatre industry, where a Black performer can be both honored and excluded

simultaneously; and later, battling his own issues with alcoholism.

Gilpin was a seasoned actor by the time he received the role. He began his career on the vaudeville stage in 1896, and after performing a series of odd jobs that included being a printer and reporter, he soon began to perform with noted acts the Fisk Jubilee

Singers in 1903. He also toured with the Williams and Walker Company’s Abyssinia production from 1905 to 1906. 418 The Black press delighted at Gilpin’s portrayal of

Jones; reviews called his performance “a masterpiece of histronism,” “the greatest

currently on view in the metropolis,” and “a most remarkable dramatization of the

psychology of fear.” The Tribune proclaimed that the performance “marks an epoch in

the progress of the colored people and should be an inspiration to the youth of the

race.”419 G. Grant Williams of the Tribune called Gilpin “the man who has made history

for the race, and enlightened the white people considerably.”420 Gilpin seemed to

encapsulate the highbrow “best of the race” ethos espoused by DuBois and his

colleagues.

Gilpin received the NAACP’s highest honor, the Spingarn Medal, in 1921. Gilpin

was the first actor to receive the Springarn, and the evolution of the award itself reflected

shifting attitudes about entertainment generally. The honor was established in 1916, when

it was given to biologist E.E. Just. Subsequent awards went to Liberian diplomat Colonel

Charles Young, composer Harry Burleigh, critic William Stanley Brathwaite, Archibald

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Grimke, and DuBois. With the possible exception of Burleigh, creative artists were

ignored by the NAACP until Gilpin. When Gilpin received the award, the Defender

proclaimed, “The choice of Charles Gilpin as the recipient of the Springarn Medal,

awarded annually by Major Joel Springarn through the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People, for the most distinguished contribution of the year by

an outstanding member of the Race will be most heartily approved by the general

public.”421 Fellow entertainers tenor singer Roland Hayes received the award in 1924,

and Green Pastures star Richard Harrison in 1931. The award was a tangible acknowledgement of the positive influence its recipient had over their race, but it was

also a marker of elitism; for instance, when it was awarded to Burleigh, the Philadelphia

Tribune noted that Burleigh’s composition of “Deep River” was “high class.”422 Gilpin’s

Springarn Medal win was an important marker of distinction not only for him, but for the gradually increasing influence of entertainment over Black leadership during this period.

That same year Gilpin was named by the Drama League of New York as one of the ten best artists who had made valuable contributions to American theatre. However, instead of an invitation to the annual gala, the League decided to send Gilpin a “nice letter” – as the only Black actor to be honored, the League was concerned that his attendance at dinner might offend its white patrons. Members of the theatre industry, including O’Neill, George Cram Cooke, and Gilda Waresi, were outraged by the

League’s snub against Gilpin, and issued a statement refusing the attend the gala if he was not included.423 As a compromise, Gilpin agreed to “drop in [and] pay his respects”

at the event, but declined to stay for dinner, lest he make any of the white attendees feel

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uncomfortable in his presence. He told the New York World, “As for the Drama League – well, I don’t know its members very well, and I do not wish by any means to force an association.”424 In response to Gilpin’s plans, The Messenger published an article taking

Gilpin to task:

If [Gilpin] simply wants to confine this ‘personal acquaintance’ qualification test to Negroes; then, he will receive nothing but bouquets and blessings from those philanthropic white people who stand for the Negro remaining in ‘his place’ and the time-serving, hat-in-hand, me-to-boss Negro who descants piously on the danger of ‘rocking the boat.’ 425

Later in the article, the author pegged Gilpin’s attitude as a “slave psychology.”426

Rattled by the undue attention this event was drawing to him (Gilpin always claimed that it was his art, not his “person,” that he most wanted to promote), the actor finally relented, and attended the dinner, with actress Gilda Varesi in tow. The Afro-American deemed Gilpin the “hero” of the evening.427

Gilpin, it seems, simply could not win. In 1924, O’Neill dismissed him over a

disagreement with the use of the word “n****r” in the screenplay. Gilpin wanted the

word removed; O’Neill refused. The revival of Emperor, which began in 1925 with Paul

Robeson as its star, was met with rave reviews; critics were especially pleased with

Robeson’s performance. Will Anthony Madden, special correspondent to the Courier,

gushed,

Robeson’s interpretation of the role left nothing to be desired. To begin with, Robeson has the physical build that makes him look the part of just what the character portrays and with that powerful, rich voice and the ease with which he acts, I must say the theatre has gained a great deal by the addition of this sterling and promising actor to its ranks.428

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Madden’s review of Robeson’s performance typified Black theatre critics’ initial reaction

to Robeson; the actor “left nothing to be desired,” which included Gilpin, who was

quickly discarded by Black journalists.

Despite how feted he had been by the Black press previously, Gilpin was quickly

forgotten in Robeson’s shadow, and though he attempted to transition into film along

with Robeson, Bill Robinson, and other Broadway stars, his personal demons prevented

him from attaining the level of success he enjoyed as Brutus Jones. Gilpin became “a star

for the moment, a person whom the fickle public will worship for a while.”429 Not much

is known about the years between Gilpin’s dismissal from Emperor and his death in

1930, though limited coverage of him over the six-year period paints a disturbing picture.

For instance, the Afro-American reported in 1929 that Gilpin had been kicked off the cast

of two Hollywood films – first, Universal’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and later Fox’s Hearts in

Dixie – as a result of erratic drunken behavior on set.430 Gilpin died in March 1930 from unknown causes “broke and almost in poverty” at his home in rural Elkridge Park, New

Jersey, virtually forgotten by the Black press.431

The continuing success of theatre productions like Emperor and Shuffle Along,

which though vastly different in genre were both concerned with African American lived

experience, inspired a new generation of Black actors and composers who became increasingly involved in the production side of the theatre industry. Shuffle Along was followed shortly thereafter by its follow-up, Chocolate Dandies, in 1924. These musicals

borrowed heavily from Harlem cabarets, which “pleased Broadway producers for whom

a Harlem nightclub proved a less expensive tryout venue than a playhouse out of town.

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And it pleased those Broadway audiences who preferred to visit Harlem vicariously.”432

One of the largest draws at these cabarets was their chorus lines, which featured beautiful and scantily clad female dancers. Positions in chorus lines were so coveted that, at times, white dancers would attempt to pass as Black just to get an audition.433

Because these musicals relied on cabarets for talent, African American women received an opportunity to be prominently showcased as stars – and for a male-dominated industry like the Black newspaper industry, this was very newsworthy indeed. Women had a secondary role in both Black press newsrooms, where the staffs were overwhelmingly male, and in Renaissance literature, where they had less access to patronage and support and difficulty getting their work published at major publishing houses. As Wintz noted, “the Harlem Renaissance remained in many ways a male- dominated movement, just as American society remained a male-dominated society despite the efforts of feminist activists and the enactment of the Nineteenth

Amendment.”434 This gender gap was reflected in coverage of women on stage.

Broadway musicals became a space for Black women to garner public attention, though instead of being recognized for their actual talent, they were framed by male journalists as sex objects only, as reasons “why men go broke,” to quote the Philadelphia

Tribune.435 What made Black women in theatre newsworthy were their looks, as African

American beauty standards were an increasingly prevalent part of Black women’s lived experience. A’Leila Walker, one of Harlem’s leading socialites, made her fortune by promoting a hair-straightening serum. The glorification of the Black female body, however, was a complicated terrain for Black women, namely because most beauty

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products available, like Walker’s wildly popular hair serum, focused on lightening skin

and de-texturizing hair – in other words, making women look white rather than Black. In

an article published in the Messenger in 1918, author Louis George estimated that the

women of New York spent nearly $5 million annually on beauty care products ranging

from skin cream, to rouge and “lip rouge,” to nail polish. However, as Louis argued, the price was well worth it:

The girl’s hair attractively arranged, her skin manifesting a soft, velvet texture, her polished and clean nails, her pearly teeth – are admired and appreciated by everybody. Even these extreme race loyalists artfully avoid the unkempt, unimproved hair and the poorly ‘attended-to’ skin.436

The cover girls featured in newspapers and as illustrations in magazines are

representative of this general trend toward artificially enhanced beauty. For example, the

caption accompanying Alice Coleman’s promotional photo in a May 1924 edition of the

Philadelphia Tribune said of Coleman: “Who helps make Hartwell Cook’s Hurry Along

review the idyl of youth and beauty that it is. Bobbed hair and the charm that enhances

beauty are this little lady’s glories.”437 Irvin C. Miller, one of the few Black theatre

producers at the time, even put together a revue called Brown Skin Models in 1930,

designed to “glorify” women of color from all parts of the country by featuring them on

stage in “the most gorgeous costumes produced by the leading European modistes in

Broadway reviews” (see Figure 6.2), but the revue featured women who bore little

resemblance to the ordinary Black women of Harlem.438

In Theophilus Lewis’s review of Chocolate Dandies for the Messenger, he wrote of showgirls Valaida Snow and Lottie Gee, “The show does not offer them much opportunity to display what qualities they possess. But that’s all right, they don’t have to

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do anything. They’re just that good-looking”439 – that seemed to sum up the Black press’s attitude to women on the theatrical stage. Talent seemed to be a secondary concern. By

1924, it was common to see a “starlet” grace the front page of a Black press newspaper, often with only a caption and no feature story attached (see Figure 6.3). Even the militant

Messenger began to feature these kinds of women on their front covers (though they were often illustrations) (see Figure 6.4). Unlike the full-figured and regal Black Patti of the previous era, the women pictured were more often than not waifish, light-skinned, and scantily clad – almost mirror-images of the “flapper” type that graced mainstream magazines of the period. As Carolyn Kitch noted of The Crisis cover girls of the same period, the “whiteness” of the figures pictured “sent female readers a disempowering message” despite the fact that they were supposed to be visual markers of the success of

the race as a whole.440 The overall effect of those photographs was to “insert Black faces

into white ideals and therefore assume part ownership of those ideals.”441 The lack of

meaningful information attached to the photographs in Black newspapers and on the

covers of The Messenger hints at a larger truth about their function in the Black press, on

the stage and in society at large – that the “New Negro Woman” was there only to be

“good-looking,” not because of talent, intelligence or personality.442 These women served

as mirror images of their white theatrical counterparts; their appearance had little to do with what ordinary Black women actually looked like. Black journalists failed to see that the promotion of these women compromised the idea of a racial pride for their female readership.

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This dismissal of women generally did not apply to all women of the stage,

however, as performers like Florence Mills and Josephine Baker began to make inroads

into the once male-dominated comedy genre. Mills’s career started at the age of four, as

“Baby Flo” performing on various vaudeville stages, including as “Baby Florence” in

Williams and Walker Company’s Son of Ham and as a pickaninny in Bonita. 443 As a

youth, she took dancing lessons with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Mills was no doubt a

part of the legacy that had begun with Black Patti and continued with Aida Overton

Walker (to whom she was often compared); indeed, as her biographer Bill Egan noted,

Mills not only performed with Walker directly (in Sons of Ham), but she also tried out for

(and possibly won) the chance to perform as part of the Black Patti Troubadours as well.

Mills took over Gertrude Saunders’s role in Shuffle in the summer of 1921, and like

Robeson did to Gilpin with Brutus’s role, she totally eclipsed the original actor’s

performance. Mills represented a “new kind” of Broadway star, “a Black female singer

and dancer who could deliver everything that Black entertainment was renowned for, but

with an added gamine delicacy…pathos and humor in a blend that was uniquely her

own.”444

Mills was an important part of this wave of starlets, but her incredible singing,

dancing, and comedic talent set her apart. Shortly after joining Shuffle, she was

discovered by a cabaret promoter who would become the “pioneer of the Negro nightclub

revue” – a Russian-Jewish man named Lew Leslie.445 Leslie’s mission was “the discovery and promotion of Black female talent;” his vision, according to Egan, was to promote African American showgirls the same way that Ziegfeld promoted white

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showgirls.446 In April 1922 Leslie offered Mills a three-year contract with a salary of

$500 per week, “the best ever given to a colored woman, both as to terms and as to salary,” pending her release from Shuffle.447 Leslie’s Plantation Revue opened in the

Winter Garden Theatre in New York, with Mills as its star. Salem Tutt Whitney, writing for the Defender, praised Mills as, “Wonderfully talented, fascinatingly vivacious,

sweetly magnetic, Florence Mills sings, dances, and talks her way into the inner most

recesses of one’s heart than be tilled by no other.”448

Mills’s reputation grew steadily from 1923 through 1927: upon her return from a

European tour with Plantation Revue she starred in the Greenwich Village Follies; turned

down an offer to become part of Ziegfeld troupe; and starred in two more Lew Leslie

productions, Dixie to Broadway and Blackbirds. Along the way she became a staple of

Harlem society, but spent much of her time participating in charity events all over the

country. J.A. Jackson of the Afro-American noted that “She has the distinction of being

the least ‘up-stage’ woman in the profession and has never been too busy to help any

worthwhile benefit by donating a personal appearance, oftimes with her whole show.”449

As her career progressed, Mills proved that cabaret girls were far more than just looks – she was continually hailed for her singing, dancing, and comedic skills throughout her tenure as Leslie’s favorite showgirl. By 1927, she had become a “full- fledged international superstar.”450 She had also managed to avoid becoming the object of

gossip in the press; Mills had been happily married to Ulysses “Kid” Thompson, of the

Thompson and Covan vaudeville duo and the Tennessee Ten, since 1921. Rumors of

infidelity on Mills’s part during Plantation were quickly quashed by the Afro-American’s

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theatrical editor, who insisted, “Those knowing that Miss Mills is happily married to U.S.

Thompson…can all but smile at this distortion of the truth.” When Plantation came to

Baltimore, “folk can attest that [Mills and Thompson] were together at all times when the show played this town.”451

Mills’s squeaky-clean image did not extend to her Shuffle co-star, a replacement

chorus-girl named Josephine Baker.452 In 1922, with little stage experience under her

belt, Baker auditioned for a role in Shuffle, but she was rejected. Undeterred, she became

a dresser for the show and learned all of the routines so that, when a chorus-girl fell ill,

she was the obvious replacement. In 1925 Baker joined Sissle and Blake’s Shuffle follow-

up, Chocolate Dandies, where she received modest attention. The New York Amsterdam

News focused on her unique physical attributes, describing her as

tall, slight of figure and long of limb. She seems as pliable as a rubber band. Her gyrations are comic to the last degree. Some people call her the chocolate edition of Charlotte Greenwood and there are other with long memories who say that she is a bronze counterpart of a celebrated French eccentrique, Pasquerrette, who came to this country years ago.453

This early review is oddly predictive of the main themes of Baker’s career as a whole – she was known for her visceral performances and made her career as a French, rather than American, star.

After Chocolate Dandies’ run ended, she continued to perform in Harlem’s

Plantation Club, but her big break came abroad –on the French stage as the star of the

provocative Le Revue Negre` which opened in October 1925 at the Théâtre des Champs-

Elysées in Paris. Baker’s Negre` performance was noted by stateside Black press

newspapers, especially in 1926, by which point her stardom abroad had been firmly

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established. Headlines like “Josephine Baker goes big in Paris,” “Josephine Baker now is

a Parisian craze,” “Josephine Baker hit in Paris” were very common in 1926 Black press

entertainment news sections, and this coverage directly challenges the assertions by

Baker’s biographers that she was ignored in the American press – she wasn’t.454 She may have been ignored in the mainstream press, but the Black press followed her career very closely very early on.

Mills and Baker – who toured France together briefly in 1926 as part of the

Blackbirds cast – regularly drew comparisons with one another, though they were hardly rivals. As the Pittsburgh Courier noted, the two worked in tandem to establish the dominance of American theatre abroad; the author pointed out that “if that truth must be told the triumphs of John Barrymore, Jane Cowl, Doris Keane, Paul Whiteman and all the rest pale into insignificance before the knockout of two colored girls – Florence Mills and

Josephine Baker.”455 Baker was known for her provocative yet comedic dance routines,

namely her “banana dance,” during which she wore a skirt of bananas and little else,

while Mills was known as a performer with a keen sense of refinement, fragility, and

elegance.456

In discussions about each in the Black press, this dichotomy worked to both help

and undermine each star – coverage of Mills was overwhelmingly flattering, but not as voluminous as coverage of Baker, which was sometimes flattering but at other times critical and, possibly more troubling, sexist. While Mills was “sweetly magnetic,” Baker represented something far more dangerous to (mostly male) journalists. Most coverage of

Baker focused on her physical form – “as tall, slight of figure and long of limb.” Yet one

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quotation from a white writer, e.e. cummings, was reprinted over and over again in Black

press newspapers as the adopted mantra of the press on Baker. Cummings wrote,

She resembled some tall, vital, incomparable fluid nightmare, which crossed its eyes and warped its limbs in a purely unearthly manner – some vision which opened new avenues of fear, which suggested nothing but itself…It may seem preposterous that this terrifying nightmare should have become the most beautiful (and beautiful is what we mean) star of the Parisian stage. Yet such is the case.457

Despite the clearly racial and sexist overtones of this quotation, no Black journalist took cummings to task for his comments.

Coverage of Black Broadway celebrities during the 1920s suggests that inherent in conversations about appropriate representations of the race were discussions about other aspects of Black cultural experience, including issues related to gender, specifically.

Coverage of Mills and Baker reveals a dichotomy akin to an innocent girl-vamp complex

– Mills was elegant and saintly, while Baker was sexualized and vilified. For example, in

1935 upon her return to the United States to star in the Follies of 1936, the Afro-

American noted that “the chic, sophisticated Baker of today is a very different person from the wild, irrepressible Jo Baker of ten years ago.” The author declared that “the exotic dancer of yesterday is dead,” and he seemed truly relieved at the thought.458

Despite being a star abroad, however, Baker embodied in many ways the spirit of the

Harlem Renaissance – or at least the “Black exotica” of Black cultural life that impelled white audiences into the nightclubs and theatres of Harlem.459 As Wintz noted, inherent

in the movement was a “belief that their African heritage should be a source of pride and

the basis of a racial solidarity that linked all colored people.”460 During this period,

cultural output was often discussed in the Black press in terms of “primitivism,”

148 including allusions to Africa and the “jungle.”461 Baker’s performances were certainly reflective of a celebration of African womanhood (albeit an exaggerated version); however, the fact that she was a seemingly headstrong and outspoken woman did not appear to work in her favor. Race representation – in this case, the extolling of African pride – was simply not fit for a woman wearing a banana skirt.

In June 1927, Baker become the object of mass speculation when, at 21 years old and already a divorcee, she married Italian “count” Pepito di Albertini in Paris. It was unclear at the time the news broke whether Albertini was a real count, and his status was a point of debate in the Black press, whose writers wanted desperately to believe that

Baker had become a countess – European royalty – as the ultimate proof that Europe was indeed more tolerant than the United States. As the Defender pointed out,

In America the legal union of these two persons would have created national pandemonium and Count de Albertini would have found that the only way he could feel free to have the woman of his choice – if her skin was dark – would be in the disgraceful and unholy state of concubinage when he would still be received as a gentleman in the best white families.462

Baker and Pepito had become romantically involved in late 1926; he soon became her manager. Pepito, however, was not a count; rather, he was a former stonemason and sometimes gigolo who, when visiting Paris, liked to call himself “Count Pepito de

Albertino” (or sometimes “Abatino”) because it “had more class.”463

Frustrated by the fact that no Paris newspapers had carried news of the union,

Philadelphia Tribune correspondent J.A. Rogers traveled to Paris to investigate the marriage reports for himself, and what he found was quite disappointing. In an article entitled “Is the star of the Folies-Bergere really married?” which was reprinted in the

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Tribune, Defender, and Courier, among other papers, Rogers reported that the marriage

had actually been an “advertising stunt,” and further that the “count” was actually “only a

cabaret dancer and a no-Count” (see Figure 6.5). Rogers charged that the publicity stunt

came as a result of Baker losing favor on the Parisian stage; he wrote, “The truth is that

Miss Baker has been steadily losing vogue in Paris. When I visited the Folies I was much disappointed to find that it was not her, but an English dancer, Jack Sanford, who was the

hit of the show.” Rogers also added that, “Her dancing was not as good as that of many

girls I have seen at the Lincoln or the Lafayette in New York, though I heard that her

dancing last year was very good.”464

This news was immensely disappointing to Black journalists who had believed

that Europe was a welcoming environment for African American performers; the idea of

a Black American woman becoming a “countess” seemed to solidify this idea – to many

writers, the story of Baker’s marriage to the “count” must have sounded like a fairy tale

come true. As with coverage of British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at the turn of

the century, Europe in the 1920s was idealized by Black journalists; the Plaindealer asked, “Is Europe heaven for sepia theatrical stars?” citing the success of Baker, Robeson

(who at the time was experiencing great success on the London stage as the title role in

Othello), and a slew of lesser known actors and actresses who had found steady work in

Europe after being snubbed in America. The author of the article argued that,

“Opportunity plus ability is perhaps the most logical reason for the tremendous success of

Negro actors and actresses abroad. In America, the talent of colored theatrical stars is well recognized but the opportunity is not commensurate with their ability.”465

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Black musicals like Shuffle, Chocolate Dandies, and Plantation Revue toured

England and France extensively, and Black newspapers often ran performance reviews

reprinted from European newspapers. Though the success of Black actors abroad hinted

at a greater tolerance among white audiences in Europe for Black artistic expression, the

reality of Black-white relations both foreign and domestic were not so clear-cut. In 1923,

Mills’s Plantation Revue hit a major snag when London’s Variety Artists Federation

publicly opposed the Black cabaret’s scheduled appearances at the Empire Theatre in

Leicester Square. In anticipation of Mills’s arrival, Daily Graphic writer Hannen Swaffer

harshly criticized African American performers, including Mills, who were scheduled to

perform in London as part of what he called “n****r revues.” He wrote, “We view with

the greatest apprehension a cabaret where Black artists would actually mix with white

folk at the tables.”466 These criticisms were tied to labor issues; Swaffer’s contention was

that if Black actors continued to migrate to Europe, there would be no work left for

British actors. London, which had been for so many Black journalists an exemplar of racial tolerance, became the site of a particularly nasty brand of racially motivated spite.

Five months after the Baker marriage debacle, in early November 1927, entertainment writers had more bad news to report. As the result of a bout of appendicitis,

Florence Mills had passed away suddenly in New York; she was 32 years old. Mills was

remembered in death in much the same way she was celebrated in life – as enormously

talented, well-liked, and a proud example for the rest of her community. As the

Philadelphia Tribune noted,

The curtain has gone down for the last time on the woman who brought Negro artists for the first time in an all-Negro show to Broadway. Broadway came to see and by

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her genius and personality she won – The ‘Great White Way’ was at the feet of the little woman who sang and danced as though it came from the soul.467

The Tribune expended the most energy commemorating Mills; the paper spent the rest of the year publishing a series of articles and photographs eulogizing her.

With Mills gone and Baker firmly established in Europe, the late 1920s Broadway stage belonged to a bevy of male stars who would experience great but brief success in

New York. In 1928, Robeson signed on to star as “Joe” in the wildly successful London production of the Ziegfeld musical Show Boat, while dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson became the star of Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds revue. The next year, Richard Harrison took on the role of “de Lawd” in the first African American-written and produced Broadway hit, Green Pastures. This trio of performances were heralded in the Black press: Robeson brought “a touch of genius” to the role of Joe; Robinson’s “magnetic personality and

wonderful talents…made him the peer of all entertainers;” and Harrison performed his

role with “breadth, force and dignity.”468 However, these performers’ tenure on the

Broadway stage lasted only a few years; Robeson and Robinson left the theatre in the

early 1930s to pursue successful acting careers in Hollywood, and Harrison – who was

sixty-six at the time of his Pastures debut – passed away in 1935.

The coverage of Black Broadway celebrities revealed that, because most Black

Broadway performers passed through Harlem nightclubs on their way to the big stage,

Harlem and Broadway became inextricably linked throughout coverage which revealed that discussions about celebrity and race representation were couched in ideological struggles also related to gender and class – so that, like the Harlem Renaissance itself,

Black celebrity culture was the product and producer of elite, Black males (though some

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women, like Mills and Baker, challenged this idea). For instance, actors like Charles

Gilpin and Paul Robeson, who “quickly wove his way into the Harlem social fabric and

drank the soma [sic] of the Renaissance’s extravagance,” emerged as symbols of cultural and artistic elitism that was based on notions of idealized masculinity as portrayed in works like Emperor Jones.469

Broadway itself suffered during the 1930s, and there is little doubt that this

adversely affected Black stage performers. As John Lyman noted sardonically in The

Opportunity in 1934,

Scanning the announcements of current productions and those to come…we find a familiar omission. Aside from the new edition of Lew Leslie’s ‘Blackbirds,’ and the possible production of a play called ‘Brain Sweat,’ we discover no Negro production definitely scheduled for this season! Surprising? Obviously not.470

Though Lyman was referring to the general trend of discounting Black performers from

mainstream culture, there was a secondary reason why there were so few Black-centered

productions on the schedule for that season – because by 1934, Broadway was in

economic freefall. The Depression, coupled with the migration of the most bankable

Broadway stars to Hollywood, left Broadway to “shrink, losing theatres to film or the

wrecker’s ball, losing talent to Hollywood.” As for musical theatre – “Jazz swept them

away. City music. Know-how. Sex and guts” were their death-knell.471 Therefore, by

1934, the fame and fortune enjoyed by Renaissance celebrities in New York came to a

sudden halt against the backdrop of the Depression.

Though the content and form of many of the most successful Black-centered

productions in the 1920s seemed stuck in a tradition closer to minstrelsy, the stars that

emerged in the pages of the Black press embodied the spirit and the heart of the

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Renaissance. As these stars carried this ethos into other media, including film and music, entertainment culture became comprised of an increasingly engaged and activist community determined the challenge preconceived notions of Black cultural life. No longer would Black entertainers shy away from expressing their own unique values, experiences, and perspectives – as a result of breakthroughs on the Broadway stage,

Black celebrities increasingly refused to hide their talents, in the words of Jessie Fauset,

“under the bushel of prejudice, jealousy, stupidity.”

Figure 6.1. Tony Langston, “Bert Williams, famous comedian, dead,” Chicago Defender, March 11, 1922, 1.

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Figure 6.2. Irvin C. Miller’s “Brown Skin Models,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 25, 1930, 9.

Figure 6.3. “Lottie Gee,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 23, 1924, 1.

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Figure 6.4. The Messenger, Vol. 6, No 1, January 1924.

Figure 6.5. J.A. Rogers, “Is the star of the Folies-Bergere really married?” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1927, A3.

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CHAPTER 7

“THE TOASTS OF FILMLAND” – JOURNALISTS CONSTRUCT A “BLACK VERSION” OF THE STAR SYSTEM, 1920-1935

Uncle Tom has dropped his hat; Aunt Jemima has lost her bandana; pickaninnies are wearing shoes and slowly but surely Hollywood is growing up. – Fay Jackson, Associated Negro Press Hollywood correspondent, 1934472

As stars like Paul Robeson and Bill Robinson made the transition from the

Broadway stage to the Hollywood footlights, they consistently challenged prevailing notions about African Americans in film productions that captured the collective imagination of Americans seeking desperately to escape the harsh realities of the Great

Depression. Though the Hollywood film industry was at times a repository for some of the most incendiary and offensive statements about the race in entertainment, African

Americans – including Black journalists – quickly saw the transformative possibilities in this new and exciting industry and medium. With the dawn of sound recording in 1927 – marked by the release of the first successfully marketed “talkie,” The Jazz Singer – Black performers had “opportunities…that went beyond the stereotypical roles.”473 Against the

backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance Movement, as well as cultural changes reflected in

increased concern about gender roles and labor issues, Hollywood film was a symbolic

place where negative attitudes toward Black Americans could be successfully contested

by gifted actors who seemed to have a clear understanding of the role they played in the

lives of ordinary African Americans.

The symbolic power of the “new scientific fad” of filmmaking occurred to many journalists almost immediately, as they aggressively challenged negative stereotypes of

Blacks depicted in early films. In 1914, one Defender writer took Black audiences to task

157 for not being critical media consumers. When the “Hit the n****r” plot point in

Levinsky’s Holiday came on-screen, the writer lamented that, “As usual the house was crowded with Afro-Americans evidently insult-proof for they laughed and applauded.

Not a word of protest was uttered.”474 The next year, when Birth of a Nation was released, Booker T. Washington wrote an open letter to the Defender warning that,

[t]he time to fight bad movies is before they are shown…Once the [photo]play has been put on in a city, the managers encourage, and even skillfully initiate opposition, on account of the advertising the play receives when attempts are made to stop it.475

Problematic imagery and language existed in films with somehow more dire implications than it had seemed to carry for Black journalists before.

Nearly twenty years later, the film version of the play Emperor Jones experienced a similar amount of backlash given its liberal use of the term “n*****r.” The Afro-

American referred to the “unexpected use of the insulting term,” though the word had been used at O’Neill’s insistence in the Broadway version – a controversy that resulted in

Charles Gilpin’s dismissal for protesting against its use. The backlash against the filmic version hints at the larger role of movies in the everyday lived experience of Black

Americans – there was a belief that film conveyed some sort of higher evidentiary

“truth.”

It was not just visual imagery and language that could be problematic; racist statements by mainstream stars were also seen as potentially damaging. When film star

Will Rogers made cracks about African Americans on a radio broadcast, the NAACP led boycotts against the program’s sponsor, Gulf Refining Company, and put public pressure

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on NBC until Rogers reluctantly apologized. The Tribune noted that, “Will Rogers has a

poor sense of humor. Negroes know what Rogers thinks about them.”476

At the same time, film also represented a real opportunity for racial uplift because

it could be used to promote visual proof of the best qualities of the race. In May 1914,

photographer Peter Jones – funded by a collection of South American businessmen – set out to record a series of performances of the Chicago-based Mystic Shriners, an all-Black

marching band, as part of an effort to “make pictures showing the progress of the Afro-

American in the United States.” Jones’s task was to create “a series of our marching

organizations and other features of race life that will encourage and uplift.”477 The use of

this new and widely available technological innovation to create “racial propaganda” – to use DuBois’s idea – was immediately harnessed by filmmakers interested in promoting racial pride.

The burgeoning film industry of this period became an important force in the

Black community in three ways. First, movie theatres became another physical space whereby the fight against segregation needed to be waged. Second, film news and

Hollywood gossip became newsworthy, and introduced opportunities for up-and-coming

Black entertainment journalists to have regular bylines in the nation’s leading Black newspapers and magazines. Finally, coverage of Hollywood doings, as well as the films themselves, served as symbolic sites for the negotiation of race representation.

Almost as soon as their doors opened in the mid-1910s, movie theatres became a site of contestation of Jim Crow segregation practices. Unlike the theatres that lined

Broadway, movie theatres did not have assigned seating – therefore, the relegation of

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Black spectators to balcony seats was not an institutional but rather a de facto social

practice.478 Theatre owners and managers just assumed that Blacks, when commanded to,

would give up their prime seats. However, they were incorrect. In 1914, moviegoer

Madeline Davis took her little brother to see a film at The Ideal Motion Picture Company

in Philadelphia; after taking a seat in the middle of the theatre, the usher and manager

approached her and told her to move closer to the screen. She refused, and the two men, along with another theatre employee, assaulted her. The three men – Joe Purzell, Richard

Hughes, and William Buckman – were put on trial for the assault and were found guilty.

The magistrate argued that “Moving picture managers have no right to usher their patrons to seats they do not wish to occupy…where tickets do not specify a particular seat the patron is entitled to occupy any vacant seat.”479 Two more, similar cases emerged in

Philadelphia – one in 1915 and one in 1917.480 In coverage of the 1917 case, in which

again a movie theatre manager attempted to remove a Black patron from prime seating,

the Philadelphia Tribune observed that “Not genuine Americans but men of foreign birth

seem to be the most persistent in efforts to deny equal accommodations to all who desire

to enter such places,” which suggested growing tension in urban areas between Black

residents and European immigrants.481

As labor historian Steven Ross noted, many Black movie patrons, excluded from

large theatres, opted to attend screenings at small, neighborhood theatres, which were

often owned by African American businessmen.482 However, Black-owned theatres also

received some trouble; as late as 1923, a theatre in Mississippi that catered to Black

patrons was forced to shut down by an angry mob. As the Defender bitterly recounted,

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“Evidently moving pictures are considered too good for Afro-Americans, for one night

last week a mob of men two hundred strong marched on the only place of the kind for the

race here and put it out of business.”483 To see anything akin to Black lived experience

was a rarity; for example, Oscar Micheaux’s The Exile was banned in Pittsburgh in 1931 for showing a Black man romantically involved with a white woman.484

Beginning in the 1910s, film operators as well as actors and producers began to

organize into labor unions. As Ross pointed out, though operator unions existed as early

as 1910, unionization campaigns for actors and producers “remained sporadic and largely

unsuccessful until the creation of Actors’ Equity and the more radical Photoplayers’

Union of 1916.”485 As labor issues intensified in the late 1920s to 1930s, Black theatre employees who worked as projector operators began to unionize and demand better pay and working conditions. The International Alliance of Theatre Employees and the

Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States supported their efforts, and walk- outs in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore took place in the mid-1930s.

Theatre managers were described by one journalist as the “exploiter of Negro labor of the vilest type.”486 Black actors also sought to unionize; The Messenger reminded them that,

“Remember, you are a wage earner, and as such you want the highest wages possible and the best possible conditions under which to work.”487 The Negro Actors Guild of

America was formally organized in 1937, spearheaded by Fredi Washington.

The popularity of film among African American audiences gave Black journalists

an opportunity to truly make a name for themselves in the Black newspaper industry. In

addition to Ralph Matthews, Lester Walton, Sylvester Russell, Theophilus Lewis, Harry

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Leavitt, and other established entertainment writers of the period, one Associated Negro

Press writer, Fay Jackson, emerged during this period as the source for celebrity gossip,

Hollywood casting decisions, and exclusive interviews with stars. Her “Hollywood

Stardust” column rivalled Matthews’s “Looking at the Stars” column in the pages of the

Baltimore Afro-American. As Donald Bogle described her, Jackson was as much of a

“personality” as the celebrities she covered; he wrote, “Jackson wore her hair closely cropped, favored tailored suits, carried a briefcase, and puffed away on unfiltered cigarettes – not the standard attire or look for a young woman in the movie capital [Los

Angeles].”488

Discussions of Black celebrities by Jackson and others were comprised of three major threads: studio lot gossip; discussions about racial stereotypes; and conversations

about race representation. In considering the first thread – celebrity gossip – the Black

press very closely mirrored mainstream coverage of white celebrities during this period.

As an Associated Negro Press staffer noted,

[T]he self-effacing race reporter, fully aware of the public interest in Negroes in motion pictures, and knowing the box office appeal they have in theatres largely attended by race patrons, to the tune of several million dollars a year, must, by force of duty, supply the necessary information his reading public demands.489

However, unlike the white, mainstream “star system,” there were so few noteworthy

Black actors that, routinely, gossip centered on the relationships between Black celebrities. For example, Jackson noted that Bill Robinson annoyed quite a few of his colleagues, including Clarence Muse, Jenni LeGron, and Stepin Fetchit; “They tell me that quite a number of folk around town are rather relieved that Bill Robinson is back in his own Harlem,” she teased in a 1935 column.490

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Some writers feigned “outrage” at the intrusion into stars’ public affairs. J.A.

Rogers wrote of Paul Robeson’s marital woes,

Divorce suits and love affairs are, or ought to be, the private concern of the individuals personally involved; in a civilized world the public would keep its nose out of the domestic life of a noted personage, thereby making it easier for him to render to public the fruits of his genius and talent.491

This, however, did not stop him from covering the story. Some of the most successful

Black press journalists during this period were gossip columnists. Because of the overall instability of the profession, a writer’s conscience played very little part in whether or not he or she would pursue a story. As the Hollywood machine became more and more powerful, Black journalists became increasingly invested in reporting on Black stars.

This group of journalists (along with the scores of other reporters during this

period who did not receive bylines) created and promoted the Black version of the

Hollywood “star system.” Celebrities in particular held an immense amount of symbolic

power because the industry was in many ways built around them. Celebrities were

integral to the sustained success of the Hollywood machine during the 1930s; as film

historian Richard Jewell summarily argued, “For the public, stars meant two things above

all else: a reliable kind of entertainment and an assurance of superior production values.

Audiences who attended a Shirley Temple film, or a Mae West film, or a Bing Crosby-

Bob Hope film had a very good idea of the sort of diversion they would experience.”492

The appearance of a successful – or “A” list actor – was a guarantee to audiences that the film itself “represented the highest level of Hollywood production.”493 Exhibitors agreed

to show films based not on genre or plot, but rather on who was starring in the film; the

star “was the most important element in each studio’s marketing efforts.”494

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Black filmmakers attempted to establish film studios to produce and finance what

Thomas Cripps called “race pictures,” films that – like their theatrical counterparts

Shuffle Along and Chocolate Dandies – sought to establish some iteration of a “Black

aesthetic.” These filmmakers were met with varying degrees of success. Among the most

successful was the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, established by brothers George and

Noble Johnson, which produced race films from 1916 through 1921. Their films

“appeared as dark reflections of white models, very much in line with the optimistic assimilationism abroad in the Black ethos of the World War I period.”495 George acted as

producer while Noble carved out a nascent film career as a professional extra. A few

years later, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux also began to make Black-centered films which

included Paul Robeson’s screen debut Body and Soul (1924). These films, according to

Cripps, created “a social absurdity, for they created a Black world without whites in

which therefore, Black divisiveness and bungling rather than white cupidity consigned

Negroes to the bottom.”496 Though they sought to promote the perspective of everyday

Black Americans, these films were poor reflections of their actual experiences.

Attention shifted to the films being produced in Hollywood, which captivated

both Black and white audiences through the 1920s, though they offered little in the way

for opportunities for Black actors. The first Black actors to break through in motion

pictures and receive steady work were extras or “atmosphere players,” who provided

living background scenery for films whose plot took place in areas that would have large

Black populations – like the antebellum South or the African jungle.497 Noble Johnson of

the Lincoln Motion Picture Company built his acting career on these roles. As Bogle

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noted, in the 1920s audiences were particularly interested in plantation dramas and

“jungle pictures set in darkest Africa”; a film like Paramount’s Four Feathers employed

upwards of 600 Black extras.498 In 1926, the major studios and some smaller independent studios came together to form an agency to gate-keep the increasingly large population of

extras seeking work in Los Angeles – the Central Casting Agency. Floyd Covington,

writing for The Opportunity, claimed that Central Casting “makes every effort to prevent

exploitation of the workers in the industry.”499 The number of Black extras used in

Hollywood steadily increased through the mid-1920s, from 3,464 in 1924 to 6,816 in

1926. Black extras made anywhere from $300 to $1,250 per week, depending on the type

of production in which they appeared – “more than any other extra in the film industry except the Chinese.” 500

By the end of the 1920s, it was clear that the gains that Blacks had made in the

film industry were as tenuous and flimsy as the gains they had made everywhere else –

and Black journalists lobbied for better opportunities for their actors. Writing in 1929,

Covington’s assessment of African Americans in Hollywood was three-fold: he was

concerned with the employment of Blacks as extras, as principal stars, and as directors

and producers. As he noted, “There have been many outstanding Negroes in pictures, but

none rated as stars…With the introduction and improvement of talking pictures comes

perhaps the Negro’s real opportunity to produce stars in his own right.”501 Covington

predicted that “The Negro’s place in the motion picture industry in California depends

largely upon himself” – his implication, of course, was that success will come with hard

work and self-sufficiency.502

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These gains were finally realized in the 1930s – ironically against the backdrop of the Great Depression. It seems counterintuitive that a leisure activity such as movie-going would thrive during a period of economic depression, and yet Hollywood films in the

1930s did just that. Hollywood studios navigated the murky economic waters by forming an oligarchy to monopolize the production, distribution and exhibition of films. By 1939,

Hollywood “had weathered the Depression, the establishment and enforcement of the

Production Code, and labor actions and unionization among the creative ranks to become a well-oiled industrial powerhouse.”503 A major reason for its survival during this period was that audiences needed to escape the harsh realities of everyday life; the advent of sound in film added to an already intense sense of realism that attracted audiences to movie theatres as if they were stepping into another, simpler world. As Jewell noted,

In the romantic realm of 1930s Hollywood entertainment, heroes triumph, villains are punished, love conquers all, benevolent political leadership is assured and dreams come true. Even though surely confounded and disillusioned by the staying power of the Depression, movie patrons never stopped going to the movies and never stopped believing in these movie myths.504

Bogle estimated that during the Depression, 70 percent of the population went to the movies at least once a week.505

The success of African Americans in film was sorely needed during the 1930s. As

Harvard Sitkoff noted, “No group could less afford the precipitous decline that followed the stock market crash of 1929. None suffered more from it.”506 The Depression hit the

Black community harder than any other group; unemployment rates were consistently higher among African Americans than they were whites. These discrepancies existed even in the relatively prosperous film industry. For example, in Los Angeles, 20 percent

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of white film employees were unemployed compared to 39 percent of Black

employees.507 Sometimes the world of film intervened in a more hands-on manner during

the Great Depression; stars like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson were known to be active

community members, and often lent their financial support to the communities from which they came. For example, during the particularly hot summer of 1931, Robinson subsidized admission to the Harlem public pool for area children. As the Afro-American noted, “The lengthy hot spell coupled with the unemployment condition, has made

Harlem rather pitiful. With the average family rearing from two to four children, a big hole has to be dug in the family budget if the kiddies are to be sent somewhere to escape the heat.”508

Black audiences were deeply invested in their film stars, and Black journalists –

understanding the power of film as a visual medium and seeking a means of uplift against

the backdrop of trying times – were vigilant about framing discussions about their stars in terms of race representation. Debates about race representation in film were closely related to discussions about the propagation and/or contestation of stereotypes. One of the most striking characteristics in the coverage of film celebrities during the 1930s is how frequently writers invoked and criticized racial stereotypes in very specific terms. Bogle identified these visually oriented racial stereotypes as the “Tom,” the “coon,” the “tragic mulatto,” the “mammy,” and the “buck” or “brute.” While some might assume that these labels were transposed onto imagery after-the-fact, they were actually part of the common parlance that Black press writers used to describe certain roles or performances.

For example, an article discussing Clarence Muse charged, “America just can’t let Uncle

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Tom die.”509 Fay Jackson specifically referred to Fredi Washington’s character, Peola, in

Imitation of Life as a “mulatto…the most tragic situation.”510 Jackson called this

tendency to portray Black characters as flat, one-dimensional (and often negative) tropes

“typing.” As she pointed out, “typing” meant “a villain may never be a hero and a hero

never a villain. And since every villain hopes some day to [attain] heroism and each hero

dreams of the day he may [have] a villainous role, ‘typing’ is an awful thing.”511 Clarence

Muse, Stepin Fetchit, Fredi Washington, Louis Beavers and countless others fell into the

“typing” trap of early films, that strove to capture – but often misrepresented – African

American experience. As Cripps noted, “The Negro press was puzzled not so much by

Hollywood’s intransigent racism as by its persistent irrelevance, omissions of recent

Black life, and the fact that it no longer evoked laughter or pleasure from urban audiences.”512

The Black press played a regulatory function in the development of the Black

“star system.” When Black press reporters were denied press credentials for the premiere

of Imitation of Life, one ANP writer complained that,

With very few exceptions, the [African American] performer never receives mention in the white press, and almost without exception he is portrayed [as a stereotype]…Consequently, only plugging of any degree of dignity or self-respect is done by his own race reporters and published in his own race papers that are not in the least considered by the agent or the studio or the theatre in the so-called ‘publicity budget.’513

These writers believed that they were the only reporters qualified to cover Black

celebrities in a way that did not harp on insulting, inaccurate stereotypes. Certainly the writers of the Black press were more qualified to speak on the experience of African

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Americans, and their absence from film premieres and as a piece of the Hollywood

machine is telling of attitudes towards Blacks in the industry in general.

Black journalists saw their role as a gatekeeping function for Black audiences;

their articles were designed not only to transmit gossip, but to orient the viewer towards thinking about film as an expression of critical citizenship. Black journalists saw the work of Black actors as potentially transformative for Black audiences, and their primary concern was framing those important discussions within the purview of the fight for civil rights. As Jackson noted of Fredi Washington’s performance in Imitation,

In Imitation of Life, Fredi Washington…utters a cry, ‘I want the same things other people enjoy!,’ that found an echo in the hearts of 12 million smoldering Negroes throughout the United States and probably has been since their so-called emancipation from slavery.514

Jackson dictated for her readers what Washington’s performance was to mean for them,

rather than have the performance speak for itself. Chappy Gardner of the Pittsburgh

Courier noted that the film version of Emperor Jones was “a real worthwhile story,”

unlike earlier Black-centered films like Hallelujah and Hearts in Dixie, which were seen

as simplistic and lowbrow by comparison to O’Neill’s work.515 The Black press’s role

went far beyond simple promotion; they were necessarily cultural critics as well.

Individual celebrities, who were often the primary draw for film audiences, were

especially privy to these kinds of analyses. If a celebrity became involved with a project

that was not viewed as a positive representation of the race, they were criticized for it.

When Ethel Waters – negotiating her own leap from the stage to the screen – signed on

for a role in the short film Rufus Jones for President, which harped on “coon”

stereotypes, Ralph Matthews wrote Waters an open letter asking her,

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As one who is anxious that you always remain our most beloved darling of the stage, a true successor to Black Patti, Aida Walker, Flo Mills, as a favor to me won’t you exercise a little more care in your selection of vehicles and songs?516

Paul Robeson “was bitterly denounced by his formerly best friends and supporters” for not being more active in getting the word “n****r” removed from the Emperor screenplay.517 Though his performance was “beyond reproach,” Stanley Cooper of the

Defender charged that “eastern theatre-goers are bitter in their denunciation of the actor-

scholar for allowing himself to be cast in a film that fails miserably to reflect the true

character and ability of the average Race citizen.”518 Celebrities were continually the

subjects of news stories that combined ordinary studio-lot gossip with broader

discussions of race representation.

When Robeson’s private affairs threatened to overshadow his artistic achievement

in the film version of Emperor Jones, conversations quickly turned to what “type” of

publicity a star of his caliber should receive. In 1933, Emperor was adapted to film by

promoters John Krimsky and Gifford Cochran. Though independently produced and

financed, the film was distributed by United Artists Corporation. Robeson was

handpicked by director Dudley Murphy as “the only person adequately endowed racially,

physically, histrionically, and temperamentally to play the role of Brutus Jones.”519

Robeson was known for his outspoken brand of race activism. In 1932, he claimed that he was prepared to leave America permanently to pursue social equality in England. In an interview with the Philadelphia Tribune, Robeson claimed,

I desire above all things to maintain my personal dignity. If this stirs up race prejudice I am prepared to leave this country forever. I am assured of a following in England…Abroad you are only another artist and must stand on your merits.520

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Black journalists, in continuing their love affair with Europe, immediately heralded

Robeson’s decision to go abroad.

Robeson received another kind of attention when, in 1931, rumors began to swirl that he and his wife, Eslanda, were separating amid claims of infidelity.521 Eslanda

herself was a bit of a celebrity; she was credited by the Courier as having “guided hubby

to fame.” “Essie” may have had a “girlish looking body that has surprised very

experienced managers when they negotiated with her,” but she was a shrewd

businesswoman that worked hard to ensure Robeson received top billing for his

performances.522 Some critics implied that Essie was manipulative, using “the feminine

cleverness which she has so often demonstrated” in dealing on Robeson’s behalf.523

When rumors began that Robeson had started an affair with a member of British society, the ordeal played out in the press, with sensational headlines like “‘Tired of each other’ – Robesons” and “‘Paul does not need me anymore’” blazed across the front pages of Black newspapers. Robeson, for his part, was hardly coy; he told the Atlanta Daily

World of his affair that “It has not been much of a secret abroad…When I was in London last we were seen together much of the time and made no bones about our attachment.”524

So, the World sent a correspondent to New York to gauge Harlemites’ reactions to the

news of the Robesons’ split, and interestingly, opinions were splintered by gender. The

author reported that “An unofficial canvas of Harlem Sunday and Monday revealed that

colored women were almost unanimous in the opinion that Robeson is ungrateful for the

very valuable assistance his wife has given him in his struggle to reach the top,” while

many men that were interviewed claimed “if a Negro wants to rise to true heights of

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greatness at some point he must quit being a Negro and be a man” and noted that many

successful Black men “did not marry Negro women.”525

On February 2, 1933, the New York Amsterdam News broke the story: the divorce was called off. According to the author, “the charming wife who is busily fashioning her

own career, dismissed the whole affair with a few sentences during an interview with The

Amsterdam News.”526 The Defender reported three days later that, according to Essie,

“the question of divorce has been dropped.”527

Amid this tumultuous backdrop, news of the making of Emperor began to spread;

the Amsterdam News and other papers began to run promo shots for the film in

anticipation of its release (See Figure 7.1). Some readers were outraged by all of the negative attention Robeson courted; Ralph Matthews reprinted a letter he received in his weekly “Looking at the Stars” column which charged that “We the Negro press, blinded

[Robeson] with the wrong land of publicity, and left a bewildered, shattered man instead.”528 The reader’s charge is, of course, that there is a “right” and “wrong” type of

publicity – and that stars of Robeson’s caliber should receive only the “right” kind.

This reader’s avid defense of Robeson may have been a product of his

powerhouse performance in Emperor, which was finally released in the fall of 1933.

Robeson commanded the role of Brutus, giving the deeply flawed character depth and

humanity – traits that were all but absent from Black-centered films during this period.

As Jones, Robeson plays a Pullman porter who daydreams about the meeting the

President on the steps of the Capitol to tell him, “Well Brutus you sure is much of a

man.” Robeson’s overwhelming stature is referred to often in the film, both visually and

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rhetorically. He looms over every other actor in nearly every frame of the film, and is

alternately referred to as “big boy” and one of the “big men.” When Jones succeeds in

strong-arming his way to emperor of the small Caribbean island he’s escaped to, he tells

his co-conspirator Smithers that “ain’t no chain gangs or Jim Crows [here], and ain’t

nobody gonna get it but me.”

In contrast with other popular Black actors of the period – like Clarence Muse or

Stepin Fetchit who filled bumbling comedic roles – and counter to the impressions of

Blacks that Amos n’ Andy were promoting on the radio, Robeson’s Jones was something

truly unique for Black mass audiences to behold. Not since Jack Johnson (who is

fleetingly referenced in the film) had a Black man garnered so much attention so

vehemently on his own artistic terms. As Rob Roy of the Defender noted, “where

Robeson has to speak of another race he always says ‘white man’ and then in a tone that suggests contempt and not an admission of fear and complex.”529

Robeson was a true anomaly, especially in relation to the Black actors with whom

he shared the spotlight. Mostly, in the wake of the Birth of a Nation debacle, mainstream

cinema sought to either erase Black lived cultural experience altogether, or to present it in

the most uncomplicated of terms – that is, as comedic fodder. Drawing on the “coon”

stereotype popularized in advertising of the period, actors like Stepin Fetchit, Clarence

Muse, and Willie Best were working regularly, and as bumbling and harmless jokesters

these men were presented to audiences as an innocuous and unproblematic representation

of the race. Of Fetchit, who changed his name from Lincoln Perry in order to sound more

in step with the servant character he often played, one Courier reporter commented that,

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“He bubbles over with fun.”530 Although by the end of the 1920s Fetchit was one of the

race’s highest paid screen actors, his portrayals were simplistic and one-dimensional; in

this telling quotation, one writer said, “He went to Hollywood to get a job doing nothing

and had been working ever since as the world’s laziest man.”531

In 1934, Robeson proclaimed, “[The Negro’s] soul contains riches which can

come to fruition only if he retains intact the full spate of his emotional awareness, and uses unswervingly the artistic endowments which nature has given [him].”532 Bill

“Bojangles” Robinson was a performer that, along with Robeson, truly embodied this

ethos to raise his portrayals of Black lived experience above stereotypical, preconceived

notions of what Black entertainment should look like. And, in the process, he became an

active and vocal supporter of his community. Like Robeson, Robinson began his career

in Harlem as a stage performer; in fact, he spent the first 24 years of his career there,

where he was the highest paid Black performer on the Keith vaudeville circuit. The Black

press loved Robinson as a stage performer; Fritz Cansler of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote,

“If natural abilities and acquired skills carry over into the hereafter, then nobody who has

ever seen (or heard) him will doubt for a minute that Bill will dance right into the Glory

Land.”533

It was not just Robinson’s talent that caught the attention of Black writers and

editors; Robinson’s role as an advocate for and a benefactor to the Black community

often overshadowed his artistic achievements as a dancer and actor. For example,

coverage of his various charity appearances focused less on the performances he provided

than on praising his philanthropic tendencies. Charity was a particularly important

174 activity for Black celebrities during this period; Florence Mills (who was Robinson’s close friend) was often praised for her appearances at Harlem-area fundraisers.

Celebrities for whom charity was not a priority were criticized; for example, this scathing critique of the otherwise popular Ethel Waters, which accompanied a front-page photo in the Philadelphia Tribune, is telling: “Ethel Waters, who ‘went Hollywood’ on a benefit performance at the Lincoln Theatre here recently. Other national performers did their bit practically gratis for sweet charity’s sake, but La Ethel wouldn’t warble a note until cold cash was in sight.”534

To call Robinson a “hero” to the Black community is hardly an overstatement.

Robinson was incredibly generous, both financially and with his time and attention. From paying for stoplights to be installed in a Richmond intersection, to performing at countless benefits, to subsidizing a Harlem community swimming pool so that neighborhood children could cool off, Robinson had, as one journalist put it, “a heart as big as the Empire State Building.” Robinson, proclaimed another writer, was “one of the most generous of his profession, in donating his services to charity.”535 He was also generous to his fellow performers, though he was known among Hollywood gossip columnists to be, at times, a difficult perfectionist, demanding the best out of his co-stars.

However, Robinson was also a willing teacher who, according to one reporter, “seems to never tire teaching anyone who asks. He is probably the most patient instructor the world has ever known.”536 In 1935, he even took the up-and-coming boxer, Joe Louis, under his wing, making public appearances to drum up publicity for the Louis-Rampage fight.

Robinson, it appeared, “takes pleasure in doing big things.”537

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Robinson was also a brazen defender of his fellow performers. During a

Blackbirds performance in 1928, he rushed to the stage to defend a group of chorus-girls

who were being verbally abused by white audience members. As the New York

Amsterdam News recounted,

The girls found a champion in Bill (Bojangles) Robinson…He stopped the show, ushered to the stage, and upbraided the disorderly whites…Bojangles stood his ground [amid further insults], and declared that he would personally return the admission fee to all who would leave the house.538

His perhaps most sensational act of heroism came two years later, when he was accidently shot by a police officer chasing down a purse-snatcher in Pittsburgh. After

witnessing the robbery, Robinson apparently chased the assailant down the street, firing

warning shots from his gold-plated pistol in the air. A nearby police officer, misreading

the situation and failing to recognize the star, shot him in the “fleshy part of his arm, just above the elbow.” The incident made the front page of every major Black press newspaper; the coverage was usually accompanied by a photo of Robinson and his doting wife at their Harlem home (see Figure 7.2). By the time Robinson was poised to make his

Hollywood debut, he was already a cause celebre in the Black press; as the Defender noted, “‘Bo’ proudly claims Richmond, Va., as his home. That city is no doubt just as proud of him.”539

After bit parts in Dixiana and the race film Harlem is Heaven in the early 1930s,

Robinson made his breakthrough as one-half of Hollywood’s first “acceptable” interracial

couple – the team of Bojangles and Shirley Temple. In 1935, the duo released two films,

The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel, both produced by Twentieth-Century Fox.

Temple’s films were in many ways the embodiment of cinematic “escapism”; according

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to Jewell, “That this tiny tot could be so massively talented seemed a miracle to

Depression audiences who returned again and again to sample her magic.”540 By 1935,

Temple was a seasoned Hollywood star and one of the top-ranked actresses in the country

among audiences. Even the Black press couldn’t resist her ginger curls; as Robert L.

Vann, editor of the Courier, wrote,

We have concluded that there may be other children we admire, but Shirley is the kind we all would like to have. Whatever the other children may do on the screen their best will only emphasize the incompatible talent and ability of one Shirley Temple.541

After his visit to the Colonel movie set to observe Robinson, Vann was so taken by

Temple that most of his article focused praising her talents. This is truly remarkable

given the fact that the Black press rarely covered mainstream (white) stars, let alone

offered such high praise to one of them.

Jewell argued that there were three types of characters who interacted with

Temple in her films: those who are immediately charmed by her; those who initially

resist but ultimately “fall under her spell;” and those who are never influenced by the

child’s goodness, thus remaining beyond “redemption.”542 This analysis, unfortunately,

left out the important role that Robinson (and in The Little Colonel, Hattie McDaniel)

plays opposite the ever-good, ever-charming youngster: that of caretaker and protector. In

both The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel, Robinson transcends the passive “Uncle

Tom” stereotype to emerge as the most constant positive male force in Temple’s life. In

the Little Colonel, Robinson played Walker, the butler, who along with maid Ma Beck

(McDaniel), coddled “Miss Lloyd” (Temple) as she navigated the uneasy relationship

between her crotchety Southern grandfather and her more progressive parents. In one

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scene, right before showing her a “new way to go upstairs” to bed (i.e., tap-dancing hand-

in-hand), Walker assured Miss Lloyd that her grandfather, who regularly hurled abuses at

his servants, was just “cranky.” In the Civil War film The Littlest Rebel, Robinson’s role

as Temple’s protector goes even further when Virgie’s (Temple) father (a Confederate

soldier) is imprisoned in the North and left his young daughter in the sole care of “Uncle

Billy” (Robinson), one of the house slaves. Though not known for his acting skills

(indeed, his lines are often delivered in a stilted, rehearsed tone), Robinson’s performance

in Rebel carried with it real symbolic force. Uncle Billy “can sing and dance and climb

trees – he can do anything in the world,” according to Virgie. “Anything in the world,”

by the end of the film, included saving Virgie’s father from Union soldiers and

scrounging up enough train fare to deliver a letter to none other than Abraham Lincoln on

Virgie’s father’s behalf. Uncle Billy operated in sharp contrast to actor Willie Best’s character, fellow slave James Henry. Best, who along with Fetchit popularized the screen

“coon” type, played up his bumbling, dim-witted role, in one scene even boasting, “I thought of it all by myself…I even think more often by myself.”

Viewed from a historical perspective, these films (particularly Rebel, which posits that the Union army is the ultimate threat to a peaceful and happy southern lifestyle equally revered by slaves as it was by white freemen) are problematic. However, in their own time, they operated as vehicles in which a Black man could be on equal terms with –

and even be entrusted to care for – America’s sweetheart, and for that the Black press

was largely uncritical of their content. Instead, they heralded Robinson’s “great

tenderness and grasp of child psychology” and newly minted status among Hollywood’s

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elite: “Everybody knows that 9/10s of the stories emanating from Hollywood are

exaggerated truths, but if anyone says that Bill (Bojangles) Robinson is the toast of

Filmland, take it from me, it’s no fib,” wrote Fay Jackson.543 Robinson, in contrast to

Fetchit particularly, seemed to take his fame in stride; while Fetchit was notorious for

acting up on set, Robinson spent most of his time promoting Colonel by discussing the

social issues plaguing the Black community. As Courier correspondent Bernice Patton

noted, “[His] theme throughout the interview chose the course of the unfortunate and

needy Negroes in Harlem, more than the expected theatrical routine. No wonder he is ‘the

mayor of Harlem.’”544

Though his performances went largely uncriticized, there was some backlash

against Robinson. Sylvester Russell quipped that Robinson was not known to be a

“brainy man;” Fay Jackson reported that Stepin Fetchit was “conspicuous by his absence”

from a star-studded surprise birthday party thrown for Robinson; and one annoyed Afro-

American reader complained that Robinson “never overlooks an opportunity to show off and clown.” Chappy Gardner of the Courier also reported on an altercation at a benefit

concert between Robinson and Amsterdam News theatre critic (and sportswriter) Romeo

Dougherty that resulted in Robinson threatening the writer and then storming off-stage, preemptively ending the show. 545 In 1935, after Robinson finished promoting Colonel,

Fay Jackson reported that “quite a number of folk around town are rather relieved that

Bill Robinson is back in his own Harlem,” implying that there had been animosity

between Robinson and a bevy of his fellow back stars including Fetchit, Ethel Waters, and Clarence Muse. To some degree, professional jealousy between these stars existed,

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especially given the small number of niche roles afforded to Black actors during this

period. Robinson, as arguably the most successful mainstream “breakthrough” star of the

lot, undoubtedly incurred the wrath of those denied the opportunity at such lucrative film roles. By the end of 1935, Robinson was hob-nobbing with Will Rogers, his In Old

Kentucky co-star, and continuing his reign as “mayor of Harlem.”

The mid-1930s were a renaissance for Black actors in film. Robeson’s Jones redefined what a Black actor could achieve in film on his own artistic terms; Bojangles’s work with Shirley Temple lent a depth and dimension to what could have been an otherwise “Uncle Tom”-like character. But one of the most anticipated and celebrated films of the decade starred two Black women, one light-skinned and one-dark-skinned, who like Bojangles transcended the well-worn stereotypes they were cast to fulfill.

Imitation of Life starred Fredi Washington as Peola, the light-skinned daughter of Delilah, played by Louise Beavers. Imitation differed from Bojangles’s work in one important way: it was a drama that, according to one Black press journalist, “marks a new day for

Negro actors.”546 Imitation captivated Black audiences because it, for the first time, was a

true attempt to depict African American lived experience, particularly for Washington’s

character Peola who was “a too-light girl, who is neither colored nor white.”547

According to Bogle, the search for the right stars of the film started years earlier,

when director John Stahl – who directed the 1927 silent version of In Old Kentucky,

which featured a bevy of African American bit performers – began visiting Black

nightclubs and venues looking for potential actresses.548 Beavers was chosen relatively

quickly from a pool of actresses that included Hattie McDaniel (who later became the

180 breakout star of Gone with the Wind). The role of Peola took much longer to cast; as

Bogle recounted, Stahl was determined to cast a light-skinned African American actress – rather than a white one – to play the delicate role. Stahl feared that a white actress in the role of a “the daughter of a colored mammy…would simply not ‘go down’ with theatre audiences.”549 Stahl considered over 300 actresses before settling on Washington.

Washington had previously starred opposite Robeson in Emperor, and was so light that she had to be “darkened…for fear that audiences might think Robeson was playing romantic scenes with a white actress.”550

Coverage of the film itself was consistently positive across Black press newspapers, as was extensive coverage of stars Washington and Beavers. Black critics loved Washington’s and Beavers’s performances in Imitation; upon its release in late

1934, a still from the film appeared on the front page of the Courier (see Figure 7.3) with the caption, “The critics are loud in their praise of the sepia stars, declaring their drama is the most poignant.”551 The coverage of these women, like coverage of Jones, Mills, and

Baker before them, reveals telling information about attitudes of Black press writers towards definitions of femininity and womanhood.

Coverage of Fredi Washington was typical of previous coverage of starlets: it focused largely on her looks. She was variously as “pretty, talented,” talent plus looks,”

“a picture in beauty,” and visual representations of her almost always accompanied even the smallest tidbit or news story.552 Washington, however, had more than just looks working in her favor; she was, as the Atlanta Daily World bluntly put it, “beautiful but not dumb.”553 Hilda See of the Defender seemed quite surprised that Washington was

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“particularly interesting” and “easy-going but clearly expressive…both on stage and on the street.” See thought Washington was “quite a person.”554

Bogle lamented that Fredi Washington has been long forgotten by film scholars,

and the lack of attention paid to her memory is truly disappointing. Washington was a

vocal and articulate young woman who, in her portrayal of Peola as well as in press

interviews regarding her performance, was a vocal advocate for racial equality. In an

interview with the World regarding her ability to “pass” for white, she countered:

Why should I pass for anything…but an artist?...I don’t want to ‘pass’ because I can’t stand insecurities and shams. I am just as much ‘Negro’ as any of the others without presuming to overrate my abilities…If [Hollywood directors and producers] did not raise the race question, I wager, no attention at all would be paid to a performer’s race.555

The Imitation role pulled Washington out of retirement; she had given up acting after

marrying Lawrence Brown of Duke Ellington’s band (her sister Isabel, also an aspiring

stage star, did the same thing when she married Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.).556 Clearly

Washington saw the opportunity to portray Peola as an opportunity to make a statement

to mass audiences about the lived experience of a “too light girl.”

If coverage of Washington betrayed a certain disturbing element of “surprise”

over the idea that Washington could be both beautiful and intelligent, coverage of her co-

star, Beavers, was even more insulting. Coverage of Beavers focused on her physical

countenance; her full figure was hardly celebrated the way in which, say, Black Patti’s

was in the early 1900s. Instead, it became an object of judgment and, at times, ridicule.

Beavers was described in a rather condescending manner as “far better looking than her

Delilah make-up would lead you to believe,” “quite plump and jolly,” and “buoyant;” her

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diet habits were also a focus – she “endorses bananas and cream as a diet ace” and “eats

no sweets.”557 Beavers was also described as “considerably lighter than the Delilah role

reveals.”558 For any readers concerned about Beavers’s lack of a husband, Lulu Garnett

of the Afro-American assured them that Beavers was “too busy just now to consider

marriage, though she admits that interest in her career is all that takes her mind from men

and matrimony.”559

Like Washington, Beavers was deeply invested in Imitation as a vehicle for social

change. She told George Hall of the Tribune that, “I personally believe that such pictures

will do more to bring about race equality than politics and associations such as the

NAACP and the Urban League.”560 Beavers had made sure that the word “n****r” was taken out of the Imitation screenplay; she reportedly told screenwriter, William Hulbert,

“it is a fighting word,” and refused to use it.561 She saw the film industry as a relatively welcoming environment for African American performers; she told the Afro-American that,

In almost every successful picture now…you see one or more non-white characters. True, they may have only a maid or servant part, but even that shows advancement over the slapstick and African Zulu parts to which they were once confined in the ‘Trader Horn’ and ‘Tarzan of the Apes’ type of drama.562

When a staff writer from the Afro-American inquired as to whether her contract stipulated that she was only to play maid roles for Universal, she “vigorously denied” the charge.

Her role as Delilah seemed to transcend the old “mammy” type anyway; the Defender

called it “the greatest screen role ever played by a Race woman.”563

Though she was “pleasing in disposition, light-hearted and friendly,” and clearly

invested in the advancement of the race, Beavers was accused by Fay Jackson as acting

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“snobbish” when it came to her attitudes toward the Black press. When Universal denied

press credentials to Black press journalists for the Imitation premiere, Beavers responded

dismissively: “I’m getting a lot of publicity, and I’m not worried about it.” This was true;

there were even rumors that Beavers would be nominated for an Academy Award for her

performance (she was not, which prompted the California Graphic, a mainstream

entertainment publication, to publicly condemn the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and

Sciences).564 Jackson was outraged by Beavers’s response to the snub; she wrote,

There is something pitiful and futile, something despicable and ignoble, something suicidal, certainly something that strikes awfully at the very base of the colored man’s economic status and racial self-respect when our own people forget their identity and perpetuate the policies that make them the butt of ridicule and enslavement by other races of the world.565

Beavers’s snub was not just a personal affront to Jackson and the other individual

reporters who were shut out of covering the premiere; her dismissal represented a

betrayal to the whole race.

Beavers’s misstep, it seems, was assimilating too much into white, mainstream

culture. This was a concern that was shared with many of the early Black stars of the time. However, it was almost unavoidable; the advent of sound films had made it so that mainstream culture was encroaching more and more on African American lived experience and attracting more and more talent from the Black community. In 1936, the widely popular film version of Showboat came out as “one of the most eagerly awaited pictures ever scheduled for production by the colored bit players and extras since sound pictures came to Hollywood,” with Robeson reprising his Broadway role as Joe.566 Bogle argued that “Though coverage in the Black press contributed little or nothing to the way

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the industry at large might view a Black actor, it still raised a performer’s profile in town and provided the performers themselves with a sense of accomplishment.”567 However,

Bogle’s assertion failed to consider the importance of this coverage within the Black

community. Paul Robeson, Bill Robinson, Fredi Washington, and Louise Beavers in the

mid-1930s gave the African American community, crippled by the Great Depression, a

sense of accomplishment as a whole. They gave Black journalists and editors the

opportunity to travel to the bright lights of Hollywood to cover their doings. They came

home and literally gave the fruits of their success back to their communities. And they

showed mainstream America that African American lived experience could be multi-

dimensional – as joyful as Bojangles’s jaunt upstairs with Shirley Temple, as tragic and

Robeson’s Brutus Jones’s rise and fall, as frustrated as Washington’s Peola, who yearned

for “what everybody else had,” and as sympathetic as Beavers’s abandoned Delilah.

The Black press treated these celebrities as symbols of racial success and uplift –

as manifestations of changing times and attitudes toward Black lived experience.

However, how did the weight of that responsibility affect these celebrities? Robeson, for his part, was an expatriate and by the mid-1930s was increasingly interested in

communism; he made his first of many trips to Moscow in January 1935 prompting

Ralph Matthews to ponder, “Is America’s race problem to be solved only by running

away from it? Is there no way we can fight back and hold on in the clinches and stop

being chased around the ring?”568 What was Robeson’s responsibility to the African

American community? That role remained unclear. Perhaps the glare of film stardom was

overwhelming and perhaps it was unfair to put the weight of race representation on the

185 shoulders of these artists. Yet, it is clear that they themselves had a deep understanding of their symbolic presence in the lives of African Americans on a day-to-day basis, especially as the footlights of Hollywood began to illuminate their experience in front of a mass audience.

Figure 7.1. “He’s the Emperor” [caption], New York Amsterdam News, July 19, 1933, 1.

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Figure 7.2. “That’s fine honey” [caption], New York Amsterdam News, October 8, 1930, 1.

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Figure 7.3. “Their drama poignant” [caption], Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1934, 1.

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CHAPTER 8

MAKING SENSE OF THE “JUNGLE SYMPHONY”: BLACK JOURNALISTS DEBATE THE MERITS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSICAL EXPRESSION, 1920-1935

…Be it progress or decline, this movement towards jazz, it has solid reasons back of it [sic]. To stop its movements, it is necessary to remove those reasons and place them in back of whatever you want to progress. If you are unable to do this, then you are powerless to stop it. – James Miller, Pittsburgh Courier, 1930569

Stereotypical depictions of Blacks in mass entertainment during the 1920s and

1930s continually harkened back to one recurring trait: that Black performers were somehow “inherently musical.”570 This idea provided the gateway for many Black

performers in sound film and opened the doors for Black musical performers. In 1927, when The Jazz Singer introduced sound into film, Hollywood relied on Black jazz singers to provide the soundtrack for their new innovative talkies. Though the assumption that the race was “inherently musical” was reductive, it is difficult to deny that African

American musical tradition had a huge influence on Black-centered entertainment. From

Bert Williams’s subtly transgressive performances of “Nobody” on Broadway in the early 1910s, to Florence Mills’s sweet rendition of “I’m a Little Blackbird Looking for a

Bluebird” a decade later, to Paul Robeson’s powerful delivery of “Ol’ Man River” in the film version of Showboat, musical performance was, for many Black performers, a key component of their appeal. In covering Black celebrities who made their names specifically as musicians, Black journalists – knowing the importance of musicality in influencing mainstream conceptions of the African American community – struggled to

define what new and emerging musical forms suggested about Black culture generally.

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Innovations in enjoying music, both at home and in public, created a particularly

welcoming atmosphere for musicians and their fans during this period. Technological

innovation in the 1920s made music a more prominent feature in American life than it

ever had been before; as jazz historian Court Carney noted, “With the advent of the

player piano, piano rolls, the sheet music industry, the phonograph, and the radio, the

music of the early twentieth century could be recorded, preserved, and transmitted on a

larger scale than ever before.”571 Like movie theatres, music halls became increasingly

common in major urban centers, and their goal was to be as luxurious for ticketholders as

possible. For example, when the Fays Theatre in West Philadelphia opened in the fall of

1935 (with Louis Armstrong as its inaugural act), the Tribune gushed that “the Fays

Theatre will be most astounding in every way” featuring “the most modern

accommodations for the comfort of its patrons, and the finest type of entertainment which

will be acceptable to both young and old.”572

However, it was a new technological innovation that truly changed the way

Americans experienced music. Broadcasting historian Michele Hilmes described the

evolution of radio in the early 1920s as “linked to an inexorably altered concept of the

distinction between the public and private spheres upon which so much of American self- identity had been based.”573 As Hilmes noted, through the development of radio in the early 1920s “elements of African American experience became part of the common culture, and African Americans moved into full participation as audience members in this barrier-reducing slice of life as in few others.”574 By 1924, Duke Ellington’s orchestra

was being broadcast regularly on New York station WHN, while stations in Cincinnati

190 and Ohio regularly played jazz music created by Black artists as well.575 Coupled with the popularity of phonograph recordings, which led to lucrative record contracts for

Black musicians, the music industry in the 1920s and 1930s become a public space for the expression of African American culture through jazz and blues. However, unlike theatre and film, where Black performers’ expression was often relegated – or at least tempered – by white writers and producers, radio “allowed direct transmission in aural form of frequently improvised and rhythmically complex Black musical performance, preserving blues and jazz in a condition unmediated by Western notation systems and translations by white musicians.”576 As Floyd Calvin of the Courier noted, “Cab

Calloway is crazy about broadcasting, and likes to please people who he can’t see. He also likes to hear from his radio fans and know they like his numbers.”577 Artists appreciated this seemingly unmediated opportunity to connect with their fans.

Most of the existing literature regarding Black musical expression during this period is devoted to exploring the development and popularity of ragtime, blues, and jazz.

However, the most frequent discussions in the Black press of specific musicians of the period related not only to these popular forms of music, but also to classical performance artists that contemporary African American cultural historians have largely overlooked.

For example, one of the most frequently discussed musical performers during the 1920s was a young tenor named Roland Hayes whose accomplishments on the classical stage

“single-handedly broke the ‘color line’ in classical music.”578 Very little is known about this tenacious and talented singer; Brooks’s Lost Sounds anthology is one of the few sources to offer biographical information on him. According to Brooks, Hayes had a

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strong determination to be successful; he toured relentlessly and even independently

funded early recordings through Columbia’s classical imprint. By 1918, he had garnered

enough of a grassroots following to attract the attention of The Crisis, which agreed to run advertisements for his self-funded records. As Brooks noted, the ads made a specific appeal to racial pride.579 In the spring of 1921, Hayes sailed for Europe, where he finally

enjoyed some measure of success on London’s concert circuit and landed a record deal

with the English Vocalion label. By his return to the United States in 1923, Hayes was

beginning to be recognized in the Black press, and by 1925 was so well regarded that he received the NAACP’s highest honor, the Springarn Medal.

Hayes’s success was seen as a real credit to the race itself; Brooks’s assertion that

Hayes crossed the “color line” in classical music was appreciated in his time by Black journalists and editors who offered high praise for the singer. The Defender believed that

Hayes’s success would “pave the way” for other Black artists; in one article the author wrote,

Perhaps the success of Mr. Hayes will not only fire the ambition of other artists of the Race but will serve to convince the powers that be in the musical world that art ought not to have a color line and that to be true to American art Colored artists must be given consideration along with foreign importations.580

J.A. Rogers of the Philadelphia Tribune called Hayes “one of the most charming

personalities I have met in my life” who acted as “an ambassador not only to a single

European nation, but an ambassador to all of Europe.”581

Hayes was treated by Black newspapers as not only a symbol of artistic triumph,

but as proof that African American cultural production could be, and indeed was,

highbrow. The Pittsburgh Courier published an editorial filled with praise for the singer:

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Mr. Hayes is known as an artist. … But Mr. Hayes is more than an artist. He is a benefactor. Everywhere he sings he makes two impressions: one as an artist and another as a gentleman of culture and bearing. … We are deeply grateful to Mr. Hayes for his contribution. We need him and that sorely. His signing, his fine impressions made up almost everywhere he appears help to lift us up higher. His place, attained and held at great sacrifice, offers the world an illustration of our possibilities. We shall owe Mr. Hayes more than we appreciate for his contribution to our advancement.582

Hayes’s “culture and bearing” was evidence that African Americans were capable of creating music of high artistic merit. Coverage of Hayes again reveals prevailing assumptions that Black journalists had toward cultural value; as DuBois had predicted,

Hayes’s ascription to “culture” would lead to the advancement of the race generally.

The praise he enjoyed stateside was complicated by discussions about the nature of his concerts themselves. In the prestigious American concert halls in which he often performed, African Americans were relegated to segregated seating practices, which frustrated Black audiences eager to see the tenor perform. The Defender took him to task over an Atlanta performance in December 1925, in which he performed in front of a starkly segregated audience. The Defender, in a particularly scathing article, noted that in

Atlanta “the seats were governed by the applicant! Yet, Roland Hayes was the same color in Atlanta that he was here [in Chicago]. … [In Atlanta] we had white people occupying the main floor seats and boxes and our people sitting in corners of the balcony and gallery.”583 Tensions over the seating issue came to a head in January 1926, when Hayes refused to take the stage at Baltimore’s Lyric Theatre, ostensibly caving to pressure from the Defender to take a stand against segregation.

The events that transpired at the Lyric that evening are unclear from the news coverage that survived regarding the event, but it appears that Hayes, in the days before

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the concert, scrambled to contact Mrs. Wilson Green of the Wilson Green Agency – the

booking agency for the venue – to demand that the evening’s Black ticketholders be

accommodated on the main floor of the theatre, refusing to perform otherwise. When he

arrived at the venue for the performance, he was apparently assured that the

accommodations had been made, and after 30 minutes of uncertainty, took the stage to

perform. The arrangements that were actually made, however, were unacceptable; according to the Afro-American, Black spectators were seated “in the balcony mainly and

on the left side of the first floor. This is the same arrangement that prevailed at the

Atlanta, Ga., concert.”584 Hayes made himself unavailable for interviews, according to

the Afro-American, in the days after the Lyric show. Whether he understood the seating

arrangement before he took the stage is unclear from the articles that survived.

Critics and audiences were divided on whether or not Hayes should have

performed that evening, and their opinions were filtered through their community

newspapers, which acted as forums in which to discuss and debate the Lyric debacle.

Some newspapers, like the Defender, praised Hayes for attempting to take a stand against

Jim Crowism (and of course, the Defender credited themselves with Hayes’s heroic

actions), while others, like the Pittsburgh Courier, charged that it was Hayes’s manager’s

job – not Hayes’s – to ensure that the seating arrangements were corrected. The Afro-

American dedicated two columns’ worth of space in their January 16 issue to readers’

thoughts on the controversy, which ranged in sentiment from “Hayes should not have

betrayed his race for gold” to “I am in sympathy with Roland Hayes’ course at the theatre

Thursday night.”585 Most newspapers could agree on one thing: Hayes’s Lyric

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performance was simply an illustration of a continuing and unacceptable trend of Jim

Crow segregation that must be combatted against. The Defender summed up the

controversy by noting, “Our attack on Roland Hayes is the smallest thing we could do,

and we did it thoroughly. Now that Hayes has passed on from the scene, how will we get

on the main floors of these theatres again? …It is for the race to decide – and act.”586

Hayes’s personal life garnered nearly as much attention as his professional life;

and as it did with Jack Johnson, Josephine Baker, and Paul Robeson, the Black press paid

particular attention to his complicated love affairs. It appears that he was engaged or

possibly engaged three times before his eventual marriage to his cousin, Alzada: first to a

woman he met in Boston in the early days of his career, Crystal Byrd; second, to a

Viennese countess, Ileno Kolerado;587 and third to a New York debutante whose identity

was never uncovered. Of particular interest in late 1926 was the sordid affair of Hayes

and Countess Kolerado of Vienna. According to a series of articles published in the Afro-

American, Pittsburgh Courier, and Chicago Defender during 1926, Hayes apparently found himself in a love triangle. Rumor had it he had become engaged to Byrd, with whom he became involved in Boston “beginning in the obscure, poor days of both.”588

This account, the Afro-American acknowledged, was unconfirmed:

Two years ago, friends of Mr. Hayes denied the rumors that he and Miss Byrd were to be married soon. Hayes was then on the high seas enroute to Europe alone. Miss Byrd had just resigned her National Y.W. Secretary’s work in order to study abroad.589

The Courier also dismissed the engagement rumor.590 Though the rumors were not

substantiated, the Afro-American reported that Hayes had paid Byrd $35,000 in “heart

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balm” in an effort to remedy the fact that “he was responsible for her long

spinsterhood.”591

Coverage intensified at the end of that year, when a Jewish newspaper in Vienna

published a report suggesting that Hayes was having an affair with Kolerado. Rumors had

swirled about Hayes and the countess as early as November, but the report from the

Jewish Forward blew up in the Black press. The Philadelphia Tribune, which unlike the

Afro-American, Courier, and Defender often resisted the urge to report on sensational

celebrity gossip, got in on the story then, reporting that:

Countess Ileno Kolerado at one time heard and saw the Negro tenor and she fell head over heels in love with him. Since that time she did not miss one of his concerts. Later she invited him to her house and the Negro sang for her and the Countess was sitting at his feet and swallowed him with her eyes. She confessed her love for him. The Negro tenor accepted her love and told her that he loved her, too.

The article continued by recounting the discovery of the affair by the count, with whom

Hayes allegedly engaged in a “fist fight” over the countess. Though the author of the article tried to distance himself from its content, contending that “due to the difficulty of

literally translating Hebrew into English we are not printing a reproduction of the article

ad literatim, but are merely stating the alleged facts as appearing in the Jewish Forward,” it is clear that the purpose of the article was to scandalize readers; it even made the front page of the Christmas issue (see Figure 8.1).592

In 1931, a rumor that Hayes was once again romantically involved – this time

with a New York debutante – appeared and just as quickly disappeared from the Afro-

American. Two years later, in 1933, upon the singer’s return to Baltimore to perform, columnist Ralph Matthews devoted an entire story to Hayes’s failed love life. Forty years

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old at the time, Hayes had experienced a series of affairs that Matthews pegged as

“end[ing] quite disastrously.”593 Matthews assessed a series of scenarios that could have

prevented Hayes from settling down, including the trouble he might find in “select[ing] one as artistic and famous as himself.” Matthews even suggested that Hayes suffered “the bitter disillusionment of a man who has paid too dearly for the one taste of romance that he did enjoy that has turned him against femininity?”594 Strangely, as Brooks noted,

Hayes was married by this point. In 1932, he married his cousin Alzada, and had one

daughter, Afrika (who herself became a professional singer) in 1934. Perhaps Alzada was

the anonymous New York woman the Afro-American mentioned, or perhaps – in the

wake of all of the attention his previous failed affairs had received – Hayes strove to keep

the marriage to his cousin a secret.

Though Hayes’s classical compositions pleased Black press writers who were

invested in the artistic achievement of a Black singer breaking through on the classical

stage, these years were dominated not by Black musicians’ participation in classical

theatre but instead in the syncopated sounds that were emerging from the cabarets and

nightclubs of New Orleans, Memphis, Harlem, and Chicago which appealed to a broader,

more urban, and increasingly modern fan-base. As Pittsburgh Courier writer James

Miller pointed out,

One of the greatest reasons for the success of jazz, it seems to me, is that it is on the level of the mentality of the majority of people. This gives the artist a large audience. This realization of appreciation of efforts contributes greatly to its success. Besides, there can be no real art without an audience.595

Nightclubs featuring jazz performers garnered large audiences, and jazz musicians were

among the highest paid Black entertainers of the 1920s and 1930s, far outselling records

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by classical artists. For example, in 1935, Duke Ellington received $2,500 for his singular

composition, “Solitude,” while William Dawson’s full symphony earned him only $100,

prompting the Afro-American to ask, “Does America pay its highest rewards for jazz

while music of a more serious nature goes begging?”596 As a result, by the end of the

1920s, Hayes was no longer a prominent figure in news coverage. Rather, he was replaced by musicians who were playing the new sounds of blues and jazz.

Jazz music emerged in the 1920s as the amalgamation of many disparate aspects of African American entertainment, and coverage of the jazz craze increased steadily between 1920 and 1935. It was an embodiment of early African American musical traditions, including Baptist gospel music, ragtime, and blues, originating in the Black section of New Orleans in the late 1890s. The influence of James Reese Europe, whose ragtime compositions were wildly popular before his untimely death in 1919, was undeniable, but jazz also borrowed heavily from the blues tradition of singers like Ma

Rainey, Mamie Smith, Ethel Waters, and Bessie Smith.

Jazz and blues opened up a space for women to be more than just lithe starlets.

Bessie Smith, in particular, was the “empress of the blues,” “queen of the blues,” and the

“prima donna blues singer” of the 1920s.597 She “is known from the Atlantic to the

Pacific and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Hudson Bay as one who really sings the

‘blues’ as they should be sung. She is the girl who put the ‘blue’ in blues.”598 Smith’s

popularity harkened back to the times of Black Patti, when a striking physical presence

did not need to be linked with conventional standards of beauty. Unlike so many of her

cabaret counterparts, including Waters, Smith “is a scream when she takes full possession

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of her 200 pounds avoir dupois;” she’s “a bundle of personality” with a “generous

shape.”599 In fact, playing jazz and blues became empowering for female musicians who took part in “girl bands,” and journalists took notice; some of the most flattering coverage

of Louis Armstrong, for instance, was actually directed toward his wife, Lil, who “will

entertain you with the late song hits, as capably as any of the masculine orchestras.”600

Waters’s early career as a blues singer was also closely followed by the Black press.601

According to Carl Van Vechten, Waters’s voice was “essentially Negro.”602

Blues influenced the development of jazz music, and would soon be overtaken in popularity by the latter form. According to Carney, both ragtime and blues “prefigured the syncopated rhythms and harmonic construction of jazz music in the 1920s;” these

earlier forms also, to some degree, provided a “market context” for jazz.603 Jazz’s

migration to the northern cities of Chicago and New York mirrored the Great Migration,

as musicians rode riverboats up the Mississippi River to port towns, where they would

then take trains to major urban centers like Chicago and, eventually, New York.604

Despite the fact that the musical form originated in the South, performers who

made their careers in northern cities were often hesitant to return there to tour, as racial

tensions in that part of the country increased after World War I. For instance, in early

1922, members of Ethel Waters’s band quit in order to avoid touring the South, but

Waters “felt it her duty to make sacrifices in order that members of her race might hear

her sing a style of music which is a product of the Southland.”605 In 1934, Cab

Calloway’s appearance in Memphis nearly caused a race riot. His Beale Street show

sparked off tensions for reasons that, from the coverage, are unclear; things could have

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escalated as a result of Calloway refusing to sign additional autographs, or may have

started with a confrontation between a white audience member and a member of the

orchestra or its entourage. In any case, according to reports of the incident, riots broke out

and Calloway and his band narrowly escaped serious harm. The Afro-American dedicated

extensive front-page coverage to the riot, but were conflicted on what it actually meant:

was it, at its core, an act of violence or was it just hysteria over a celebrity that got out of

hand? One writer argued that “Cab simply epitomized the deep life of Beale Street to

such an extent that Beale Street lost its head.”606 Matthews took a different view; he saw

a more sinister side of the Memphis incident.

In a lengthy op/ed on the situation, Matthews recalled his own experience in

Memphis witnessing two men getting lynched. His description of Memphis is telling of

Black journalists overall impression of “Southland” or “Dixieland” generally during this

period. Memphis, he recalled:

A city where Black and white keep rigidly apart in the daylight, but where Black and white fall joyously into each other’s arms the moment this same dusk falls. A bastard city – Memphis…Once the stop-off place of all the gamblers, robbers, cut-throats and murderers who plied the might Mississippi from St. Louis down to the gulf on the huge paddle-wheel steamers that carried our forefathers to the slave markets of the nation.607

This coverage confirms historian Burton Peretti’s assertion that northern musicians were

routinely “challenged and upbraided by whites in a public, theatrical manner, for racism

in the south had always been embodied in public rituals as well as in legislation.”608 No doubt these “public rituals” were in the back of Matthews’s mind as Calloway embarked on that tour.

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Despite its southern roots, jazz was most often described by Black newspapers in terms of a uniquely northern mindset: it combined the modernity of urban life in the

1920s with the “primitivism” of its participants’ African roots – ideas that harkened back to Harlem, which became jazz’s adoptive home. In an interview with the Defender’s

Ollie Stewart, composer Noble Sissle proclaimed that, “There is a certain element of life in [jazz music] – religion, romance, tragedy, faith, hope and primitive abandon – brought together and paid for at a tremendous price.”609 He described jazz music as a “jungle

symphony.”610 Other articles labeled jazz as “savage enough to satisfy our aboriginal

instincts,” “a nocturnal jamboree in darkest Africa,” reminiscent of “the savage

strangeness of the congo at midnight,” and “jungle sounds.”611 As journalists struggled to

define this new genre, they also became skeptical of its effect on audiences.

Coverage suggests that Black journalists were concerned that listening to jazz

music would compromise community-building: listeners would drink too much; sacrifice

their morals; and cease going to church. According to an Afro-American article published

in 1920, listeners were simply “not normal after jazz.” According to physicians, listening

to jazz music resulted in “bad temper, bad health, and ruined homes.”612 It also “makes

one drunk…[having] the same effect as whiskey or drugs.”613 Children were particularly

susceptible to jazz’s negative effects; journalist Betty Barclay wrote of the “jazz-mad

modern generation” as late as 1930.614 Jazz was also viewed as an interruption in religious worship; one minister railed against the playing of jazz music at church service:

“I think jazz music should be played where it belongs…when people are worked up over

jazz tones in religious service…these people are not religiously stirred, they are

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emotionally animated.”615 Jazz music was viewed as a threat to the most established

social institutions of the Black community.

Perhaps the most searing – and, in hindsight, troubling – indictment of jazz music

came from a well-known intellectual of the period, Carter G. Woodson, who publicly

praised Adolph Hitler for banning jazz music in Germany. Woodson wrote,

Hitler, then, in spite of his otherwise questionable acts achieved well when he drove the jazz element from Germany. There was nothing racial in his effort. Self- respecting Negroes are welcome in Germany. Hitler set a noble example in trying to preserve the good in civilization.616

Woodson’s comments were featured in the Afro-American, which took his charges

seriously enough to suggest that Paul Robeson had left for Europe not to escape racial prejudice, but to escape the “evil” of jazz music. Woodson’s criticism also included newspapers and magazines that, by covering jazz artists, were “playing up as great successes the men who carried jazz from ‘You Street,’ ‘Harlem,’ and ‘State Street’ to the

European dens of vice.”617 These criticisms reflect what jazz historian James Lincoln

Collier called “the ideal of Victorian gentility” that influenced middle-class Blacks’

attitudes toward entertainment; as Collier noted, jazz was considered by many Black citizens to be low-brow entertainment, played by musicians whose status was “only a cut above a prostitute.”618

As the Courier’s James Miller admitted, “The cultural value of jazz is low;”

however, Miller and other writers understood its value as popular entertainment.619

According to jazz historians, it was perhaps a more profound phenomenon in the white

community than in the Black community. As Collier pointed out, in 1920 roughly two-

thirds of the Black population still lived in the rural South, with little or no access to

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radios or phonographs. Though it is difficult to find exact figures, Collier suggested that

by 1939, of the ten million Black residents living in the South at the time, only seventeen

percent had radios, and twenty-eight percent had phonographs; this figure is compared

with the nearly five to six million blues and jazz records sold annually. According to

Collier, “this suggests that only a minority of Blacks could have been regular buyers” of records made by Black artists.620

As jazz’s popularity increasingly garnered the attention of white audiences, it forced them to rethink old prejudices in light of the talent and virtuosity presented before them as they reluctantly traveled into African American neighbors of New York and

Chicago to watch ensembles like the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the King Oliver Band perform. Some Black press journalists saw the popularity of jazz music among white audiences as evidence of waning race prejudice; for example, as the Courier pointed out, the popularity of Ellington – who in 1930 drew over 300,000 people to the Paramount

Theatre to see his orchestra play, starred in the Amos n’ Andy film Check and Double

Check, and was the first African American to be broadcast on radio – proves the assertion of continuing race prejudice “mere folly.”621 Ralph Matthews thrilled at the notion that

Cab Calloway received “a Dixie welcome that rivaled Minnie the Moocher’s wedding

day” when on tour in Savannah, Georgia.622 Strangely, against the backdrop of the

Harlem Renaissance – which would seem to suggest that Black citizens were becoming

less interested in white acceptance in favor of celebrating their own unique culture and

experience – being accepted by white audiences was considered by many journalists to be

advancement for the race generally.

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Though the Afro-American declared that “by 1929 the world was becoming tired of hot-jazz” as a result of the stock market crash, jazz continued its steady popularity among white and Black audiences.623 As the roaring twenties became the depressed thirties, and so little in American life was thriving, jazz music was not only continuing to gain a foothold on American popular consciousness, but it was also establishing as its most recognizable talents three musicians who would in many ways shatter the color line in popular music for good: Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong. These musicians were evidence of a thriving African American cultural movement not only in

Harlem and Chicago, but all over the country, and transcended the barriers of race through the expression of their art. By 1924, both Ellington and Armstrong were active in

Harlem’s burgeoning music scene; and in 1931, Ellington went on tour and his gig at the

Cotton Club was taken over by Calloway. Ellington was known for his complex orchestral arrangements and elegant style, preferring to call his music “American music” rather than assign to it one label or genre.624 Calloway was known for his youth, modesty, and distinctive “hi-de-ho’ing.”625 Armstrong, best known for his groundbreaking improvisational trumpet-playing and distinctive vocal style, was “King of the cornetists.”626 These three musicians were the most frequently and extensively discussed in the Black press, and coverage of the three reveals important insights into the discursive battle over the cultural value of jazz music.

Coverage of Ellington most explicitly engaged with – and undermined – the notion that jazz music was inherently low-brow – though, of course, it could not be called

“jazz.” For example, Frank Marshall Davis of the Afro-American explained that Ellington

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“doesn’t consider his offerings as jazz but as African interpretations. And his

interpretations have drawn praise of the highest and most serious critics.”627 Here,

Ellington’s music is not termed “jazz;” rather it is described as “African interpretations”

– and therefore is highbrow and worthy of Black critics’ high praises. The Philadelphia

Tribune pulls the same rhetoric trick: “Duke Ellington says that he is not playing jazz, but

that he is trying to play the natural feelings of the people.”628 It is not clear, because

neither article attributes a direct quotation to Ellington, whether it is Ellington himself or

the writer who is so purposefully distancing him from the term “jazz;” however, it is

significant that the rejection of the term in association with one of its most talented and

accomplished purveyors had taken place at all.

Ellington was not playing “primitive” music – he was playing the music of his

community. According to one Defender writer, “It is the bandleader’s aim to preserve the

individualism of his men, to give them full sway in the expression of their innate sense of

negroid rhythm and mood.”629 Some hoped that Ellington would abandon “hot jazz” and

“will soon realize that the public is getting him down wrong and will contribute something to the immense sum of culture, and upon some occasion let us know that real

musicians are playing real music;” the hope was that, at some point, Ellington would veer

away from jazz and begin to play classical music or spirituals.630

Personally, Ellington was a bastion of style and grace; coverage emphasized his

sartorial style and middle-class upbringing. He was “a man fond of gin highballs, contract

bridge, adventure stories and the movies” who was also “no slouch when it comes to

wearing clothes.”631 He and his band were often described as “glamorous,” with a strong

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emphasis paid on how much money the act generated.632 Most interestingly, despite the

fact that Ellington is remembered as a ladies’ man, there is little attention paid to his

private affairs. For example, with the exception of one innocuous photograph together

looking over sheet music (Figure 8.2), there is no coverage of Ellington’s supposed long-

term affair with actress Fredi Washington, with whom Donald Bogle suggested he was

involved for many years. 633

In February 1931, Cab Calloway took over Ellington’s post as the Cotton Club’s

house musician. Calloway was only 24 at the time, but he quickly settled in as Ellington’s

successor. Calloway as a Baltimore native garnered the favor of Ralph Matthews. There

is some indication that Matthews had even followed Calloway from when he was a

member of his high school marching band.634 Matthews’s coverage of Calloway betrays

an almost paternal attention to the young musician, whom he described as a “brilliant

young orchestra leader…well-known in both theatrical and radio circles.”635 Matthews

and his wife were even “honored guests” at a homecoming celebration thrown in

Calloway’s honor by the Ikoms and Dizzy Debs society clubs.636

Under the direction of big-time white manager Irving Mills, Calloway signed a

record deal with NBC and even did a little bit of acting in the Broadway musical Hot

Chocolates. Despite his talents as a “musician, a band leader, a dancer, and a composer,”

Calloway was not heralded as an “artist” in the same way that Ellington was.637 Rob Roy

of the Defender seemed almost surprised to enjoy an instrumental number by Calloway’s

orchestra; he admitted that “we have always felt that numbers played by Cab that

contained no vocal outburst was a waste of time and effort.”638 Calloway was known for

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a vocal style called “hi-de-ho’ing,” which was successful in rousing audiences but

seemed to display little actual artistic ability in and of itself. Therefore, instead of

dwelling on his musical ability, coverage of Calloway concentrated on his age,

personality, and home life. Stories about Calloway – both by Matthews and by other

journalists – routinely emphasized his youth, using the descriptors “boy,” “juvenile,”

“young man,” “young orchestra leader,” “darling,” and others (See Figure 8.3). He was

often described as a “dreamer”: “Few people have been able to shape their dreams into

reality as he has…Dreaming was only half the battle. The rest was hard work.”639 His

“ordinariness” was also emphasized; like his fans, “he still yearns for more space in which to live, good home-cooked meals, and the peace and quiet of a small bungalow for his wife and himself.”640 Another paper noted that he was “not at all snobbish.”641 His attractive wife also received a fair amount of attention from the Black press, which described her as “an unusually attractive young woman.”642 Ralph Matthews noted that

she was “blue-eyed and auburn-haired and is simply CUR-azy about her husband…They

are very happy together, both on and off, because their hours are such that they depend on each other for what pleasure they get.”643 Curiously, despite her great beauty, Calloway’s

wife was not featured in any photographs with her husband, nor was she ever referred to by name in any articles.

It is clear in the coverage of Calloway that, though he was a popular entertainer whom audiences enjoyed, he lacked the musicality of Ellington, who wrote and played his own compositions. In fact, as far as the Black press was concerned, there was little denying that Ellington’s orchestra was “the finest orchestra of its kind in the world;”

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articles that compared Ellington with other musicians – including Calloway and

Armstrong – repeatedly emphasized the distinction between Ellington as an “artist” while

other musicians were merely “entertainers.”644 For example, Warren Scholl dismissively

noted that, “There are many colored orchestras in America, but none can compare

favorably with this one. Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Don Redmon are showmen.

Ellington at his best is a refined interpreter of hot jazz.”645 Therefore, coverage of

Calloway shifted to matters of a more personal, standard celebrity narrative: a boy who

dreams big achieves success with a beautiful but largely anonymous woman on his arm.

Calloway was not the only artist to suffer from the length of Ellington’s shadow.

Armstrong was also often judged in reference to Ellington; for example, as one Defender

writer noted of his Paris debut,

the mark set by Duke Ellington, who was the first to offer a ‘hot jazz’ (as they term it) in the now Salle Rameau, had, unfortunately, degraded the extent that a failure on Armstrong’s part would have meant ‘finish,’ undoubtedly for all time, for Negro jaz [sic] concerts in said hall…

He concluded, by the end of the set, Armstrong had the audience “in the palm of his

hand.”646 Armstrong was no doubt a gifted musician, as his long, celebrated career

attests. However, coverage of the cornetist as he was emerging as one of Harlem’s top-

billed acts is perhaps of the three musicians the most complex in terms of how he was presented to readers as a representation of the race.

Coverage of Armstrong is filled with hyperbole tending to his greatness as a

cornetist. One article described Armstrong in this way: “With all the flare and trumpeting

of a conquering hero, Louis Armstrong, Victor Records artist, ‘King of the cornetists,’

and without a doubt the greatest single attraction in the musical world...”647 Armstrong

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was also a part of the inner circle of Harlem celebrities. He even wore a Catholic medal

around his neck that was given to him by his close friend, Stepin Fetchit.648 However,

coverage of Armstrong betrays a sense of distance between him and the Black press.

Though flattering, the coverage conveys little sense of Armstrong’s personality or

personal life; there are very few interviews or quotes attributed to him by journalists; and

there are no discussions relating to Armstrong’s position as an influence in the African

American community. Unlike Ellington, he was not playing the music of his people.

Unlike Calloway, he did not share the hopes and aspirations of his audience.

Also unlike Calloway and Ellington, who both enjoyed middle-class upbringings

in suburban Baltimore, Armstrong came from the streets of New Orleans, Publicly,

Armstrong came off as far less polished than Ellington or Calloway; as the Afro-

American noted, “Radio, as a matter of fact, is a little wary of his improvisations. Several

times he has been switched off the air for getting profane or slipping in sly remarks about

his friends’ extra-marital escapades.”649

The most troubling aspects of his upbringing were bizarrely glossed over in the

Black press. For example, the Afro-American recalled:

Ma and Pa Armstrong loved Louie, but like all parents, they did not go wild over his raising such a ruckus around the house, so he was placed in a school where he could toot to his heart’s content. This happened to be the Municipal Boys’ Home, where Peter Davis made good musicians out of little boys.650

There are several issues with this account. First, Armstrong’s parents, teenagers when

they had him, were not together; Armstrong lived with his mother and younger sister in

Storyville – New Orleans’s prostitution district. He was sent not to music academy, but to

a juvenile detention facility called the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys (though he did

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learn to play the cornet there), where he served an 18-month sentence for firing a gun in public on New Year’s Eve 1912. His family was poor, and until Joe Oliver picked him up to be a part of his band and brought him to Chicago in 1918, he worked a variety of odd jobs to support a household consisting of his mother, sister, and his mother’s various boyfriends. It is unclear where this prettified version of Armstrong’s upbringing came from; however, there is nothing to suggest that Armstrong himself was its source, or that he strove to hide his troubled roots from the press.

The early 1930s were a tumultuous period for Armstrong. He had trouble retaining managers; he was involved with the mob, who at times interfered with bookings and gigs; and he was busted for marijuana possession for which he served a short jail term.651 Coverage of these events in the Black press was minimal and straightforward; for

instance, the usually expressive Courier correspondent Chappy Gardner wrote up a report

of his drug arrest with no editorializing on the incident whatsoever. An Associated Negro

Press release detailing Armstrong’s subsequent release from prison quickly shifted the

focus to his weight loss while incarcerated.652

Particularly in modern discussions of the legacies of Armstrong and Ellington

(and in which Calloway in notably absent), historians have posited that Armstrong was a passive figure (biographer Terry Teachout repeatedly uses the word “submissive” to describe him), while Ellington was an active proponent of civil rights.653 Armstrong,

according to Teachout, was largely influenced by Booker T. Washington, believing in his

“long-unfashionable vision of racial redemption through self-improvement,” content to

have his career controlled by white managers and promoters.654 On the other hand,

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Ellington’s biographer, Harvey Cohen, argued, “[Ellington’s] devotion to his race and his

determination to document its achievements and character infused much of his best work,

and surfaced repeatedly in his comments to the press.”655 However, coverage of the two

men regarding their views about race runs counter to these assumptions by their respective biographers.

In the fall of 1933, amid rumors that his marriage to Lil was coming to an end,

Armstrong defected to England where, according to reports from the Defender, he planned to stay indefinitely. Armstrong “is, in fact, accredited by his intimates with a desire to settle permanently in England, where a greater percentage of the general public than in America appears to appreciate him.”656 By the next spring, Armstrong was still

resolved to stay abroad: “Louis made it plain that he would consider no U.S. offers,

adding: ‘They don’t know how to treat a fellow over there if he happens to be Black.’”657

Ellington, on the other hand, was vague about his ideas regarding race. There is some

evidence that he paid attention to Jim Crow segregation; for example, in 1933 it was

reported that he intervened with theatre owners in Amarillo, Texas to make sure that

Black fans could view his concert from the main floor. However, as Omar LaGrange of

the Courier noted, “This was not a great deal to brag about for many people resented the

fact that they had to wait until the last night and, too, for a mid-night show at that” in

order to receive this accommodation.658 Indeed, it is difficult to imagine this move as a

heartfelt strike against Jim Crow; it comes off far more likely as a preemptive public

relations move in the wake of Roland Hayes’s earlier troubles with segregated southern

theatres. Ellington’s views on the racial situation of his fans, based on interviews he gave

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on the subject, were also unclear. For example, in a 1935 interview with John Stokes

Holley of the Tribune, “Being a Negro gives you license to do certain things that you just

couldn’t do otherwise…The United States is about as good as any other place” regarding racial tolerance.659 Ellington’s comments could be viewed as racial pride (later in the

article he states that “the Negro is on the upward trend”), but the fact that he undermined

the realities of life under Jim Crow is troubling.

Coverage of African American singers and bandleaders from 1920 to 1935 reveals the integral part that musical tradition played in the negotiation of critical citizenship in the African American community. First, it suggests that, in addition to ragtime, jazz, and blues, Black journalists were also interested in classical music, which generated celebrities just as the more popular and “lowbrow” forms of musical entertainment did. Like Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in the early part of the century, Roland

Hayes’s participation in classical music – “the exclusive province of America’s white elite”660 – thrilled journalists who sought to prove that Black culture could be just as high-brow as mainstream culture; Hayes’s success was a triumph for Black citizens collectively, and with it came the responsibility for advocating on behalf of his

community.

Despite how hagiographic modern treatments of jazz history tend to be, in its own

time it was viewed by Black journalists with skepticism and, sometimes, contempt.

Coverage of jazz music’s emergence extends the argument that took place in the Black

press regarding the tensions between highbrow and lowbrow entertainment. As historian

W. Fitzhugh Brundage recently argued, “Beginning in the late 1920s Duke Ellington’s

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band defied easy categorization by fusing lush and complex orchestral arrangements with swinging jazz polyrhythms and unpredictable and edgy improvisation…Who could say whether Ellington and his orchestra were practitioners of high or low culture?661”

However, this analysis comes only in retrospect; in its own time, jazz in the 1920s was seen as evidence of the stagnation of Black culture generally.

Finally, coverage of particular music celebrities runs counter to the way in which modern historians and fans have collectively remembered their legacies. For example, it is clear that, at least early in their careers, Armstrong’s and Ellington’s roles as possible representatives of their race were not as clearly defined as they are considered to be today. In particular, Armstrong’s refusal to return to the United States more convincingly echoes Paul Robeson than it does Booker T. Washington. It is important, in remembering

Armstrong, to not lose sight of his attempts to reject status quo Jim Crowism.

Of course, celebrity coverage was not only about race representation and the fight for civil rights. Like the mainstream press during this period – and perhaps because salacious reports of Jack Johnson’s affairs had moved papers nearly 20 years earlier – the

Black press expended considerable energy on gossip. Coverage of Hayes typifies the

general trends in coverage of celebrities in other areas that have been discussed thus far – there was equal focus on both his role as a representative of his race and on the more salacious details of his personal life. In this way, Hayes joins Johnson, Baker, Robeson, and other entertainers who provided a dual function for Black press writers both as examples of collective representation of the Black community and as objects of gossip and intrigue that, no doubt, helped to sell newspapers in the era of yellow journalism.

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However, and somewhat ironically, coverage of some of the period’s most enduring and

flamboyant personalities represents a rupture in this general trend. Jazz musicians of the period escaped relatively unscathed regarding their personal affairs; Ellington’s were ignored; Calloway’s were romanticized; and Armstrong’s were glossed over.

In sum, African American-centered music in the 1920s and 1930s reflected a specific cultural aesthetic whose transformative power would be understood (and therefore celebrated) only in retrospect. The coverage of these artists reflected the Black press’s commitment to proving the value of African American cultural output, yet was also commensurate with the tendency of the mainstream press to focus on the most salacious stories possible. Jazz represented the most significant breakthrough to mainstream culture at the time by Black entertainers, and the Black press struggled to understand and interpret this transformative historical and cultural moment as it unfolded before their eyes.

Figure 8.1. Front page, The Philadelphia Tribune, December 25, 1926.

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Figure 8.2. “Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 9, 1934.

Figure 8.3. “Juvenile Director,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 14, 1931.

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CHAPTER 9

“LEVELING THE CRESTS OF AMERICAN PREJUDICE” -- BLACK JOURNALISTS FIND RACIAL UPLIFT IN SPORTS COVERAGE, 1920-1935

The highly competitive minded white athletes have been forced to step aside. The scientists and writers of the Caucasian side have attempted to explain the racial differences; have attempted to passing [sic] this new surge of glory of color supremacy to anatomical fitness and exceptions. – Ric Roberts, Atlanta Daily World, 1935662

African Americans’ performance in sport differs in many ways from artistic performance, and the ways in which Black journalists framed “success” in athletic terms differed accordingly. In theatre, film, and music, it was simple for white mainstream audiences to cherry-pick what aspects of Black culture they found most appealing, while

Black journalists had to actively frame for Black audiences the meaning (and value) behind one type of performance over another. However, Black athletes’ achievements in sports changed that dynamic for both audiences. Sports historians David Wiggins and

Patrick Miller use the term “muscular assimilationism” to describe the strategies used by

African American athletes to integrate into mainstream sports, arguing that their achievements gave the Black community the symbolic victories they needed in the fight against Jim Crowism.663 Black journalists harnessed these achievements and aggressively

translated them into evidence of racial progress and as tools for racial uplift in the

ongoing battle for civil rights. The collective representation of the community focused on

these important, galvanizing figures.

By considering the way in which these athletes were framed as “celebrities,” this

analysis offers insights into how athletic achievement, racial uplift, and the idea of

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“celebrity” intersected in the sports pages of the most prominent Black newspapers of the

time. It also reveals how dynamic a process reporting became during the 1920s, with

technological innovations such as the telegraph and even air travel allowing journalists to

“make history” with breaking news reports, revealing some insight into how journalists

began to understand – and perhaps reevaluate – their roles as gatekeepers of Black

culture. Finally, this chapter critically reexamines the importance of the “color line” in

then-contemporary discussions of African American athletic achievement.

As attitudes towards boxing as well as achievement in other arenas – like track

and field – became more dynamic and more commonplace, Black press journalists and

editors routinely carried out conversations about racial progress and racial uplift; and the

athletes who provided fodder for these reports became no less than celebrities

themselves. Wiggins and Miller noted that, “African American commentators in sport

were exceedingly articulate about the ways they hoped to use the playing fields as a

platform for social mobility and to enlist athletic triumph in the quest for equal

opportunity in America.”664 In discussing the achievements of a group of Black track and

field stars at the 1932 Olympics, Atlanta Daily World sports writer Edwin Henderson

offered “a very optimistic prediction that in the not-too-distant future this same ill-

considered athletic world is going to do much to level the crests of American race

prejudice.”665

According to Black sportswriters, “leveling the crests of American race prejudice” would occur in two specific ways: first, achievement in sports would undermine prevailing notions of physical “superiority” that were held by whites as a

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result of “scientific” theories that, during this period, gained particular traction with the

eugenics movement; and second, achievement in sports in the context of continuing Jim

Crow oppression would come to symbolize the strength of character, determination, and unfailing work ethic of the Black race generally. Accordingly, coverage of Black sports celebrities during this period was predominantly concerned with the extent to which they could embody these two core themes.

Black sportswriters were keenly aware of the harsh stereotypes that pervaded mainstream imagery of Black men, and they feared the double-edged sword of physical achievement. For instance, Chicago Defender sportswriter Juli Jones, Jr. lamented that

…when a Black man wins a big victory in the ring, some of the big writers compare him with an African gorilla and cartoon him as the most terrible beast in the jungles – an unfair picture and comparison.666

In covering Senegalese fighter Battling Siki, writers routinely tried to underplay his

African heritage as indicative of some sort of “lack of civilization.”667

African American athletes consistently challenged and undermined prevailing

attitudes about the inherent physical “inferiority” of the Black race. Though difficult to image in a contemporary mindset, this period was rife with pseudo-scientific theories that sought to explicate taxonomies of human difference based on “evidence” that ranged from the size and shape of one’s head to theories about extra foot bones. When Howard

University sponsored a physical exam in an effort to prove that there was “no evidence to support the widely-published theory of white sports authorities that Owens’s speed as a

sprinter was due to an extended heel bone common among African tribes,” the Afro-

American covered the story on its front page.668 The newspaper even ran a photo of

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Owens on the exam table (see Figure 9.1). In response to these strange theories and the

negative attitudes they perpetuated, sports journalists took every opportunity to

emphasize the physical beauty, strength, and superiority of their athletes. “I am thankful

that the beautiful body of our new world’s champion,” wrote Henry Edwards of Olympic

gold-medallist Eddie Tolan, “is clothed in a beautiful, dark, ebony skin. I am grateful

because this fact leaves no room for conceited arguments by some of our Nordic-

superiority-advocates.”669

Another major theme to emerge in Black press sports coverage was the notion

that sports fans both Black and white should never fail to understand and celebrate Black physical achievement in the context of continuing Jim Crowism. These achievements were undisputable evidence of the race’s determination, work ethic, and perseverance. As

Romeo L. Dougherty of the New York Amsterdam News argued,

…when we examine the records we find that in every sphere of sport in which the Negro engages he has more than made good. His road has been made doubly hard by the obstacles which he has been forced to surmount in reaching the place he occupies…670

The color line had made it nearly impossible for many Black athletes to even receive the

opportunity to compete in their field. As Wiggins and Miller noted, “Although Blacks shared an impressive vitality and sense of self-worth in creating sporting communities of their own, they continued to protest again segregation and discrimination at every opportunity and made the most of the occasional exception to the prevailing pattern of exclusion.”671 The “pattern of exclusion” in sport came in various forms.

The color line had been officially or unofficially drawn in the majority of college

and professional sports at the time; for instance, baseball was officially segregated (which

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led to the formation of a separate Negro League in 1920 by former Cuban Giants pitcher

Rube Foster) while boxing was segregated to the extent that individual white fighters –

depending on their success and the clout they carried – could simply refuse to take on any

Black fighter they chose. Segregation in college sports depended on the institution in which they were played. The longevity and success of the Howard and Lincoln football

programs led to the recruitment of Black athletes by schools like the University of

Michigan, though once the players arrived, they were often subject to discrimination and

humiliation at the hands of their coaches, teammates, and rival schools.672

“Occasional exceptions” came most frequently – though not frequently enough –

in boxing. Black athletes’ participation in boxing had a tumultuous history, thanks in

large part to the flamboyant antics of Jack Johnson during his championship reign, which

lasted from 1908 to 1915. During that period, Black sportswriters seemed almost

embarrassed by Johnson, and did what they could to distance themselves from the

troubled champion. By 1920, however, attitudes toward boxing as a legitimate sport had

changed drastically. Government deregulation, combined with the establishment of the

National Boxing Association, widespread coverage of sporting events in urban

newspapers and on the radio, and depictions of boxing in film all contributed to the de-

stigmatization and booming popularity of the sport.673 Previous debates about boxing’s

“propriety” as a sport in which Black athletes should engage were outmoded; rather, the

Black press simply celebrated any contender that seemed have a shot at holding a title.

For instance, the Defender called for Harry Wills to “whip this big over-rated fellow

[champion Jack Dempsey] to a frazzle” and to “treat [him] rough.”674 Concerns about

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Black men engaging in “uncivilized” activity – at least in the ring – were seemingly

absent by 1920.

Instead, the Black press struggled to (re)define the place of boxing within larger

conversations about Black culture. These conversations materialized in the form of

commemorative journalism designed to construct a useful collective memory of Black athletes’ past participation in boxing as a way to frame then-contemporary discussions of

emerging fighters like Harry Wills, Battling Siki, Joe Louis, and others. These

commemorative articles came in several different forms. Sometimes they would be one-

off pieces from sports editors; other times, they would be part of a larger project or

collection by one of the staff writers. For example, in 1923, the Defender ran a six-part

series by sportswriter Tony Langston (“who has witnessed more ring contests than any

other member of the race”) called “Ringside Recollections,” designed to revisit some of

the race’s most lauded moments in the sport.675 This body of coverage included articles

discussing the past achievements of early fighters; articles critiquing contemporary

fighters using past fighters as frames for their criticisms; and articles that attempted to

construct a historical narrative of Black participation in the sport.676 Gans and Johnson –

the champions of the previous era – were commonly evoked as frames for understanding

then-contemporary boxers.

Johnson, as a public figure, had an active role in gatekeeping his own memory.

He was a prolific author and recording artist after his championship reign ended. He

wrote two memoirs and made some of the earliest physical fitness instructional

recordings.677 He was even tapped by the Pittsburgh Courier to author a four-part column

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series on the various aspects of prizefighting. In all of these texts, Johnson wrote (and

spoke) self-reflectively on his legacy as the first heavyweight champion of the world. For example, in discussing dynamics between northern and southern Black boxers in his

Courier column, he commented,

No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me …. [and] the fact that I lived quite a long time in London and Paris, where there is no color line, aided me in laying aside the inferiority complex that other colored fighters from the South have labored under. 678

According to Johnson, the ring was a replication of North-South racial tensions, with

Black southern fighters carrying a stigma of inferiority into the ring with them. Johnson,

born and raised in Galveston, Texas, was of course an exception to this trend.

Perhaps the most often-cited individual boxer of this wave of nostalgia was the first Black lightweight champion of the world, Joe Gans. Coverage of Gans in his lifetime

was sparse; however, posthumously, Gans symbolized what was most laudable about the

sport. He became an iconic figure; even Ralph Matthews, the Afro-American’s

entertainment columnist, wrote of Gans as the “gentlemanly, unpretentious individual.”679

Then-contemporary fighters that sought to emulate his style began to use “Joe Gans” as a nickname – as in Young Joe Gans and Allentown Joe Gans. Other boxers paid public tribute to his memory in different ways, like visiting his grave for a photo-op (See Figure

9.2). The Defender’s Juli Jones and a host of other sportswriters routinely used their columns to speak generally on Gans’s legacy or as recollections of specific fights.680

Gans was also specifically evoked in the mid-1930s to frame discussions about a new up-

and-coming fighter, Joe Louis.681 Jones, Jr. was particularly apt to celebrate Gans’s

legacy; in one article he called Gans “the greatest fighter of all time,” and in another he

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argued that the lightweight champion was consistently popular even among white

spectators.682 Jones also argued that “The name Gans is as fresh today in the public mind,

through press notes, as it was fifteen years ago,” which is ironic because, fifteen years

previously at the height of Gans’s professional success, there was rarely any coverage of

him in the Black press at all.683 The Black press’s coverage of Gans hints at a larger

mission – to make boxing a “respectable” endeavor in which the Black community could engage.

The Courier’s Chester L. Washington wrote of the “deeds of daring and courage of the mighty men of the mighty art” of boxing, which held deep cultural significance in

the 1920s.684 Boxing had become increasingly popular over time, and the heavyweight title held symbolic power. Heavyweight champs were “genuine sports heroes.”685 The

same symbolic power that existed for white title-holders was coveted by Black

contenders. By 1920, only one Black boxer – Johnson – had received a shot at the

heavyweight title, and had won decisively not once but twice, though his victories were

marred by racial strife and personal missteps.

To risk a Black man holding the title was, for many, to risk the inherent superiority and thus future dominance and legitimacy of the white race itself. As William

Gildea, Joe Gans’s biographer, noted, “boxing’s subtext has always been America’s subtext: race.”686 In the 1920s, several Black contenders rose through the ranks but were

denied a shot at the title simply because boxing served as a microcosm of life under Jim

Crow – the color line followed these men from all forms of public space, including

transportation, schools and restaurants, and into the ring, where they were often only

223 allowed to challenge others of their own race. For instance, one of the best contenders to emerge, Sam Langford, fought Sam McVea fifteen times, Joe Jeanette fourteen times, and Harry Wills twenty-three times.687

Frustrated, Black journalists hurled some of their harshest critiques at the “color line” in boxing. The ring seemed to symbolize life under Jim Crow, where Blacks were regularly marginalized by Whites. Tex Rickard, the most successful fight promoter of the period, was accused by the New York Amsterdam News as the force who “[brought]

Jim Crow stuff into boxing.”688 The Defender’s Juli Jones lamented that, “Taking everything in consideration, the present crop of fighters have had the roughest road to travel that could be made. They were Jim-Crowed and everything else done to discourage a boxer. Yet they have kept on.”689 The Courier’s Ira Lewis dismissed both

John Sullivan (who dodged Peter Jackson) and Jack Dempsey (who dodged Harry Wills) as “cheese champions” not worthy of the heavyweight title.690 The contention of Black newspapers was that no white champion could rightfully call himself a “champion” if he refused to fight legitimate contenders based solely on their race.

The Black press also contended that the color line was strategically drawn to deny only the best and strongest Black fighters a chance at a title, and this reticence to fight

Black contenders all but ruined the career of many “great Black hopes.” As Ed Hughes of the Afro-American pointed out, “It is interesting to note that the ‘color line’ develops only when the individual can really fight. …. It isn’t so much a matter of color as of capability.”691 Three-time World Colored Heavyweight Champion Harry “Black

Panther” Wills was the likeliest and most lauded contenders during this era of “Black

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hopes.” His pursuit of a shot at the title against champion Jack Dempsey has been lost in

a flurry of boxing histories that discuss Dempsey’s legacy but leave Wills as a mere

footnote. In reality, Wills’s pursuit of Dempsey dominated much of the champion’s

reign, which lasted from 1919 to 1926.

By 1922, Wills proved himself the logical contender for champion Dempsey with

victories over Fred Fulton (1920), Bill Tate (three times in 1921), Jeff Clark (1921), and

Gunboat Smith (1921). Later victories over Bartley Madden (1924) and Luis Firpo

(1924) would make Wills a bona fide “cause celebre” in the boxing community.

According to Dempsey biographer Randy Roberts, “[Wills’s] size was as impressive as his record; at six feet, four inches, 220 pounds, he was a well-proportioned athlete who could box as well as punch.”692 With these victories as proof of Wills’s viability as a

heavyweight contender, his manager Paddy Mullins began to apply public pressure on

Dempsey.

Coverage of Wills focused on his pursuit of Dempsey, which ended in 1926 when

Tex Rickard decided to flout the ruling of the New York State Boxing Commission and

set up a fight between Dempsey and the other logical contender, Gene Tunney, in

Philadelphia. The Dempsey-Wills-Tunney controversy is a harrowing piece of boxing

history, involving promoter Tex Rickard, the New York State Boxing Commission and

licensing committee, and Albany politicians who were concerned about the racial

implications of the proposed match. Due to public pressure from Wills and Mullins,

Dempsey agreed to fight Wills for the title in New York in 1922, and then again in 1924

and 1925. Each time Dempsey “signed” to fight Wills, his manager Jack Kearns or

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Rickard connived a way to indefinitely postpone setting a date for the fight. The New

York State Boxing Commission and licensing committee, in opposition to political

pressure in Albany to match Dempsey with Tunney over Wills, decreed that Dempsey would not be able to take on Tunney without fighting Wills first. As a result of their

decision, Rickard decided to hold the Dempsey-Tunney bout to Philadelphia in 1926,

defying the Commission’s orders and effectively shutting Wills out of a shot at the title for good.

The Black press closely followed Wills’s pursuit of Dempsey, and along the way

both extolled the virtues of the former while eviscerating the latter as “yellow.” Indeed,

the Black press was unrelenting in its treatment of Dempsey. A writer for the Afro-

American described the champion as “the poorest excuse that ever drew on a glove,” an

“ex-hobo,” and “simply yellow.”693 The Black press’s unbridled hatred for Dempsey is understandable but perhaps in hindsight misdirected; according to Roberts, he was

willing to fight Wills. Rather, the controversy over the fight stemmed from Rickard and

Kearns’s hesitation to back another interracial heavyweight title bout for fear of race

riots; Rickard had been the engineer of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries “Fight of the

Century.”694 However, this contention was considered bogus by Juli Jones, who

sarcastically pondered, “Can one imagine a fight manager looking out for race trouble

and interest beyond the limit?”695

Wills’s pursuit of Dempsey as boxing’s top story was challenged by Johnson’s reemergence in the public eye. In 1921 Johnson’s stint in Leavenworth Prison on an interstate sex trafficking conviction under the Mann Act came to an end, and upon his

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release his main concern was getting his boxing career back on track, despite being forty-

four years old and well past his prime. Upon his release, he was determined to challenge

both Dempsey and Wills, his former sparring partner. Though neither fight came to

fruition, Johnson’s determination and appetite for the limelight kept him in the news.

Johnson’s legacy as the first Black heavyweight champion – at the forefront of many

sports journalists’ minds upon his release from prison – operated as a frame for

understanding Wills’s pursuit of Dempsey. For instance, the Afro-American’s sports

editor at the time wrote,

Some sports writers out Chicago way have found a new ‘indoor sport’ by writing out their impressions as to just why Jack Dempsey would have licked Jack Johnson, when the latter was at his best. …. It would be vastly more interesting if these gentlemen would take a day off and tell us why Mr. Dempsey continues to ignore Harry Wills, the best among the present crop of heavies, and believed in many quarters to be as good as Johnson ever was.696

Wills seemed doomed to exist in the former champion’s shadow. However, Wills was a

“gentleman” who “has always lived a clean, respectable life,” and had been “a credit to

the game and has undone to a great degree the harm caused Negro boxers by Jack

Johnson” – attributes that made him a respectable representative for the race, unlike what

Johnson had been.697 Wills’s behavior outside the ring was celebrated as a counter-

narrative to Johnson – a way to redeem the Black community collectively from the

embarrassment suffered as a result of the latter’s bad behavior.

Yet, as a title bout with Dempsey appeared to be farther and farther out of Wills’s

reach, the memory of Johnson became more complicated. By 1923, after three years of

following Wills’s pursuit of Dempsey, news coverage of Johnson’s legacy began to

embrace him as proactive rather than problematic. The Courier declared that Wills

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“forms a marked contrast to Jack Johnson, former heavyweight champion of the world,

and other ‘old-timers,’ who fought their way to anything they wanted.”698 In contrast with Wills’s reserved and often private persona, the Afro-American noted that “Joe

[Gans] always has a smile and a glad hand for newspaper men. So did Jack Johnson.

Jack always had a cock and bull story as well, but it made good publicity.”699 Though

Wills as the next viable contender for heavyweight champion of the world was framed by

the Black press as a way to redeem the sport and the Black community as a whole against

the damage done by Johnson, Johnson’s legacy ended up overshadowing Wills’s greatest

achievements.

As Wills rode the straight and narrow in pursuit of Dempsey, another boxer

emerged to the delight of the Black press who, though a mediocre fighter at best, seemed

like Johnson to always have a “cock and bull story” to recount. Louis Phal, known almost

exclusively in coverage as Battling Siki, was a Senegalese lightweight whose only

notable victory came in 1922 against Frenchman Georges Carpentier for the world title.

Upon his victory, the Black press tried to connect Siki’s accomplishments with the

narrative of boxing greatness that they were painstakingly constructing week to week.

Though Senegalese, Black journalists contended that he was part of African American

cultural heritage; as the Afro-American argued, “Siki’s grandfather was a slave, captured

by Moors in the interior of Senegal, a region almost as dark as the darkest regions of the

Congo.”700 However, Siki was not particularly interested in becoming a part of this

legacy-in-progress; he was a French free citizen and had little use for American racism –

or the battle against it. During a visit to the Defender offices, he remarked to one reporter,

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“You got that statue in New York – Liberty you call it – bah, it mean nothing. No

freedom here – no, no, no – not for you – for me.”701 He had no desire to fight other

boxers of his race, for those bouts, he argued, did not make as much money. He was a

fixture in the Harlem social scene, where several reporters noted that his main concerns

were alcohol and women.702 After a few high-profile losses in 1923 – to Mike McTigue

in March, Tony Morelle in June, and Kid Norfolk in November – Siki transitioned out of

boxing and began a stint as part of a vaudeville act at the Lafayette Theatre. By 1924,

Black sportswriters were fed up with his underperformance and personal antics. G.L.

Mackey, sports columnist for the Afro-American, summarily dismissed Siki: “As a fighter

Siki is a failure…For the good of the sport his end is near and the hard-working boys that

really deserve the chance to show their wares will come into their own.”703 Almost

exactly a year after Mackey’s public declaration that Siki’s “end is near,” the boxer was

unceremoniously shot in the back and left for dead on a Harlem street corner.

The circumstances surrounding his death were unclear, and the murder was never

solved. As the Defender surmised of the investigation that followed, “[Siki] was playing

and clowning even in the hardest of fights and the police are about ready to embrace the theory that perhaps one of his capers led to his end.”704 Of the theories that circulated, the

most plausible for many journalists was that Siki was shot for refusing to pay a

bootlegger for a bottle of liquor. Siki’s death was not commemorated in the Black press;

he was no Joe Gans. Rather, his death served as a Prohibition-era cautionary tale against

the dangers of alcohol abuse: “Booze is no man’s friend at best. Don’t smile at poor

ignorant Siki’s foolish weakness and untimely fate, unless you are sure that your own

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path is not much like his,” read an article published in the Afro-American (see Figure 9.3

for illustration that accompanied the article).705

By 1930, it felt as though any great hopes that may have shown potential during the 1920s had faded away. Siki, murdered in the street, would not get a chance at a

comeback. Wills kept fighting professionally, but after being shut out of the title shot, he

had lost the chance to reach his full potential. Sam Langford, another notable

heavyweight, lost his vision, and needed assistance raising the funds to receive surgery.

His blindness forced him into early retirement. Tiger Flowers, the middleweight

champion, had passed way from complications from a seemingly routine surgery to

remove scar tissue from around his eye. Sam McVey, George Godfrey, and Joe Jeannette

continued to fight exhibition matches, but none of them came close to a championship

shot. And Jack Johnson was simply too old to restart his career.

Sportswriters were not at a loss for news to report on during this period; Negro

League baseball, as well as collegiate football and basketball were all popular among

Black sports fans, but those sports failed to yield a stand-out superstar.706 Rather,

sportswriters began to become excited over an increasingly popular collegiate sport that,

like boxing, emphasized individual achievement: track and field. As the Afro-American

noted, the two sports had much in common: “If grit, gall and determination are needed to

win success in the prize ring they are also needed just as much on the field and track.”707

“Grit, gall and determination” led four young men to the Olympic Games in the summer

of 1932 -- Eddie Tolan, Ralph Metcalfe, Ed Gordon, and Cornelius Johnson. Tolan

placed first in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes; Metcalfe placed second in the

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100-meter dash and third in the 200-meter dash; and Gordon placed first in the broad

jump; and Cornelius Johnson placed fourth in the high jump.

Their achievements were celebrated extensively by the Black press, which framed

these stories as a call to young African Americans to “Get into the game of life…[when

you do] you will smash race prejudice.” Nannie Burroughs of the Afro-American

charged, “It is high time that Negro youth were becoming obsessed with the desire and a

burning passion to enter the game [of life] and win.”708 In particular, Tolan and

Metcalfe’s victories symbolized racial uplift through discipline, determination, and hard

work: “Thank God for Tolan and Metcalfe, with their heads back and eyes shining and

feet flying…This triumph over the world is heartening to the entire Negro race,” wrote

Burroughs.709 Photos and illustrations of the pair were commonplace front-page items

(See Figure 9.4). Harry Edwards wrote in the New York Amsterdam News, “I

am…grateful to Edward Tolan for the inspiration he has given to thousands upon

thousands of colored American youths, and I am confident that he has awakened a similar

echo in the hearts of many in far away Africa and the East.”710

The next year, in 1933, another young and promising track and field star emerged:

Jesse Owens. Of the quintet of young stars, Owens was by far the favorite of the Black press. He was “a likable young star;” “a modest boy who never tries to make a show of

himself just because he is a celebrity;” a devout Christian; and a momma’s boy.711 Owens accepted a position on Ohio State’s track team, despite protestations that the school was notorious for race prejudice; in two years’ time, he was named team captain.712

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In spring 1935 at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor,

Michigan, Owens tied the world record in the 100-yard dash and set the world record in

the long jump, the 220-yard dash, and the 220 low hurdles. Owens’s Big Ten

performance served three symbolic functions for the Black press: first, it gave

sportswriters fodder for expressions of racial pride, as the 1932 Olympic team had three

years previously; second, it was evidence of an increasingly tolerant relationship between

Blacks and Whites, as embodied by Owens’s relationship with his white coach, Charles

Riley, and teammates; and third, it cemented Owens’s celebrity status, something that

gold medallist Tolan had flirted with but never truly attained. Sportswriters routinely

framed Owens a “credit to the race;” “With high hopes and bounding hearts,” wrote the

Atlanta Daily World, “Negroes everywhere in America…must contemplate with deep

satisfaction and pride the athletic prowess of Jesse Owens.”713 The Black press was

especially impressed by the fact that Owens had seemingly become “a favorite of both

races.” His Ohio State team celebrated his Big Ten wins “as if they had been received by

members of their own race.” His relationship with Riley, according to the Afro-American,

was “one of the finest examples of mutual affection in the annals of track, growing out of

a genuine admiration which transcends race and color.”714 Owens’s status as a celebrity

fundamentally changed the way the press approached covering him. When he visited Los

Angeles’s City Hall, for example, it was Fay Jackson – the ANP’s Hollywood

correspondent – who covered the story, rather than one of the staff sportswriters.

Increasingly, his private affairs were covered regularly in the news, including a persistent

rumor in early summer of 1935 that he had jilted his childhood sweetheart, Minnie Ruth

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Solomon, and had become engaged to the daughter of a family friend, Quincella

Nickerson. Owens denied the rumors, and he and Solomon were quickly married.715

In covering the Owens-Solomon-Nickerson affair, the Black press took great pains to compete for the story, which became less about who Owens actually planned to marry and more about which newspaper would go the furthest to get an exclusive angle.

Both the Defender and the Afro-American broke the story the last week of June 1935.

“The big surprise was sprung by Leon Washington, young newspaperman,” wrote the

Defender, who snapped a photo of Owens and Nickerson in an “intimate pose” at a

Cleveland train station. The infamous photo was reprinted in most of the leading Black press papers (See Figure 9.5). The Defender promised in their June 29 issue that an interview with Nickerson would be forthcoming. A week later the Atlanta Daily World picked up the story, and journalists from the paper not only called his mother for comment, but convinced Solomon – Owens’s original girlfriend – to call the track star and have their conversation recorded by the newspaper. “A newspaperman, anxious to get first-hand information regarding the rumored engagement,” wrote the Daily World,

“called Owens long-distance in San Diego and had Miss Solomon talk with him.” A few weeks later, staff reporter Bill Crain approached Nickerson outside of her work:

Last Tuesday afternoon as Miss Nickerson was leaving the insurance offices where she was employed as a secretary, this writer approached her and fired a number of questions to find her attitude on the matter.

By late August, the rumors had died down and Owens had married Solomon. However, that did not stop the Afro-American from boasting credit for the story; “The AFRO! Oh it was your paper that messed me up!” declared Owens in an interview with the paper.716

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Owens emerged against the backdrop of serious unrest in Europe at the hands of

Adolph Hitler, who had declared that the 1936 Olympics, to be held in Berlin, would not allow Black Americans to participate. The New York Amsterdam News, writing in 1933,

was convinced that that Owens’s achievements “will by sheer merit demand recognition

at the Olympic Games in Germany, despite the attempt of Hitler to ban Negroes.”717

However, their attitudes soon changed toward the ordeal.

Black sportswriters were outraged by Hitler’s Olympic ban, and debated the

strategies by which Black athletes should respond to the snub. Reporters repeatedly

sought information from Owens’s trainers and managers to see where he stood on the issue. Owens often downplayed the controversy or refused to respond to inquiries about it altogether.718 The New York Amsterdam News was the most vocal in its opposition to

participation in the Games. In August 1935, the newspaper published on its front page an

open letter it had sent to Olympic hopefuls Owens, Eulace Peacock, Ralph Metcalfe,

Cornelius Johnson, Willis Ward, James Luvalle, and Ben Johnson asking them to refuse participation in the Games. The letter read:

The Amsterdam News begs you to refuse to participate in the Olympic Games in Germany in 1936. We beg you to demonstrate a courage which, so far, has been lacking in the guiding spirits of the American Olympic Committee. We beg you to display that spirit of self-sacrifice which is the true mark of all greatness.719

The newspaper’s request was made “in the name of the 204,000 Negroes in Harlem, the

12,000,000 Negroes in American and the countless darker exploited colonials throughout

the world.”720 The athletes were asked to make a determination based on their collective

obligation to the race itself. A few months later, the Afro-American joined the Amsterdam

News in their call for a boycott.721

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Despite continuing protests from civil rights groups that included the NAACP, the

Amateur Athletic Union approved American participation in the Games in mid-December

1935. That month, the athletes responded not to the Amsterdam News’s letter but to the

American Olympic Committee, requesting the opportunity to participate in the Games.

Eustace Gay supported the boys’ decision to participate. Of America’s reticence to send

Americans to the Games, he wrote scathingly of the “hypocrisy” of Americans in condemning Germany:

What is more inhuman than lynching human beings? How would America like to have a leading German Government official make a speech in which he declared that ‘no true sportsman should accept hospitality from any American government so long as it continues its inhuman treatment’ of the colored minority?722

Black sportswriters actively debated the gains that would be made if Black athletes

participated. Would their participation be an opportunity to display, on a global stage, their inherent equality with all other races, or would it be a hypocritical move to boycott a country that, as Gay pointed out, carried out similar practices of oppression and inhuman treatment that America did? There was no clear answer.723

Amid the Olympic controversy, sports coverage quickly shifted back to boxing,

and in particular to discussions surrounding a young, up-and-coming fighter who

embodied the skill and determination of Johnson, the gentlemanly deportment of Wills

and Gans, and the youthful energy and naiveté of Owens and Tolan: boxer Joe Louis

Barrow. Louis (as he was known professionally) garnered an immense amount of attention during the second half of 1935. Previously considered a gifted young boxer with some promise, Louis’s decisive victories over Primo Carnera (June), King Levinsky

(August), and Max Baer (September); his engagement to Marva Trotter (the two were

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married immediately after the Baer fight); and a highly orchestrated public persona made

Louis the most popular and frequently covered figure in the press that year – and

certainly the most unilaterally celebrated athlete of the period.

Louis’s achievements have been well-documented and celebrated by historians

and sports scholars. 724 There is little denying that Louis’s emergence was a

transformative moment for the Black community; as the Amsterdam News’s Edgar

Rouzeau summarily noted of Louis’s attributes:

A fighting man straight up and down his spine, and not a comedian, is this modest, baby-faced, fairly good-looking, self-effacing, Bible-loving young giant whom the critics have been raving so much about – the 21-year-old super-fighter they have labeled the greatest discovery since the days of Jack Johnson.725

The Daily World’s Ric Roberts charged that Louis “is a perfect human with no

reprehensible habits, a man who makes his white contemporaries look like a pack of

thugs when it comes to morals and the straight path.”726 He was routinely featured on the

front page of the weekly editions; the Afro-American, for instance, ran nearly 30 front-

page stories on Louis in 52 issues. At times, the Courier’s front page was so crammed

with Louis-related coverage that it was nearly impossible to identify the masthead (See

Figure 9.6).

Louis’s demeanor was fascinating to reporters; for example, after his victory over

Max Baer, the Tribune’s Orrin Evans “marveled over” Louis’s “lack of outward jubilation over his victory.”727 The Defender ran a photo of Louis right before the

Levinsky fight “showing one of his very rare smiles” (See Figure 9.7). When compared

to Jesse Owens, with whom he’d often make public appearances, Louis appeared

introverted; upon meeting the two, the Afro-American’s Florence Collins noted that

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Owens was “less shy” than Louis, who “does not hesitate to talk, though he is not

loquacious.” Collins also noted that Louis seemed “timid” around young girls.728 In

reality, Louis’s demeanor was a highly orchestrated attempt by his handlers to distance

the young contender from associations with, in particular, Jack Johnson, who they

believed had tainted the public’s view of African American boxers generally.

Nonetheless, Louis’s celebrity status only grew. In fact, the Afro-American ran a

series of articles in which staff reporter Russell Cowans reported not on Louis, but on the

fan mail he received daily, which numbered 50 to 75 letters a day “from all parts of the

globe.” “The majority of them,” Cowans wrote, “are from girls and women of all ages,

many of them pouring out endearing messages of love and idol worship.” In another

article he noted,

The unprecedentedly large volume of fan mail coming to the Brown Bomber must have been a shock to the mail man…But he would have received a greater shock if he could have opened some of the letters and read the contents.729

When Louis wed Trotter, the Afro-American declared she was “the type of girl his public

would have wished for him,” though noting that many of his female fans would have

preferred he not marry at all.730 Trotter, for her supporting role in Louis’s narrative of

celebrity, was often pictured as demure and passive (see Figure 9.8); much like Louis

himself, Trotter’s public persona was highly contrived to come off as proper and

uncontroversial as possible.

Louis’s emergence had a significant impact on the Black press, which implemented new, cutting-edge newsgathering and reporting strategies in covering the young celebrity. As Patrick Washburn noted, the Courier began to rival the Defender in

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popularity in the 1940s in part by promoting itself as the “Joe Louis newspaper” in the

1940s,731 but its evolution to that point started ten years earlier, in 1935, with the Carnera

and Levinsky bouts. One week before the Carnera fight, the Courier informed its readers,

When Joe Louis…crawls through the ropes in Yankee Stadium arena next Tuesday night to battle Primo Carnera, The Courier’s Big Four of the reportorial staff will be on hand to give Courier readers a graphic account of the big fight.

The “Big Four” included Chester L. Washington, sports editor; William G. Nunn, city

editor; Lonnie Harrington, boxing critic; and Floyd J. Calvin, New York

correspondent.732 Even the headline, which began “Courier writers with a ‘punch,’” emphasized not Louis’s ferocity, but the reporters’.

Immediately after the fight, which ended with a technical knockout after six

rounds, Nunn declared, “I feel that the race’s prayers were answered”; however it was

unclear if this declaration was related to Louis’s victory or to the speed in which the

Courier was able to break the story. Nunn continued (ostensibly typing from a prop plane

taking him from New York back to Pittsburgh), “Special plane wing through night and

thus makes glorious history for Negro journalism!” The “Editor’s Note” that

accompanied Nunn’s rundown of the fight read:

This story was written by William G. Nunn, city editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, as he rushed back to Pittsburgh via special plane, with the FIRST pictures of the Louis-Carnera fight. ONE HOUR after he arrived, the “O.K.” was given, and the Courier presses started turning out the greatest edition in the history of America’s best weekly (See masthead for issue, Figure 8.9).

Six weeks later, Louis struck another victory, again by technical knockout, over King

Levinsky. The fight lasted only one round, during which Levinsky went down four times.

The Courier won that night again, as well:

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Once again the PITTSBURGH COURIER has scored with a direct Western Union wire from the ringside at Comiskey Park, in Chicago: with a Postal Telegraph teletype clicking the stories of the fight and side lights as they happened 500 miles away, The Pittsburgh Courier ‘marched ahead’ once more to make glorious newspaper history.

The speed with which the report made it to the presses was again emphasized: “THE

COURIER PRESSES WERE RUNNING ONE HOUR AND SIXTEEN MINUTES after

the knockout” [caps in original].733 Excitement over technological innovation pervaded

reports of Louis’s victories as much as sentiments about race pride and uplift did.

Coverage of figures like Tolan, Wills, Siki, Owens, and Louis – and commemoration of Gans and Johnson – reveals that athletic achievement was not necessarily the only factor in deciding whether or not an athlete would attain celebrity status. Rather, sports coverage during this period was rife with news stories that had little

to do with sports at all. Part of the reason why Louis was such an exceptional figure was

that his personal life appeared to be picture-perfect – not only was he successful in the

ring, but he was also successful outside of it. He was humble and affable, with a beautiful

young wife and seemingly the world at his feet. Wills, in the vein of the rediscovered

Gans, was not only a gifted boxer but a true gentleman. Tolan, Metcalfe, and Owens were

young superstars that, perhaps, symbolized to many families the possibilities inherent for

their own children. By contrast, figures like the Battling Siki were quickly dismissed as

soon as it was apparent that poor behavior would overshadow their professional

achievements. This was no doubt a critical response to Johnson’s problematic legacy, though in memory just what Johnson meant to the African American community was

already becoming fragmented.

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Analysis of sports coverage also revealed that Black journalists were eager to

incorporate new technological innovations into their reporting, which at times

overshadowed the actual news story itself. This was most apparent in coverage of Louis,

but it was present in other news stories as well – for instance when the Daily World had

Owens’s girlfriend call him “long-distance.” New technologies meant that the

newspapers with the largest circulations and highest revenues could obtain exclusives

more quickly than other papers. It also meant increased opportunities for staff reporters –

who previously had to rely on reprints from other newspapers, and releases from the

Associated Negro Press and mainstream wire agencies – to travel to sporting events and become a part of the story. For example, when Defender sports editor Al Monroe – who attended Louis’s training camp in Pompton Lakes, N.J. in preparation for the Baer fight – boasted that, “Never before in history has a sports writer been singled out at an important

camp and permitted to watch a private drill,”734 he was not only reporting on Louis’s training – he was reporting on his own role in the narrative. These new and exciting

innovations in newsgathering led to an increased reflexivity on the part of journalists in

evaluating what their roles as gatekeepers of culture actually was as they became a larger

and more proactive part of the story.

Finally, this chapter begins to shed light on the accomplishments of a large group

of athletes who have seemingly been forgotten by historians. African American

historiography, especially in the realm of sports history, tends to focus on those who were

first to cross the color line; scholarship on the likes of Jack Johnson, for example, is

pervasive, while the accomplishments of those who dominated the sport in their day but

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never received the chance to make history have been all but forgotten. Even those whose

accomplishments carry historical significance, like that of the 1932 Olympic foursome, are lost in the context of flashier, more appealing icons. These athletes, in their own time,

were the fodder for the sports pages of major and widely read Black newspapers, and

Black sportswriters worked hard to ensure that those accomplishments were understood

and appreciated by the Black community.

This analysis of sports coverage in the Black press agrees with previous scholars’

assertions that sport was a particularly fruitful site for the discussion of racial uplift and

the fight for civil rights. Sports journalists viewed the playing field as a literal and

figurative site where Black athletes could counter notions about their inherent

“inferiority” ; participate and represent themselves and their communities as an equal part

of American culture; change attitudes about the race that were commonly held by whites;

and ultimately aid in securing their civil rights. The achievements of athletes such as

Eddie Tolan, Harry Wills, Jesse Owens, and Joe Louis critically undermined prevailing

attitudes toward the physical “inferiority” of Black citizens generally. When Tolan ran

the 100 meter dash in 10.3 seconds, there was simply no countervailing evidence to

suggest that his victory was anything but the result of talent, hard work, and

determination.

In looking beyond 1935, it is clear that Black journalists’ predictions about the

playing field “leveling the crests of race prejudice” nearly came to fruition. Jesse Owens

would take home four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, and Joe Louis would take on

German Max Schmeling for a historic rematch in 1938. These accomplishments made

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these two athletes not just race heroes, but national heroes as well. Sports journalists writing during the period 1920 to 1935 repeatedly argued that success in sports could lead to a decrease in racism – that it could not only uplift the Black race, but that it could influence the hearts and minds of white audiences as well. In hindsight, it appears that they were, in many ways, quite correct.

Figure 9.1. “Jesse Owens just normal American boy, Howard U. scientist reveals,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 30, 1935, 1.

Figure 9.2. “Champion Benny Leonard pays his respects to Joe Gans,” Baltimore Afro- American, March 7, 1925, 7.

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Figure 9.3. Fay King, “Don’t be silly like poor Mister Battling Siki,” Baltimore Afro- American, December 26, 1925, 3 (Originally appeared in New York Mirror).

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Figure 9.4. “Tolan/Metcalfe,” New York Amsterdam News, August 3, 1932, 1.

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Figure 9.5. “Jesse Owens: Popularity is somewhat worrisome to sprinter,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 7, 1935, 21.

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Figure 9.6. Front page, Pittsburgh Courier, September 28, 1935.

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Figure 9.7. “On top of the world,” Chicago Defender, August 5, 1935, 1.

Figure 9.8. “Floored Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber,’ with terrific jolt in the heart region,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 12, 1935, 1.

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Figure 9.9. Front page – above masthead, Pittsburgh Courier, June 29, 1935, 1.

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CHAPTER 10

THE ENDURING ROLE OF THE “ENTERTAINER-ACTIVIST” IN AFRICAN AMERICAN CELEBRITY JOURNALISM

We’d save ourselves a lot of disappointment if we just accepted Jay Z for who he is – a marquee rapper and genius marketer – and stop pressuring him to be an entertainer- activist.735 – Roz Edward, Atlanta Daily World, 2014

The purpose of this study was two-fold: to explore how celebrity journalism evolved in the pages of Black newspapers and magazines against the backdrop of Jim

Crow oppression and to consider what symbolic role “celebrity” played in the Black press’s conceptualization of critical citizenship. The specific questions posed in the beginning of this project had to do with the narrative structure of celebrity journalism in the Black press; the main themes, or frames, that were most pervasive in coverage taken as a whole; and how Black journalists and editors reflected on their marginalized role in mainstream culture – in particular, how racial stereotypes influenced the way in which these writers reflected on their own race. This concluding chapter is an effort to construct an overall picture of the major findings of this study and to provide some suggestions for how the implications this study – which, in many ways, was an excavation project – maybe used by scholars in their approaches to historical as well as contemporary African

American-centered celebrity journalism.

The Black press played an important role in negotiating an iteration of critical citizenship for the Black community against the backdrop of Jim Crow. This new, collective, and fundamentally activist form of citizenship was then used by the Black community as a battle cry in their unfolding battle for civil rights. As “critical citizens,”

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the Black community – which included the members of the Black press – viewed their

role as American citizens through the lens of American prejudice, and continually worked toward reaching a version of citizenship that was truly free and equal.

Scholars have examined the Black press’s interaction with political leadership, in shaping public opinion among the Black community, and in combatting racism and oppression. Significantly less attention has been paid to the content of these newspapers as it influenced the everyday lived experience of its readers. However, the content that scholars have previously overlooked – in this case, entertainment content – had a significant influence on shaping African Americans’ shared conception of what post- bellum American citizenship should look like, which necessarily included discussions about how the race as a whole would be represented in entertainment culture. Collective representation was, in many ways, the first step in negotiating critical citizenship. In this way, the idea of “celebrity” as it was conceptualized in the Black press was intimately connected to the tools of critical citizenship – community-building, race pride, and activism.

Black press journalists often tied the idea of “celebrity” to issues related to community-building. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Song-ho Ha pointed out, Black community-building “was not simply a reaction to racism…Blacks enjoyed congregating together,” and African American-centered newspapers and magazines were a symbolic meeting place for Black citizens all over the country to come together.736 Entertainment

coverage provided a symbolic connection between disparate parts of the country that

were home to a plurality of Black citizens. These connections were fostered both by

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Black newspapers and by Black-centered entertainment itself. The dissemination of entertainment culture was an important way to build bonds within and among communities. Celebrity journalism was particularly important to community-building.

The work of Associated Negro Press writers such as Fay Jackson and Harry Leavitt brought the stories of Hollywood to the readers of the Courier, Tribune, Afro-American, and other smaller newspapers that subscribed to the wire service. These connections were also fostered by larger newspapers’ efforts to integrate technological innovations into their newsgathering practices; of these newspapers, the Courier led the charge, sending correspondents to report on Joe Louis’s early victories in New York and New Jersey, wiring stories back to the home office for immediate publication. The Defender, Tribune, and Afro-American also harnessed these practices, and increasingly found the funding to allow their correspondents to travel around the country to report back to their readers the happenings of Hollywood, Harlem, Paris, and many other important sites of African

American cultural development and expression during the period. Finally, through the publication of letters to the editors (which often included responses from correspondents and columnists) Black citizens were able to connect with each other by using the pages of

Black newspapers as forums within which to debate the merits of their most recognizable celebrities. These newspapers – working in tandem with national publications The Crisis,

The Opportunity, The Messenger, and The Negro World – brought together Black citizens from all over the country. Celebrity news was the ideal vehicle for this type of symbolic community-building. As “constellations of recognizable and familiar people,” news stories about celebrities built bonds within and among the Black community.

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The evolution of celebrity journalism in the Black press mirrored trends that were happening in journalism generally. As Michael Schudson noted, this period was rife with publishers’ attempts to increase circulation by relying on “crowd-pleasing features such

as simpler language, larger headlines, and more lavish illustrations [and later,

photographs] to help expand readership,” particularly among the working classes in large

urban areas.737 These changes were reflected in the African American newspaper

industry as well. Generally, Black press celebrity journalism evolved alongside

developments in tabloid and “yellow” journalism in the mainstream press. As Black press

scholars have suggested previously, the emergence of an “African American version” of

the yellow press borrowed heavily from the mainstream press, and as a result Black

newspaper circulation figures skyrocketed. Attention to entertainment culture and the

idea of “celebrity” emerged in the Black press during the late 1910s and early 1920s –

distinct from, yet contemporaneous with similar developments in the mainstream press.

After World War I, Black newspapers began to steadily incorporate celebrity

journalism as a regular facet of their weekly editions. This development coincided not

only with trends in mainstream journalism, but also with changing leadership among the

Black community that had a direct influence on the Black press. The “Tuskegee

Machine” lost a significant amount of clout in the Black newspapers industry upon the death of Booker T. Washington in 1915. Newspapers and magazines alike began to embrace the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, which focused not only on African

American pride and uplift, but which also created a burgeoning class of socialites among

Black residents in Harlem, of which celebrities such as Louis Armstrong, Bill Robinson

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(the “mayor of Harlem”), Florence Mills, and Paul Robeson were an important part.

Though the Baltimore Afro-American was at the forefront of early celebrity coverage, it

was the Pittsburgh Courier that took the Black community’s preoccupation with celebrity

to a new level with its 1935 coverage of boxer Joe Louis.

With the evolution of celebrity journalism came a collective of spirited and

talented writers whose personalities came alive in the pages of Black newspapers, and

who themselves reached a sort of “celebrity” status. During this period, Ralph

Matthews’s columns “Looking at the Stars” and “Watching the Big Parade” were staples

of the Afro-American, while Fay Jackson’s “Hollywood Stardust” column – written for

the Associated Negro Press – was regularly carried in the largest papers, including the

Afro-American and the Pittsburgh Courier. The Defender’s Chappy Gardner and the New

York Amsterdam News’s Romeo Dougherty received regular bylines as well.

Sportswriters were also a part of this group of celebrity journalists; The Courier boasted

of its “Big Four” – William G. Nunn, Chester L. Washington, Lonnie Harrington, and

Floyd J. Calvin. Alongside these regular correspondents, celebrity coverage was manned

by a group of gifted but anonymous journalists whose contributions played an important

part in establishing the tone and mission of the coverage overall, but who did not, for

whatever reason, receive bylines on their stories.

As Schudson argued, the 1920s were a formative period for journalism as a

profession, marked by “social cohesion and occupational pride, on the one hand, and

internal social control, on the other.”738 This “self-conscious professionalism” was also reflected in the tone and content of the Black press, as Black journalists and editors began

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increasingly to reflect on their own roles as gatekeepers of culture. They routinely wrote self-reflexively, openly contemplating how they were going to approach a particular issue

or discussion. For example, in covering the careers of Hollywood celebrities, one

anonymous Associated Negro Press writer asserted that only the Black press could

correctly cover these celebrities with “any degree of dignity or self-respect.”739 Snubs against the press were lamented collectively; during this period a sense of camaraderie and a shared vision emerged between correspondents of different newspapers, magazines, and the wire service. As in the mainstream press, the professional journalists and editors

of the Black press during this period began to actively engage with the rules,

responsibilities, and limitations of their profession.

Celebrity journalism developed at the same rate in both the mainstream and the

Black press, and superficially drew on similar rhetorical devices and thematic elements.

The “success myth” – the idea that an otherwise ordinary American could, through hard, work, dedication, and talent, become “special” – was as regularly employed in Black press coverage of its most lauded celebrities as it was in mainstream coverage of white celebrities. In recounting the stories of their favorite celebrities, journalists in both

institutional settings espoused slightly varying but overall uniform versions of the

“success myth.” As in the mainstream press, Black journalists and editors expended their energy on reporting celebrity gossip; the tangled love affairs of Roland Hayes, Paul

Robeson, Josephine Baker, and Jesse Owens at times threatened to overshadow their professional achievements as reporters competed for who would get the “scoop.” It would be tempting to simply conclude that celebrity journalism in the Black press during

254 this period was no different in content or form than that of the trends in the mainstream press.

Indeed, some of the rhetoric employed by Black journalists and editors to describe their celebrities, as well as their emphasis on salacious gossip, were very similar to trends that occurred in journalism during the same period. Yet, the idea of “celebrity” as it played out in Black newspapers and magazines and across theatre, film, music, and sports against the backdrop of the African American community’s fight for civil rights contains far more depth and complexity than scholars have realized. In discussions of their favorite celebrities, Black journalists and editors routinely contemplated how these figures fit into the larger narrative of the struggle for civil rights, drawing on themes related to community-building, race pride, and activism. Black journalists and editors routinely used celebrities as representations of the race as a whole.

Across media, news coverage of celebrities was informed by the idea of critical citizenship – even in the most innocuous musings of gossip, in concert and film reviews, and in sports recaps. In theatre, the groundbreaking success of Bert Williams and George

Walker was reified in the early 1920s with the breakthrough success of Charles Gilpin,

Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, and Josephine Baker, who all received their big breaks in productions including Shuffle Along, Emperor Jones, Showboat, and other Broadway shows that attempted to establish a Black aesthetic. As Jessie Fauset noted in her touching eulogy to Williams, theatre stars during this period represented a symbolic break from the minstrel tradition, no longer willing to hide their talents behind burnt cork and “under the bushel of prejudice, jealousy, stupidity.”740 Film stars – many of whom

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received their big breaks on Broadway – carried this new ethos to Hollywood with them,

so that coverage of film stars such as Paul Robeson, Bill Robinson, Louise Beavers, and

Fredi Washington reveals a group of celebrities aware of their symbolic role in the fight

for civil rights, even if their obligation to the race remained unclear for many Black

journalists. Yet, in their expressions of race pride which they incorporated into otherwise

routine promotional interviews, it was clear that even for celebrities themselves, there

was a sense that being famous meant more than being wealthy and well-liked.

As Black culture became increasingly of interest to mainstream audiences,

discussions regarding the role of Black celebrities shifted so that collective representation

became an increasingly important component of Black “celebrity.” Music stars and sports

stars – perhaps the most recognizable figures in the mainstream during this period – were

obligated to decrease race prejudice through the expressions of their art. Duke Ellington’s

popularity among white radio listeners signaled that race prejudice was “mere folly.”741

Eddie Tolan, Jesse Owens, and Joe Louis were framed by journalists as proof that charges of racial “inferiority” were completely erroneous. Their successes also suggested that equality on the playing field or in the ring would bring equality to everywhere else.

Journalists’ decisions about who to include in their narratives provide telling insights into their construction of critical citizenship. For instance, the inclusion of

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Battling Siki – neither of whom were actually African

American but who were repeatedly included in discussions about Black culture in

America – reveals a deep connection that Black journalists felt to Blacks outside of the

United States. The inclusion of these celebrities suggests that Black journalists equated

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the plight of the African American community with the plight of Blacks universally.

Integral to the story of African American lived experience, then, was the idea that the

fight for civil rights was transnational. In particular, Black journalists continually evoked

the idea that transnational Blacks all shared connections to Africa, though there was little

sense that Black journalists made any effort to distinguish or explore regional differences

within the diverse populations of the continent. Rather, the idea of being “African” was

homogenized within coverage. For example, in discussions about jazz music, generic

references to the “jungle” or “darkest Congo” were routinely employed with little

context.

Commemorative journalism about celebrities who were overlooked in life but

later venerated in death reveals how the collective memory of the African American

community was being actively constructed by Black journalists and editors. As Barbie

Zelizer noted, the negotiation of collective memory is processual – the act of

remembering is not an event but a continually developing process to “account for

transformations that occur within the act of remembering.”742 For example, in the cases

of Bert Williams and Joe Gans, particularly, there is a sense that Black journalists

realized their contributions to the race only after their deaths, and in eulogizing these

celebrities reinserted them into the narrative. There was little coverage of that

acknowledged their breakthroughs as they happened. Rather, journalists paid attention to these figures only later, after they had died, and often used them as frames for which to judge the performers who followed in their wake.

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In other instances, the disconnection came not within coverage over the time

period, but rather in the ways in which these figures live on in contemporary memory.

For example, in the case of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, coverage of each artist

in his own time reveals that historians who have reflected on their legacies have

misunderstood or overestimated their role in contributing to the collective representation

of the African American community. Armstrong, too often remembered as a “passive”

figure, was just as fed up with racial injustice as his fellow performers and citizens, but

that fact gets lost over time, while Duke Ellington’s activism came only later in his

career. In the 1920s and 1930s, Paul Robeson, according to his biographer Murali Bulaji,

“would choose to dignify the Negro rather than politicize him,” but there were clear

proclamations made by Robeson during this period that anticipate his later interest in

Bolshevism and race activism.743 Robeson also has been credited by contemporary historians as the breakthrough singer on the classical stage;744 yet, this accomplishment

belonged to the all-but-forgotten Roland Hayes. Film scholars have looked back at Bill

Robinson’s performances alongside Shirley Temple with a critical eye, but in their own

time these performances were heralded by the Black press as indications of race progress.

The stories of icons such as Bert Williams, Paul Robeson, Bill Robinson, Louis

Armstrong, and Joe Louis are prominent in contemporary versions of African American

histories, but their groundbreaking accomplishments are better appreciated with an

understanding of the context from which they emerged – which necessarily includes an

acknowledgement of those who tried, who came close, who failed, and who never had the

chance to make history. No doubt Harry Wills, for example, was an inspiration to his

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community, but because he never received the chance to cross the color line, his

accomplishments have been largely overlooked. Despite his family’s efforts to maintain

his legacy, Cab Calloway has been overshadowed in contemporary jazz histories by

Armstrong and Ellington, though coverage suggests that the young composer was just as

lauded by audiences as his peers. Actress Fredi Washington – a role model for both her

race and her gender – has been forgotten altogether.

The overarching narrative of celebrity journalism runs tandem to the fight for civil

rights. As accommodationism shifted to activism, and as interest in race pride and an exploration of the community’s African roots intensified, the ways in which Black

journalists framed their celebrities shifted accordingly. If Black newspapers and magazines were the “staging ground” for African American history generally, then celebrity culture played a much larger role in that history than has previously been acknowledged.

The narrative of celebrity coverage as it unfolded in the pages of Black newspapers and magazines reflects a changing consciousness among the Black community in considering their place as American citizens, which is commensurate with the political, social, and cultural upheavals taking place at the time. This feeling can be most clearly expressed as cultural pluralism, which was developed in the 1920s by Alain

Locke and Horace Kallen as a critical response to the charge that the races were

organized hierarchically. Cultural pluralism posited American culture “as a series of

subcultures, a sort of mosaic of distinctive groups, each with their own strengths, all of

259 which together made up the larger American culture” that each have “their own values, their own aesthetics, and their own traditions.”745 In “Enter the New Negro” Locke wrote,

…the Negro today wishes to be known for what he is, even in his faults and shortcomings, and scorns a craven and precarious survival at the price of seeming to be what he is not.746

Through a rebirth of Black art that extolled the virtues of African American experience, the “New Negro” had the potential to become a “collaborator and participant in American civilization.”747 Locke argued that the “great social gain in this is the releasing of our talented group from the arid fields of controversy and debate to the productive fields of creative expression.”748 By transposing the idea that African American culture could find a unique space within the larger milieu of American culture, the mission of Black journalists and editors during this period comes into clearer focus.

In some ways, the “New Negro Woman” was symbolically written out of this overall movement; or, at least, her contributions were undermined by Black journalists and editors at the time. Though coverage of female celebrities was as voluminous as male celebrities, there was a deep disconnect between the women who received attention in the

Black press and the lived experience of the press’s female readership. The popularity of cabaret stars, and their significant presence on the front pages of both Black-centered newspapers and magazines, undermined Black femininity by transposing white ideals onto Black bodies. Carolyn Kitch summarized the paradox likely felt by female readers who simultaneously read these images as an extension of womanhood to Black women, but that also “reinforce[ed] the desirability of mainstream ideals” which necessarily meant that Black women were symbolically written out of womanhood altogether.749

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Even in the cases of more famous celebrities such as Florence Mills, Fredi Washington,

Josephine Baker, and Louise Beavers, coverage of these noteworthy women was also

problematic, often focusing on their physical appearance (Washington and Beavers) or

judging their sexual expression (Mills and Baker). In the case of Baker, who seemed to

embody the ethos of the Renaissance in her performances in Paris, her role as a race

representative was undermined because of the inherent sexuality of her performance

style. The roles of female celebrities as race representatives were compromised by the

sexist attitudes of male (and in some cases, female) journalists covering them.

Throughout coverage, certain themes were repeatedly evoked across publications

and entertainment to frame discussions of celebrities in the purview of critical

citizenship. Considering these frames, according to Schudson, “opens the discussion to

examining unintentional (and even unconscious) as well as intentional selection and

presentation” of information by journalists and editors in constructing news stories.750

Frames reveal the persistent, underlying, and commonly shared myths, beliefs, and value systems that journalists consciously or unconsciously project to their readers. The frames that were routinely employed by Black journalists reflected the continual negotiation of critical citizenship.

One of the most commonly evoked frames in celebrity journalism during this period was that Europe had “less race prejudice” than the United States. The overriding preference for European values over American values pervaded celebrity journalism.

Throughout the time period, Black journalists repeatedly extolled the virtues of Europe at the expense of America; the idea that Europe was a place where race prejudice did not

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exist and where Black citizens could have increased opportunities and freedom was repeatedly evoked no matter what form of entertainment was being discussed. As the

Afro-American’s Frank Marshall Davis surmised, “It seems Europeans, because of a

different cultural background, have a general understanding and appreciation of art not found on these shores.”751 This feeling was bolstered by the proclamations of Josephine

Baker, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, and others who repeatedly gave interviews

praising European audiences as more tolerant and receptive to their art.

The only critical coverage of Europe to emerge came, predictably, around 1933,

when Hitler took over as Chancellor of Germany and began to implement his National

Socialist policies, which relied on both anti-Semitism and on scientific theories of racism

that were developed first in the United States. As John Hope Franklin asserted, “African

Americans were among the earliest and most energetic Americans to condemn

fascism…and quickly learned to hate Nazism and its Aryan doctrines.”752 Even in condemning Hitler, Black journalists were still keenly aware of the injustices taking place on their own shores. In contemplating whether Black Americans should participate in the

1936 Olympics in Germany, the Tribune’s Eustace Gay rightfully called out the hypocrisy of the United States in condemning Hitler when disenfranchisement, segregation, and the lynching of Black Americans was still a common practice all over the country.

Another frequently evoked frame was the idea that racial uplift could come about through African American expression of “high culture.” In discussing Duke Ellington, one New York Amsterdam News writer framed Ellington in terms of early classical

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composers: “What, I thought, would Wagner have said of it all? I am confident that he

would have hailed this music as one of the most significant musical art.”753 The most

commonly evoked frames relating to this idea were primarily related to the idea of racial

uplift through high artistic expression, which evoke DuBois’s “Talented Tenth” theory.

Coverage of British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, actor Charles Gilpin, and singer

Roland Hayes most cleanly fit the criteria of the “Talented Tenth.” Language describing

these noteworthy individuals as “assets” to the race or proof of the general

“advancement” or “progress” of the race ties in directly with DuBois’s theory – that a

select few noteworthy individuals would be responsible for the collective success of all

African Americans. These individuals seemed to most explicitly meet the criteria the

DuBois laid out for “leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people.”754 Discussions about these individuals as representations of the “possibilities”

inherent for other members of the race also evoke this idea of racial uplift.

Framing African American artistic performance as “authentic” cultural experience

was common and often connected to the idea of racial uplift. Black journalists revised

high culture to include African American experience, so that when Duke Ellington began

to play jazz, he was composing the “people’s music.” Ellington was an artist whose

legitimacy came not just by mimicking mainstream notions of high culture, but by

creating a version that also embodied a uniquely African American aesthetic. This

finding complicates Nagueyalti Warren’s assertion that at the heart of the “Talented

Tenth” theory lay DuBois’s preoccupation with European culture. Rather, the idea of

263 racial uplift through high art was tempered by expressions of race pride promoted by the

Harlem Renaissance.

Often the private and public activities of celebrities were framed in terms of whether they constituted “appropriate” behavior for the race as a whole. Black journalists were particularly concerned that entertainment would hinder community- building. Paul Starr suggested that discussions about morality as they related to entertainment began as early as the mid-1880s, when “state and federal legislation, backed up by private enforcement groups” came together to form “a new regime of moral regulation in America.”755 Native-born Protestants, who were at the forefront of moral regulation initiatives, were in many ways responding to the “obscenity, drunkenness, and other forms of immorality” associated with both immigrants and the newly freed Black population.756 Despite its dubious roots, the tight moral code that pervaded mainstream culture was, at times, also embraced by Black journalists and editors. For example, boxing, which was an illegal and “immoral” activity tied to barbarism at the turn of the century, was intensely criticized during Jack Johnson’s championship reign. These attitudes changed significantly in the 1920s, once boxing was considered an “acceptable” sport by mainstream culture. Again, journalists sought to reify the legacy of earlier champions – most notably, Joe Gans – by reorienting him not as a boxer, but as an upstanding and humble gentleman. Black journalists routinely judged celebrities based on the moral dimensions of the activities in which they engaged.

As Davarian Baldwin had suggested, entertainment was used by Black journalists as a site where they could provide guidelines concerning public behavior. In the 1920s,

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“hot jazz” took over boxing’s place in Black journalists’ “moral panic” conversations.

Jazz, they argued, would hinder community-building by taking its fans away from their home, their health, and their faith. Harlem, jazz’s adopted home, became the mecca for immorality to those too far away to fully understand what was actually going on in the everyday lived experience of Black residents there. Instead, the area became crystallized as the “berserk” and “wild” “melting pot of all racial extractions of darker hue.”757 Black journalists’ preoccupation with morality suggests that their prescriptions for public behavior were closely tied with concerns over how the mainstream community would accept its Black citizens.

Finally, “reception by whites” was a frequently evoked frame throughout coverage. Specifically, frames that evoked the “enlightenment” or education of the white race through artistic performance were common. Black journalists were aware of mainstream impressions of the race, and that they sought to counter those impressions in very specific terms. Discussions about white acceptance were most obvious in discussions about jazz music and sports. Though some writers resented the mainstream’s adoption of Black-centered music, there was also a sense that jazz’s popularity served as

“proof” that race prejudice was waning. In sports coverage, Black journalists routinely expressed hopefulness that achievement in sport would “level the crests of race prejudice.”

This frame evokes another of DuBois’s ideas concerning African American lived experience – what he called “double-consciousness.” In Souls of Black Folk, DuBois

265 wrote of the sensation of seeing himself “through a veil” – through the eyes of American prejudice. He wrote:

One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.758

Celebrity journalism that specifically evoked concerns about mainstream beliefs and attitudes toward the race seem to embody this “double-consciousness” – on the one hand,

Black journalists and editors repeatedly extolled the virtues of the race as unique to their community, but on the other hand betrayed a continual consciousness about how the race would be perceived from the outside looking inward. Indeed, DuBois acknowledged the liminal space in which “He would not Africanize American…[nor would he] bleach his

Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism.”759 Black journalists and editors, in considering the ways in which Black artists would be received by mainstream culture, were necessarily viewing them “through the veil.”

These continually employed frames offer a greater depth of understanding to what the idea of “celebrity” meant in the Black press. The definition of a “celebrity,” for Black journalists and editors, necessarily included an obligation to the uplift of the whole race which could be achieved by embodying the ideals of critical citizenship – namely, a celebrity had to contribute to his community; had to be a positive representation of the race collectively, commensurate with ideals both of the Black and the mainstream community; and had to advocate for the race publicly.

This project drew upon the interrelated fields of communication theory, journalism history, memory studies, and African American studies to approach Black

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press content as a cultural production that revealed the “story” of African American celebrity journalism. It provided a set of frames for defining the specific ways in which celebrity culture intersected with the Black community’s fight for civil rights. By relying on the important work of previous scholars in each of these areas, this project has opened up several fruitful areas of inquiry not only for scholars who continue to investigate the historical influence of the Black press and who approach issues in contemporary African

American-centered celebrity journalism.

Pero Dagbovie, in writing about African American historiography, argued that the purpose of studying African American history was to highlight contributions made by

Black Americans to our shared cultural history, to incorporate new discoveries into the existing American historical narrative, and to orient approaches to contemporary issues and problems connected with race relations in the United States.760 Scholarly works about

African American-centered entertainment have tended to focus on the arduous process of

desegregation. By focusing only on Black performers’ participation in mainstream

cultural events – in other words, by focusing only on the eventual erasure of the color line

– scholars have largely missed out on understanding other aspects of Black historical

experience by inadvertently undervaluing what Black celebrities meant to Black

communities apart from their relationship with mainstream, white culture of the period.

The “color line” narrative inadvertently undervalues African American cultural

experience. Inherent in discussions of the crossovers of Black celebrities into mainstream

culture is the implication that mainstream entertainment was somehow more important,

more prestigious, or more laudatory than African American-centered entertainment. This

267 is simply not true. African American entertainment culture during this period was a vibrant site of creative and artistic expression that is an important force in our shared cultural history. This is not to suggest that historians’ preoccupation with heroes like Jack

Johnson and Joe Louis in boxing, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in music, Paul

Robeson and Bill Robinson in film, among others, is somehow wrong or misdirected; rather, it is to suggest that their accomplishments are only one part of a continuously unfolding story.

Several of the most prominent figures covered in this study have been forgotten, overlooked, or undervalued by historians. To date, biographical information on Black

Patti, James Reese Europe, Charles Gilpin, Harry Wills, Florence Mills, Samuel

Coleridge-Taylor, and Roland Hayes is sparse; often, information on these important figures is scattered among survey histories or in footnotes or contextual information about one of their more attended-to contemporaries. For instance, for information on

Harry Wills, one must consult biographies of his contemporary, Dempsey.761 The Black press is a rich site for information on these forgotten greats, and further work must be done to dully recognize and appreciate their contributions to American history generally.

Relatedly, scholars may increase their attention to the figures that comprised the staffs of Black newspapers and magazines. Harry Amana, Brian Carroll, Jinx Coleman

Broussard and John Maxwell Hamilton are among scholars who have attempted to revise journalism history to include the stories of the correspondents that made up the Black press. This is no easy task; many of the best writers remain anonymous, and therefore, lost to history forever. However, writers such as Fay Jackson, Ralph Matthews, Chappy

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Gardner, Theophilus Lewis, and others have a large body of work from which to draw,

and more extensive work in delving into who these figures were and what their specific

contributions have been would be beneficial to the study of American journalism

generally. By paying greater attention to Black press content generally, historians can

continue to remember and re-insert into historical narrative these important and

groundbreaking figures.

This study also suggests that there may be a journalistic tradition that developed

in the pages of Black-centered media that influences how journalists at these institutions approach writing about celebrities today. Of the Black press newspapers studied here, all

but the New York Age, Cleveland Gazette, and the Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer are

still in publication in some form.762 The magazines have not fared as well; The Crisis is

the only publication of the four to still be in print. However, The Opportunity, The

Messenger, and The Negro World have been replaced by a burgeoning magazine industry

that includes long-running publications Jet and Ebony, as well as several niche-market

music magazines including Essence, Uptown, Vibe, XXL, and The Source, to name only a

few. As American journalism has shifted to the digital media landscape, countless online

news resources have been established, including among them TheGrio and NewsOne.

Though, as Washburn argued, the Black newspaper industry suffered a major decline

after the Civil Rights Movement, contemporary African American-centered news media

continues to develop and thrive.

In the intervening years between the success of the Civil Rights Movement and

the nomination of America’s first bi-racial President, Barack Obama, American culture

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has undergone a transformation in race relations. However, Tim Wise and others have

argued that contemporary expressions of racism now operate under the guise of

“colorblind racism.”763 The underlying assumptions of colorblind racism rely on post-

racial liberalism, or the idea that racism in the United States is politically and institutionally outmoded. Continuing structural inequality in education and employment

opportunities, coupled with disparities in income and wealth, housing and mortgage

markets, and incarceration rates between white and Black Americans make post-racial

liberalism seem, to the discerning American, an erroneous concept.764 Wise has suggested

that the “undoing of racism and its ill effects” can come about only with an understanding

and acknowledgment of the historical conditions that have precipitated contemporary

inequality. He wrote,

Only by committing ourselves to color-consciousness – meaning an awareness of the consequences of color in a historically white-dominated nation – can we even theoretically begin to alter those consequences.765

Though in the intervening years African Americans have made incredible strides in every aspect of their lived experience, as Wise has suggested, racism is still a pervasive force for too many Black Americans.

Entertainment culture has continued to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Black

Americans; instances of racism across media and social networking as they relate to

Black celebrities are too numerous to count. Recently, the repeated reference of Seattle

Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman as a “thug” after he celebrated a victory over the

San Francisco 49ers during an interview with journalist Erin Andrews is indicative of the pervasive nature of racially insensitive attitudes perpetuated across contemporary media.

270

As Sherman noted, the term “thug” “seems like it's an accepted way of calling somebody

the N-word now.”

Modern expressions of racism, however, are not always so clear-cut. In November

2013, GQ magazine profiled up-and-coming rap star Kendrick Lamar as one of their

“Men of the Year.” The article, written by a white staff member, seemed to harp on

problematic racial stereotypes throughout its description of Lamar and the offices of his

record label, Top Dawg Entertainment. The author seemed genuinely surprised to find

Lamar to be thoughtful and articulate, and TDE to be an organized and well-run

corporation. Among the issues in the article, TDE’s CEO, Anthony Tiffith, was referred

to as “basically TDE’s Suge Knight,” whom Kris Ex of Ebony magazine called “one of

the most reviled rap moguls ever.” Though intended to be laudatory, the article ignited a

firestorm of controversy among Black-centered publications. Ex wrote that the article

was “all the kind of zoological observations and sensationalism cherished by cultural

tourists when they decide to come sightseeing in Black affairs.”766 Debates raged within

all forms of media about whether Lamar’s decision to boycott GQ’s Men of the Year

event was justified. In a climate of “post-racism,” it was difficult for many commentators

to pinpoint exactly what about the article was overtly racist though, as Ebony rightly

asserted, “racism is not always overt, and if TDE felt there was racism going on, it’s not

something that should be discounted.”767 Mainstream news sources – even in their efforts

to be more culturally sensitive and inclusive – continue to fall short in properly attending

to the needs and interests of its African American readership, particularly in covering

Black celebrities.

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In this contemporary cultural climate, where discussions about Black celebrities

continue to be reflective of, at best, ignorance, and, at worst, overt racism, African

American-centered media institutions continue to be left with the task of negotiating an

iteration of celebrity culture that is still informed by critical citizenship (albeit a revised

form). One of the most compelling examples of the enduring negotiation of the role that

Black celebrities play in the collective representation of their community came also in the

fall of 2013, when influential rapper, social activist, and entrepreneur Jay Z refused to

pull out of a deal with the upscale Barneys New York after two Black customers were

racially profiled for shopping there. The Philadelphia Tribune recounted that “an online

petition and Twitter messages from fans have been circulating this week, calling on the

star to bow out of his upcoming partnership with Barneys for the holiday season.”768 The

Barneys collaboration was designed to benefit the Shawn Carter Foundation, which

“provides college scholarships to economically challenged students.”769 Jay Z’s response to the controversy has been debated by journalists who are divided on what, exactly, his role in the community should be. Roz Edward of the Atlanta Daily World recently wrote,

Fans are disappointed that [Jay Z] seems to teeter on that blurred line between rap and action…We’d save ourselves a lot of disappointment if we just accepted Jay Z for who he is – a marquee rapper and genius marketer – and stop pressuring him to be an entertainer-activist.770

Edward went on to caution his readers to not expect the rapper “to pull out of his deal

with Barneys New York because of allegations of racial profiling;” instead, fans should

“Enjoy his music for entertainment purposes only.”771

This (albeit anecdotal) example suggests that though historical conditions and methods of news reporting and dissemination have changed drastically, the substance and

272

form of conversations surrounding Black celebrities and their relationship to African

American culture is still complex terrain. The Crisis and other publications have

increasingly acknowledged the value of entertainment in African American lived

experience. Indeed, the Fall 2013 issue of the magazine featured cover girl Kerry

Washington, of the television show Scandal, with the caption, “Onscreen and online in

the corridors of power and on the streets, Black women continue to create a liberating

space.”772

Therefore, the question that lingers at the end of the present work remains, what is

the symbolic value of celebrity culture in contemporary African American-centered

media institutions when discussing issues that face Black Americans today? This study

provides the historical context in which those conversations may continue to take place.

Inquiry into issues surrounding the role of journalism, celebrity, collective representation,

and critical citizenship are key to understanding the ways in which the contemporary

African American community continues the fight against marginalization and racism.

With an understanding of the development of celebrity journalism in the Black press as a unique journalistic tradition embedded with the consideration of community-building, racial uplift, and activism, scholars can better understand the themes that emerge in contemporary African American-centered celebrity journalism produced by African

American-centered institutions.

This project began, and is now ending, with a simple question: What does an

African American celebrity “owe” his race? Over the period of 1895 through 1935, a group of brilliant, talented, and newsworthy individuals across theatre, film, music, and

273 sports graced the pages of Black newspapers and magazines to the delight of their readership – a group of community members with differing geographic locations, social identities, and lived experiences united by the fight for their civil rights. When Ralph

Matthews asked his readers, “What does an artist owe his race?” he was – whether he realized it or not – actually contemplating his own important role in negotiating critical citizenship. In understanding the role they played in the everyday lives of these citizens, the journalists and editors of Black newspapers and magazines expanded the mainstream media’s conceptualization of “celebrity” to necessarily include a consideration of the symbolic role that these popular figures played in promoting community-building, race pride, and activism.

The idea of “celebrity” as expressed in Black press newspapers and magazines is fundamentally different and more complex given the political, social, and cultural terrain against which it developed. Therefore, fame in the Black community during this period was a collective condition; rather than rising above and apart from the community, Black celebrities were intimately tied to it – as both “constellations” and companions in the fight for civil rights.

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Notes to Chapter 1

1 Ralph Matthews, “What Does an Artist Owe to His Race?” Baltimore Afro-American, June 27, 1931, 14. 2 Ibid. 3 Throughout this manuscript, the terms entertainment culture and entertainment are used interchangeably. 4 Joshua Gamson, Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1994). 5 Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 8. 6 Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, Introduction to Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950 (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 7. 7 Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 226. 8 Klapp quoted in Richard Dyer, “Stars as Images,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 163; Gamson, 29; Andrew Mendelson, “On the Function of the United States Paparazzi: Mosquito Swarm or Watchdogs of Celebrity Image Control and Power,” Visual Studies 22, no. 2 (2007): 174. 9 Daniel J. Boorstin, “From hero to celebrity: The human pseudo-event,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 82. 10 For a full discussion of the population trends in New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Kansas City, Savannah, and Atlanta, see Chapter 2. All of the magazines included were published in New York City. Exceptions to the sample also were made based on this type of information, so that, for example, the Boston Guardian, edited by influential community leader William Monroe Trotter, was exempt from this study because Massachusetts only had about 52,000 Black residents as of 1930 – a relatively small population – and therefore small potential readership – in comparison with, say, Pennsylvania (156,000) or Maryland (235,000). 11 David A. Copeland, “How to Write Journalism History,” Journalism Studies 7, no. 3 (2006): 464 12 Martha Howell and William Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 148. 13 Maryann Yodelis Smith, “The Method of History,” in Research Methods in Mass Communication, ed. Guido H. Stempel and Bruce H. Westley (New York: Prentice Hall, 1989), 326. 14 Marion Marzolf, “American Studies – Ideas for Media Historians?” Journalism History 5, no. 1 (1978): 15. 15 Washburn, xvii. 16 Mark Ribowsky, A Complete History of the Negro Leagues: 1884-1955 (New York: Citadel Press Books, 2002), xiv. 17 This point is made with specific reference to: Armistead S. Pride and Clint C. Wilson, II, A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997); Patrick S. Washburn, The African- American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006); Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990). 18 Ibid., 24-39. For examples of this trend see Shawn Leigh Alexander, ed. T. Thomas Fortune, the Afro- American Agitator (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008); Roi Ottley, The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbott (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955); Andrew Buni, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier: Politics and Black Journalism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974); Jinx Coleman Broussard and John Maxwell Hamilton, “Covering a Two-Front War: Three African-American Correspondents During World War II,” American Journalism 22, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 33-54; John D. Stevens, “From the Back of the Foxhole: Black Correspondents in World War II,” Journalism Monographs (February 1973): 1-61; Harry Amana, “The Art of Propaganda: Charles Alston’s World War II Editorial Cartoons for the Office of War Information and the Black Press,” American Journalism 21, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 79-111; Patrick Washburn, A Question of Sedition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Patrick S. Washburn, "J. Edgar Hoover and the Black Press in World War II," Journalism History 13, no. 1

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(Spring 1986): 377-388; Patrick S. Washburn, “The Pittsburgh Courier’s Double V Campaign in 1942,” American Journalism 3 (1986): 73–86. 19 James D. Startt and Wm. David Sloan, Historical Methods of Mass Communication (Northport: Vision Press, 2003), 180. 20 Brian Carroll, "This Is IT!" Journalism History 37, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 151-162; Kim Gallon, “‘How Much Can You Read About Interracial Love and Sex without Getting Sore?’: Readers’ Debate over Interracial Relationships in the Baltimore Afro-American,” Journalism History 39, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 104-114; Chris Lamb, Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012); Sarah Jackson, “African American Celebrity Dissent and a Tale of Two Public Spheres: A Critical and Comparative Analysis of the Mainstream and Black Press, 1949-2005” (PhD diss., University of Missouri, 2010). 21 Payne and Green, 1-10; Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Song-ho Ha, “A Unity of Opposites: The Black College-Educated Elite, Black Workers, and the Community Development Process,” in Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900-1950, eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Walter Hill (New York: Garland, 2000). 22 Taylor, Jr. Song-ho Ha, 32-42. 23 Davarian L Baldwin, “Our Newcomers to the City: The Great Migration and Making of Modern Mass Culture,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890- 1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 160. 24 Ibid., 180. 25 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Working in the ‘Kingdom of Culture’: African Americans and American Popular Culture, 1890-1930,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 16. 26 P. David Marshall, “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way,” in the Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 317. 27 Brundage, 3. 28 Daphne A. Brooks, Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 5. 29 Ibid., 3. 30 Ibid., 4-6.

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Notes to Chapter 2

31 “Where race pride is needed,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 29, 1911, 4. 32 Kevern Verney, African Americans and U.S. Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2003). 33 The following historical synthesis relies in particular on the following works: C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue – The Depression Decade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Henry Louis Taylor Jr. and Walter Hill, Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900-1950 (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000); Cary D. Wintz, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance (Houston: Rice University Press, 1988); John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (7th Ed.) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994). For a historiographic account of African American history, see Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, African American History Reconsidered (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010). For accounts of African American resistance/activism during this period, see Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950 (New York: New York University Press, 2003). 34 Woodward, 69. 35 Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 39. 36 Sitkoff, 4. 37 Woodward, 70. 38 Ibid., 113; Sitkoff, 4. 39 Franklin, 338. 40 Woodward, 102. 41 For a summary of the major contributors to “the naturalization of racial inferiority” see Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (New York: Seven Stories, 2006). 42 Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 244. 43 Ewen & Ewen, 325-6. 44 Sitkoff, 5. 45 Gregory Michael Dorr, Segregation’s Science: Eugenics and Society in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 63. 46 Sitkoff, 11. 47 This figure is based on Franklin’s assertion that “in the last sixteen years of the nineteenth century there had been more than 2,500 lynchings” (p. 431). The exact figure is unknown but, by extension of a four- year period, is likely closer to 3,000. 48 Franklin, 432; Sitkoff, 7. 49David T.Z. Mindich, “Balance: A ‘Slanderous and Nasty-Minded Mulattress,’ Ida B. Wells, Confronts ‘Objectivity’ in the 1890s,” in Just the Facts: How Objectivity Came to Define American Journalism (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 113-137. According to Mindich, Wells identified the basic rationale for most lynchings – i.e., that Black men were purported to be rapists of white women – as a “threadbare lie” (p. 120). Rather, what Wells found was that often, lynching victims were often not accused of rape in the first place, but rather of some other crime; further, at times lynching victims were not accused of crimes at all until after their death, and that in cases where rape is alleged, what is found is often a consensual sexual relationship between a Black man and a white woman. Wells argued that lynching was not about protecting white women but rather was “[a]n excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the race terrorized” (p. 120). 50 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 506. 51 Ibid., 508.

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52 “Muckraking” emerged as a practice popular in the yellow press at the turn of the century in response to Progressive Era beliefs about the social role of journalism to interrogate the unchecked practices of big business during industrialization. 53 Washburn, 69. 54 Wells’ June 25, 1892 article quoted in Ibid. 55 Meier quoted in Wintz, 40-41. 56 Franklin, 271-2 (including Washington’s quote). 57 Woodward, 83 58 Quoted in Clint C. Wilson, II, Black Journalists in Paradox: Historical Perspectives and Current Dilemmas (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 53. 59 Robert J. Norrell, Up From History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2009), 29. 60 Hanes Walton Jr., Black Politics: A Theoretical and Structural Analysis (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1972), 80-81. 61 Sitkoff, 14. 62 DuBois quoted in Sitkoff, 10 63 W.E.B. DuBois, “The Talented Tenth,” The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of To-day (New York, 1903). 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 “Much bally-hooed” borrowed from Murali Balaji, Professor and the Pupil (New York: Nation Books, 2007), xx; Gerald Horne and Mary Young, W.E.B. DuBois: An Encyclopedia (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001), 203. 68 Quoted in Sitkoff, 13. 69 Walter C. Daniel, Black Journals of the United States (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982), 140. 70 Ibid., 140. 71 Ibid, 141. 72 Davarian L Baldwin, “Our Newcomers to the City: The Great Migration and Making of Modern Mass Culture,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890- 1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 168. See also Washburn. 73 Wintz, 14-15. 74 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 90-94; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 49-55. 75 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 70. 76 Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Song-ho Ha, “A Unity of Opposites: The Black College-Educated Elite, Black Workers, and the Community Development Process,” in Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900-1950, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Walter Hill (New York: Garland, 2000), 32. 77 Sitkoff, 19. 78 Franklin, 324. 79 Wintz, 43. 80 W.E.B. DuBois, “Close Ranks,” The Crisis, July 1918. 81 Wintz, 11-16; Taylor and Hill. See also Woodward; Sitkoff. 82 Franklin, 350. 83 Ibid., 349, 352. 84 Wintz, 194.

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85 Chatwood Hall, “Red Russia would not permit Jim Crow of Duke Ellington,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 23, 1923, 19. 86 Woodward, 114; Franklin, 352. 87 Woodward, 115-116. 88 Sitkoff, 20. 89 “The Sportive spotlight,” New York Amsterdam News, June 10, 1925, 6. 90 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 443. 91 Dr. Cobb’s comments quoted in “Jesse Owens just normal American boy, Howard University scientist reveals,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 30, 1935, 1. 92 Quoted from Ewen & Ewen, 329. 93 Taylor and Ha, 35. 94 Thomas R. Smith, “A worthy object indeed: Joe Gans memorial,” New York Amsterdam News, December 28, 1927; see also “Joe Gans memorial is begun,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 17, 1927, 12. 95 Winston James, “Being Red and Black in Jim Crow America: On the Ideology and Travails of Afro- America’s Socialist Pioneers, 1877-1930,” in Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950, eds. Charles M. Payne and Adam Green (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 336-399. 96 Wintz, 205. 97 Daniel, 243. 98 Wintz, 186. 99 Winston, 365. 100 Daniels, 243. 101 Franklin, 357. 102 Ibid. 103 Stanley Nelson, Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind [DVD] (PBS Productions, 2002). 104 Woodward, 124. 105 Franklin, 359. 106 Ibid., 363. 107 Woodward, 125. 108 Wintz, 3, 4. The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro Movement were largely literary movements, though their influence spread throughout entertainment culture. For the most complete compilation of writings by popular African American intellectuals during this period, see Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Gene Andrew Jarrett, eds., The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation and African American Culture, 1892-1938 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). 109 Wintz, 30. 110 Ibid., 4. 111 Ibid., 31. The two terms are often conflated; for example, Woodward uses the term “Harlem Renaissance” in favor of the “New Negro Movement” to describe the time period. 112 Alain Locke, “Enter the New Negro,” Survey Graphic, March 1925, 1-3. 113 Ibid., 98. 114 Ibid., 87. 115 Ibid., 96-98. 116 Ibid., 122. 117 W.E.B. DuBois, “Criteria of Negro Art,” in The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture 1892-1938, eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Gene Andrew Jarrett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 259. 118 Wintz, 140. 119 Ibid., 129. 120 Franklin, 400.

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121 Sitkoff, 37. 122 Ibid., 44. 123 Franklin, 397-399. 124 Ibid., 403. 125 Michael Honey, “The Power of Remembering: Black Factory Workers and Union Organizing in the Jim Crow Era,” in Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950, eds. Charles M. Payne and Adam Green (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 309. 126 Franklin, 404.

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Notes to Chapter 3

127 Ralph Matthews, “Watching the Big Parade: Cab Calloway and the Memphis mob,” Baltimore Afro- American, September 29, 1934, 4. 128 Patrick S. Washburn, the African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 45. 129 Clint C. Wilson, II, Black Journalists in Paradox: Historical Perspectives and Current Dilemmas (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 55. 130 This chapter relies in particular on the following works: Frederick G. Detweiler, The Negro Press in the United States (College Park, Md.: McGrath Publishing Co., 1968); Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres, News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (New York, Verso, 2011); Armistead S. Pride and Clint C. Wilson, II, A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997); Clint C. Wilson, II, Black Journalists in Paradox: Historical Perspectives and Current Dilemmas (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991); Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006); Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990); Stanley Nelson, The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords[VHS] (PBS Productions, 1999). 131 Clarence Page, Introduction to The African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom by Patrick Washburn (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006), ix. 132 Gonzalez and Torres, 112. 133 Myrdal quoted in Farrar, xii. 134 Farrar, xi. 135 Page, ix. 136 Gonzalez and Torres, 109. 137 Farrar, xi. 138 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 239. 139 Andrew Buni, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier: Politics and Black Journalism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), 80. 140 John L. Clarke, “Think this over,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 26, 1931, 1. 141 Buni, 44. 142 P.L. Prattis quoted in Buni, 44. 143 Gonzalez and Torres, 172. 144 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 525; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 337. 145 Farrar, xiv. 146 Buni, 47. 147 Lawrence D. Hogan, A Black National News Service: the Associated Negro Press and Claude Barnett, 1919-1945 (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983), 86. 148 Buni, 51 149 Wolseley, 38 (including Pride newspaper figure). 150 I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield: Willy & Co., 1891), 282. 151 “Why We Publish the Gazette,” Cleveland Gazette, August 25, 1883, p. 1. 152 Wilson, 46 153 “‘An Old Timer,’ Brief Sketch of the Life Work and Career of Christopher J. Perry,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 21, 1921, p. 1. 154 Quoted in Pride and Wilson, 132. 155 Ibid., 79. 156 Pride and Wilson, 88. 157 Ibid., 88-89.

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158 Farrar, xii. 159 Roi Ottley quoted in Wilson, 39. The New York Freeman was run by Fortune’s brother, Emmanuel, and an associate, Jerome B. Peterson. Fortune was a contributor to the Freeman, but left the staff to write for a white daily, the New York Sun. Emmanuel and Peterson renamed the Freeman the Age in 1887, and effectively started a new newspaper under that moniker. When Emmanuel passed away in 1891, Thomas took over as editor. 160 Pride and Wilson, 122. 161 Wolseley, 48; Wilson, 41. 162 Pride and Wilson, 142. 163 Paula E. Morton, Tabloid Valley: Supermarket News and American Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), 18-19; Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 254. 164 P. David Marshall, “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way,” in the Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 323. 165 Ibid., 317. 166 Ibid., 19. 167 Farrar, 14. 168 See, for example, “He is a Negro, a singer and a hero of a countess,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 25, 1926, 1. 169 Hogan, 57-87. 170 Davarian L Baldwin, “Our Newcomers to the City: The Great Migration and Making of Modern Mass Culture,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890- 1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011),, 372. 171 Wilson, 58. 172 Farrar, 20-21. 173 Ibid., 8, 16. 174 Hayward Farrar, “See What the Afro Says: The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892-1950” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1983). 175 Wolseley; See also Brian Carroll, "This Is IT!" Journalism History 37, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 151-162. 176 Washburn, 134. 177 Wolseley, 99. 178 Pride and Wilson, 144. 179 See Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest: the Black Press During World War II (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1975), which is especially concerned with World War II. 180 Robert Jackson, “The Secret Life of Oscar Mischeaux: Race Films, Contested Histories, and Modern American Culture,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 218. 181 Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 94. 182 In his book, Just the Facts: How Objectivity Came to Define American Journalism, David Mindich uses “public” or “civic” journalism while Washburn uses “advocacy” journalism to describe the techniques used by the Black press during the Post-Civil-War/early twentieth century period. See also Washburn, 51. 183 Mark Dolan, “The Black Press,” presentation at American Journalism Historians Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 26-29, 2013. 184 Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News (2nd ed.) (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2011), 184. 185 Ibid. 186 Daniel A. Berkowitz, Introduction to in Cultural Meanings of News, ed. Daniel A. Berkowitz (Los Angeles: Sage, 2011), xii. 187 Gonzalez and Torres, 162 188 Schudson, 75. 189 Ibid., 26.

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190 Ibid., 7. 191 David T.Z. Mindich, Just the Facts: How Objectivity Came to Define American Journalism (New York: NYU Press, 2000), 133. 192 Ibid., 132. 193 Jenny Kitzinger, “Framing and Frame Analysis,” in Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates, ed. Eoin Devereaux (Los Angeles: Sage, 2007), 135. 194 Zhongdong Pan and Gerald M. Kosicki, “Framing Analysis: An Approach to News Discourse,” Political Communication, 10 (1993): 55. 195 See Gaye Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (New York: Free Press,1978); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media and the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); and William A. Gamson, Talking Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 196 Gamson, 3. 197 Tuchman, 2, 192. 198 Ibid., 193. 199 Gitlin, 6-7. 200 Lulu Rodriguez and Daniella V. Dimitrova,“The Levels of Visual Framing,” Journal of Visual Literacy 30, no. 1 (2011): 51. 201 Andrew Mendelson, “The Construction of Photographic Meaning,” in Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts (Vol. II), eds. James Flood, Shirley Brice Heath, and Diane Lapp (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004): 33. 202 Ibid., 33. 203 Entman, 53. 204 Carrie Teresa and Carolyn Kitch, “The Kids Are Not Alright: The Symbolic Functions of Children in Anniversary Memory of September 11,” paper presented at the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago, IL, August 10-13, 2012: 4; James W. Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication” In Communication as Culture (New York: Routledge, 1988); S. Elizabeth Bird and Robert W. Dardenne, “Rethinking News and Myth as Storytelling,” in the Handbook of Journalism Studies, eds. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch (New York: Routledge, 2009). 205 Bird and Dardenne, 205. 206 Bird and Dardenne; Jack Lule, Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism (New York: Guilford Press, 2001); Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1987). 207 Carolyn Kitch, “Mourning ‘Men Joined in Peril and Purpose’: Working Class Heroism in News Repair of the Sago Miners’ Story,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 24, no. 2 (2007): 118. 208 Emily West, “Selling Canada to Canadians: Collective Memory, National Identity and Popular Culture,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 19, no. 2 (2002): 225. 209 Walter R. Fisher, “A Motive View of Communication,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 56, no. 2 (1970): 131. 210 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. and ed. Lewis A. Coser(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 40. 211 Ibid. 212 Eviatar Zerubavel, “Social Memories: Steps to a Sociology of the Past,” Qualitative Sociology 19, no. 3 (1996): 293-4. 213 Ibid, 295-6. 214 Barbie Zelizer, “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12, no. 2 (June 1995): 219. 215 Jill A. Edy, “Journalistic Uses of Collective Memory,” Journal of Communication 49, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 80. 216 Freedom’s Journal, founded by John B. Russworm and Samuel Cornish in New York in 1827, was the first Black press newspaper. Though Freedom’s Journal lasted only two and a half years, its influence was

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both far-reaching and lingering. In many ways, the newspaper established what would be the overriding purpose of the Black newspaper industry generally. Russworm and Cornish recognized the need for a forum in which Blacks could officially condemn misrepresentation, in the form of rumors, stereotypes, and unfounded opinions, of their race. Scholars have argued the nature of Freedom’s Journal’s readership. See Lionel C. Barrow, Jr., “‘Our Own Cause’: Freedom’s Journal and the Beginnings of the Black Press” in Media Voices, ed. Jean Folkerts (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 54-60.

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217 “‘Shuffle Along: What it means to the colored artist,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 24, 1921, 8. 218 Davarian L Baldwin, “Our Newcomers to the City: The Great Migration and Making of Modern Mass Culture,” Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890- 1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 162. 219 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Working in the ‘Kingdom of Culture’: African Americans and American Popular Culture, 1890-1930,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 3. 220 Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 249. 221 Kevern Verney, African Americans and U.S. Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2003), 3. 222 Camille F. Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway and the Story of America’s First Black Star (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 22. 223 Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (New York: Seven Stories, 2006), 311. 224 Verney, 7. 225 Van DeBurg quoted in Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), xvii. 226 Ewen and Ewen, 52-57. 227 Henry T. Sampson, The Ghost Walks: A Chronological History of Blacks in Show Business, 1865-1910 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1988), 358. 228 Verney, 2003. 229 Sampson, 141. 230 Ibid., 356. 231 Verney, 12. 232 David Wiggins and Patrick Miller, The Unlevel Playing Field: A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Sport (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 2. 233 Boxing was not “officially” segregated in the early part of the twentieth century. White opponents could take on Black opponents if they chose, but contention for the heavyweight title was barred from Black pugilists as champions like John L. Sullivan, Jim Jeffries and Tommy Burns repeatedly drew the color line. 234 Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 91. 235 Brundage, 34. 236 Geoffrey C. Ward, Unforgiveable Blackness (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 201. 237 “Big money to bet on champion ‘Jack,’” Baltimore Afro-American, January 1, 1910, 1. 238 “Big Jeffries has surely slowed up,” Cleveland Gazette, December 18, 1909, 1. 239 “To you, Mr. Jack Johnson,” Savannah Tribune, July 9, 1910, 4. 240 [no title], New York Amsterdam News, July 16, 1910, 4. 241 “Jack Johnson defeats James J. Jeffries,” Savannah Tribune, July 9, 1910, 1. 242 “Five Killed in Race Riots,” Cleveland Gazette, July 9, 1910, 2. 243 Ward, 283n. 244 Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 118. 245 Ibid. 246 Ibid., 98. 247 Daniel J. Boorstin, “From hero to celebrity: The human pseudo-event,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 72-90; see also Joshua Gamson, Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1994).

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248 See Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, & Bucks (4th ed.) (New York: Continuum, 2004). All direct quotations in the preceding paragraph are culled from Bogle, 4-10. 249 Bogle, 12. 250 Ibid., 12, 10. 251 Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 13. 252 Robert Jackson, “The Secret Life of Oscar Mischeaux: Race Films, Contested Histories, and Modern American Culture,” in W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 221. 253 Richard Brody, “The worst thing about Birth of a Nation is how good it is,” The New Yorker (online edition), February 6, 2013. 254 John Hope Franklin quoted in Bogle, 15 255 “A Birth of a Nation,” The Crisis, December 1915, 86. 256 Ibid. 257 “Supreme Court rules out ‘Birth of a Nation,’” Chicago Defender, December 4, 1915, 1. 258 Evans Ford, “‘Birth of a Nation’: The most preposterous adversary of the Negro race of the twentieth century,” Chicago Defender, October 2, 1915, 8. 259 “The Birth of a Nation,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 5, 1915, 4. 260 “Tribune blocks show ‘Birth of a Nation,’” Philadelphia Tribune, February 16, 1933, 1. 261 Gamson, 24. 262 deCordova paraphrased in Andrew Mendelson, “On the Function of the United States Paparazzi: Mosquito Swarm or Watchdogs of Celebrity Image Control and Power,” Visual Studies, 22, no. 2 (2007): 175. 263 See Joshua Gamson. 264Mendelson, 175. 265 P. David Marshall, “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way,” in the Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 317. 266 See also Leo Lowenthal, “The Triumph of Mass Idols,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 124-152. 267 Mendelson, 176. 268 Marshall, 316. 269 Ibid., 317. 270 Gamson, 29. 271 Dyer, 157. 272 Jackie Stacey, “Feminine Fascinations,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 253. 273 Marshall, 317. 274 Jackson, 224. 275 Waldo Martin quoted in Brundage, 3 276 Cripps. 277 Ibid. 278 Sampson, 280. 279 Charles Hardy, “Explore PA History: The Dunbar Theatre Historical Marker,” http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-152 280 Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 377. 281 Ibid., 377. 282 “‘Shuffle Along’ at the Dunbar Theatre next week,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 9, 1921, 10. 283 Brooks, 376-377.

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284 “‘Shuffle Along: What it means to the colored artist,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 24, 1921, 8. 285 Caption “Why ‘Shuffle Along’ stays on Broadway,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 28, 1922, 1. 286 Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), 85. 287 Ibid., 237. 288 James E. Bowen, “Noble Sissle and Ethel Waters steal spotlight as ’34 radio sensations,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 3, 1934, A1. 289 “Gunman’s bullet K.O.’s Battling Siki,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 19, 1925, 1; Marvel Cooke, “Ethel Waters does best amid turmoil,” New York Amsterdam News, July 6, 1935, 7. 290 Cripps. 291 Verney, 22. 292 Ibid., 22. 293 “Amos n’ Andy,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 20, 1930, 16. 294 “Why Amos ‘n Andy make em like it,” New York Amsterdam News, February 19, 1930, 9. 295 “Bishop flays Race citizens who laugh at Amos ‘N’ Andy,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 3, 1930, 1. 296 Audience figures from Verney, 22. 297 Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 94-95. 298 Clarence Roy Mitchell, “Amos ‘n Andy,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 15, 1930, 6. 299 Roy Wilkins, “More Amos ‘n Andy,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 22, 1930, 6. 300Bogle, 57. 301 Ibid. 302 Cary D. Wintz, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance (Houston: Rice University Press, 1988), 179-180. 303 Verney, 33. 304 “‘Imitation of Life’ leads film grosses,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 25, 1935, 8. 305 Hilda See, “Race actors steal ‘Imitation of Life’: Louise Beavers, Fredye Waskington star in film,” Chicago Defender, January 12, 1935, 9. 306 “Louise Beavers important figure in Imitation of Life,” Kansas City Plaindealer, November 16, 1934, 2. 307 H.S. Murphy, “Brass Tacks: ‘Imitation of Life,’” Atlanta Daily World, February 3, 1935, 4. 308 Ibid. 309 “‘Shuffle Along: What it means to the colored artist,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 24, 1921, 8.

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310 Lester Walton, “Theatrical life among Afro-Americans noted,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 23, 1911, 2. 311 “Have no use for dancing pavilion,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 7, 1908, 1. 312 “Howard and Lincoln play scoreless game,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 29, 1913, 1. 313 “Football team getting in shape,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 12, 1901, 1. 314 Davarian L. Baldwin, “Our Newcomers to the City: The Great Migration and Making of Modern Mass Culture,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890- 1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 163. 315 Ibid., 180. 316 John M. Guggie, “Buying and Selling with God: African American Religion, Race Records, and the Emerging Culture of Mass Consumption in the South,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011). 317 Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), xi. 318 “Place among whites of colored genius,” Cleveland Gazette, March 23, 1912, 4. 319 “Music,” The Crisis, August 1911, 151. 320 “Musical idol of London,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 6, 1903, 1. 321 Booker T. Washington, “Biographical Notice of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,” in The Heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor by Avril Coleridge-Taylor (London: Dennis Dobson: 1979), 139. 322 Jeffrey Green, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, A Musical Life (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011), 44. 323 Nagueyalti Warren, Grandfather of Black Studies: W.E.B. DuBois (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011), 20-21. 324 “S. Coleridge-Taylor, the great composer in America appears in concert – another remarkable career,” Cleveland Gazette, November 19, 1904, 2. 325 Ibid. 326 Baldwin, 163. 327 Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 105. 328 “Bert Williams – Taking him away from the Williams-Walker combination, and there is nothing to commend it,” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, March 23, 1900, 1. 329 Ibid. 330 Brooks, 105. 331 For example: Bert Williams a “scream,” Cleveland Gazette, June 12, 1909, 1; “America’s Comedians! Bert Williams came from Bermuda Islands, and is irresistibly funny,” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, January 12, 1900, 2; “The Policy Players,” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, January 12, 1900, 2; “The Troubadours,” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, February 2, 1900, 6. 332 Camille Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway and the Story of America’s First Black Star (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 106. 333 Ibid., 103-4. 334 Abott and Seroff, xi. 335 Sylvester Russell, “Music and Dramatic – Aida Overton Walker,” Chicago Defender, May 20, 1911, 4; Sylvester Russell, “Musical and Dramatic – The Williams and Walker of the future,” Chicago Defender, April 22, 1911, 4. 336 “Black Patti at Blaney’s,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 9, 1908, 5. 337 “Black Patti Troubadours,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 7, 1904, 4. 338 “Beacon Lights for Negroes,” Savannah Tribune, October 25, 1902, 1. 339 “Black Patti Musical Comedy Co.” Chicago Defender, March 29, 1913, 6.

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340 Colleen Ayock and Mark Scott, Joe Gans: A Biography of the First African American Boxing Champion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), 3. 341 Quoted in Arthur R. Ashe, Jr., A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African American Athlete, 1619- 1918 (New York: Warner Books, 1988), 15. 342 “Erne Easy – Gans won the lightweight championship with five blows in a single round,” Cleveland Gazette, May 17, 1902, 3. 343 William Gildea, The Longest Fight: In the Ring with Joe Gans, Boxing’s First African American Champion (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012),, 122-123 344 [No title], Cleveland Gazette, October 6, 1906, 2. 345 “‘Jack’ Johnson, champion,” Cleveland Gazette, January 2, 1909, 2. 346 “Johnson the real victor,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 16, 1910, 6. 347 “Views of the Afro American press on the Johnson-Jeffries fight,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 16, 1910, 4. 348 However, the context of how these photographs ended up in the paper is unclear. Often, noteworthy individuals would pay a few to have their photograph featured in a Black press newspaper; therefore, it is possible that Johnson, seeking approval for his new wife, paid to have her photograph run in a few different papers. 349 “Jack’s secret marriage,” Cleveland Gazette, February 17, 1912, 2. 350 “Jack Johnson and wife at Elks Ball,” Chicago Defender, April 29, 1911, 1. 351 “Ida Wells Barnett on why Mrs. Jack Johnson suicided,” Cleveland Gazette, November 30, 1912, 2. Oddly enough, Wells-Barnett also discusses Lucille Cameron’s original arrest related to the Mann Act charges (the original charges alleged that Johnson had taken her over state lines for immoral purposes, but the Bureau of Investigation had no case against her). This article serves to highlight how the Black press was left to process both Etta’s suicide and Johnson’s relationship with Lucille simultaneously. 352 Though Johnson’s relationship with Cameron was investigated at the request of her mother, Mrs. F. Cameron-Falconett, it was his relationship with prostitute Belle Schrieber for which Johnson was actually charged. Schrieber was one of the many women Johnson entertained before and during his marriage to Etta. However, Etta had emerged as Johnson’s favorite, which caught the ire of Schrieber especially; Johnson had helped her to set up own brothel in Chicago but abandoned her there to marry Etta. his travels with Schrieber predated the passage of the Mann Act by two years, but he was nonetheless charged. 353 For example, “The United States government intent upon proving the assertion to be true, which stated the fact that Jack Johnson is not being merely prosecuted but verily persecuted in its courts.” (“[No Title],” Cleveland Gazette, July 12, 1913, 2). 354 Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 139. 355 “Cherished hope of enemies realized in the conviction of Jack Johnson,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1913, 1. 356 “Jack Johnson is crucified for his race,” Chicago Defender, July 5, 1913, 1. 357 Booker T. Washington, “Dr. Washington likes Bert Williams’ work,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1910, 4. 358 Lester Walton, “Theatrical life among Afro-Americans noted,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 23, 1911, 2. 359 Brooks, 148. 360 Ibid. 361 Eloise Bibb Thompson, “Bert Williams has high ideals; stage teacher,” Chicago Defender, March 27, 1915, 1. 362 Sylvester Russell, “Musical and Dramatic,” Chicago Defender, October 8, 1910, 2. 363 Carolyn Kitch, “A News of Feeling as Well as Fact: Public Mourning for the Dead Celebrity,” in Pages from the Past: History and Memory in American Magazines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 63. 364 Ibid., 64.

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365 “Joe Gans dead,” Chicago Defender, August 13, 1910, 1. 366 “Game fighter loses out in his final bout,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 13, 1910, 5. 367 “George Walker passes away,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 14, 1911, 1. 368 “George Walker, actor of the famous team of stars, dead,” Chicago Defender, January 14, 1911, 1. 369 Ibid. 370 “Aida Overton Walker as the public knew her” [Caption], Chicago Defender, October 24, 1914, 1. 371 Alfred Noyes, “Samuel Coleridge Taylor,” The Crisis, November 1912, 21. 372 “Men of the Month: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,” The Crisis, October 1912, 278. 373 “Prominent Englishmen honor the memory of the race’s greatest composer – an ‘appreciation,’” Cleveland Gazette, November 23, 1912, 2. 374Sylvester Russell, “Musical and Dramatic….” (See Note 336) 375 Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest: the Black Press During World War II (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1975). 376 C. Van Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 114. 377 “The Champions,” [Caption], June 8, 2918, 1. 378 “Black soldiers, remarkable warriors,” Cleveland Gazette, August 17, 1918, 1. 379 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 2,DVD, Directed by Ken Burns (PBS Productions, 2001). 380 “Perpetuate Europe music in Victor Records,” Chicago Defender, March 7, 1914, 6. 381 William C. Banfield, Cultural Codes: Makings of a Black Musical Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010), 121. 382 “Men of the Month: James Reese Europe,” The Crisis, June 1912, 68. 383 “Lieutenant James Reese Europe buried with honors,” New York Age, May 17, 1919, 6. 384 “Jazz music is now all the rage throughout the United States,” New York Age, May 3, 1919, 6. 385 “Editor entertains New Yorkers,” Chicago Defender, May 10, 1919, 16. 386 “Lieutenant James Reese Europe buried with honors,” New York Age, May 17, 1919, 1. 387 “Thousands, white and colored, attend the funeral of Lieut. James Reese Europe,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 17, 1919, 1. 388 Baldwin, 160. 389 Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). 390 Reid Badger, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 201.

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391 Gwendolyn Bennett, “The Emperors Jones,” The Opportunity, September 1930, 270. 392 Cary Wintz, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance (Houston: Rice University Press, 1988). 393 Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), 42. 394 Ibid., 87-88. 395 Wintz, 94. 396 Ibid., 24. 397 “The Topekan Paul Robeson,” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, January 14, 1927, 3. 398 Stempel, 235. See also Ethan Mordden, Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),, 140. 399 W.E.B. DuBois, “Criteria of Negro Art” in The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture 1892-1938, eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Gene Andrew Jarrett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 259. 400 Willis Richardson, “Propaganda in the Theatre,” The Messenger, June 1923, 333-4. 401 Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, “The Negro in the Field of Drama,” The Opportunity, July 1928, Vol. 6, No. 7, 214. 402 Nagueyalti Warren, Grandfather of Black Studies: W.E.B. DuBois (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011), 21. 403 Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 134. 404 Tony Langston, “Bert Williams, famous comedian, dead,” Chicago Defender, March 11, 1922, 1. 405 Camille F. Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America’s First Black Star (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 321; Eric Ledell Smith, Bert Williams: A Biography of the Pioneer Black Comedian (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 1992), 225; Langston, 1 (See Note 409). 406 Ibid., 321. 407 Langston, 1 (See Note 409). 408 “Bert Williams dead,” Associated Negro Press, March 5, 1922. 409 “’Bert’ Williams,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 10, 1922, 7. 410 Jessie Fauset, “The Symbolism of Bert Williams,” The Crisis, Vol. 24, No. 1, May 1922, 12-13. 411 Ibid., 14. 412 Ibid. 413 Eddie Cantor was a white comedian, who like Al Jolson and others, wore burnt cork during performances to “mimic” Blacks. Cantor’s retirement of Blackface performing was a key transitional moment in the movement away from Blackface and from the trend of white actors mimicking and satirizing Black physicality and cultural experience. 414 “Bert Williams the leader of them all,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 28, 1925, 4. 415 Mordden, 136. 416 “Charles Gilpin,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 14, 1921, 4. 417 Gwendolyn Bennett, “The Emperors Jones,” The Opportunity, September 1930, 270. 418 John T. Kneebone. “‘It Wasn’t All Velvet’: The Life and Hard Times of Charles S. Gilpin, Actor,” Virginia Cavalcade 38 (Summer 1988), 14-27; Henry T. Sampson, The Ghost Walks: A Chronological History of zBlacks in Show Business 1865-1910 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1988). 419 “Charles Gilpin,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 14, 1921, 4; “Charles Gilpin, actor, awarded Springarn Medal,” Chicago Defender, June 25, 1921, 1; “Charles Gilpin, star actor, to appear in Washington,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 19, 1921, 12. 420 “Charles S. Gilpin making new history on Broadway,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 4, 1921, 2. 421 “Charles S. Gilpin, actor, awarded Springarn Medal,” Chicago Defender, June 25, 1921, 1. 422 “Springarn Medal award to Harry T. Burleigh,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 26, 1917, 1. 423 “Charles Gilpin, Negro actor, not invited,” Savannah Tribune, March 5, 1921, 1.

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424 Reprinted in “Who’s Who: Charles Gilpin and the Drama League,” The Messenger, March 1921, 203. 425 Ibid. 426 Ibid. 427 “Gilpin proves hero of the Drama League dinner,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 11, 1921, 1. 428 Will Anthony Madden, “Paul Robeson rises to supreme heights in ‘The Emperor Jones,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 17, 1924, 8. 429 “Harlem asking itself, why is Duke Ellington leaving the Cotton Club?” Baltimore Afro-American, January 24, 1931, 9. 430 Harry Leavette, “Fights, spending orgies, take toll of race actors,” Afro-American, February 16, 1929, 7. 431 “Charles Gilpin takes his last curtain call,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 30, 1930, A10. 432 Stempel, 238. 433 Wintz, 91. 434 Ibid., 205-206. Alain Locke, author of The New Negro, was notoriously “anti-woman;” similarly, James Wheldon Johnson, Walter White and others routinely funded and supported male writers over female writers. 435 “Why men go broke” [caption], Philadelphia Tribune, February 9, 1928, 1. 436 Louis W. George, “Beauty culture and colored people,” The Messenger, July 1918, Vol. 2, No. 7, 25-6. 437 “Alice Coleman” [caption], Philadelphia Tribune, May 30, 1924, 1. 438 “Made glorifying brown skin girls a business,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 25, 1930, 9. 439 “At the Colonial Theatre: ‘The Chocolate Dandies,’” The Messenger, July 1924, 323. 440 Carolyn Kitch, Girl on the Magazine Cover (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 99. 441 Ibid. 442 “New Negro Woman” borrowed from Kitch, 99. 443 Bill Egan, Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen (Lanham: Scarecrow, 2004). 444 Ibid., 62. 445 Noble Sissle’s “Pioneer” quote taken from Egan, 64. 446 Egan, 64. 447 “$500 per week for Florence Mills,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 7, 1922, 11. 448 Salem Tutt Whitney, “Salem sez – Florence Mills,” Chicago Defender, February 24, 1923, 6. 449 J.A. Jackson, “Florence Mills gets diamond medal,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 4, 1924, A11. 450 Egan, 96. 451 “False rumors can’t hurt Florence Mills as a star,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 15, 1924, 6. 452 Phyllis Rose, Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time (New York: Doubleday, 1989); Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Josephine Baker in Art and Life (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2007). 453 “A chorus girl who really stood out and won acclaim,” New York Amsterdam News, May 13, 1925, 6. 454 This point made with specific reference to Phyllis Rose, Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time (New York: Doubleday, 1989); Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Josephine Baker in Art and Life (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2007). 455 “‘Countess’ Josephine and ‘Flo’ Mills rival white actors,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1927, A3. 456 As Egan recounted, when fellow star Lena Horne was asked to compare the two, she replied, “that Josephine seemed to the French like a ‘fabulous child of nature’ who reminded them of lions and tigers and the jungle, whereas Florence was like a waif they could cry over and pity.” Despite their clear stylistic differences, Baker sought to emulate Mills as much as she could; Baker had a demonstrative respect for her more seasoned counterpart. Egan recounted that when touring for Blackbirds together, Baker went out of her way to seek out Mills, snubbing the show’s other star, Johnny Hudgins, in the process (Egan, 162). 457 “Josephine Baker continues to make good in Europe,” New York Amsterdam News, September 1, 1926, 11. Also reprinted in the Afro-American the same week. 458 Ted Haviland, “Ten years made a lot of difference in Josephine Baker,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 7, 1935, 9. 459 Wintz, 91. 460 Ibid., 45.

292

461 E.G.P., “Reviewer finds Cab Calloway at best displaying wares for Broadway folk,” New York Amsterdam News, October 28, 1931, 10; Frank Marshall Davis, “Duke Ellington, ‘just plain folks,’ likes drinks, cards and movies,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 9, 1935, 9; “London gives its opinion of Cab Calloway,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 14, 1934, 21. 462 “Josephine Baker, stage star, becomes countess,” Chicago Defender, June 25, 1927, 1. 463 Ean Wood, The Josephine Baker Story (London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2000), 121. 464 J.A. Rogers, “Is the star of the Folies-Bergere really married?” Philadelphia Tribune, July 14, 1927, 1. 465 Beda Jeffers, “Is Europe heaven for sepia theatrical stars?” Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, November 15, 1930, 1. 466 “Negro artists not wanted in London,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 6, 1923, 7. 467 “Florence Mills world famous actress dead,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 3, 1927, 1. 468 “Simple pageantry of ‘Green Pastures’ heightened by Harrison interpretation,” New York Amsterdam News, March 16, 1925, 4; J. Brooks Atkinson, “Paul Robeson stars in Ziegfeld’s Showboat,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 28, 1932; “Bill Robinson on Broadway,” Chicago Defender, June 16, 1928, 7. No reviews of Robeson’s 1928 Show Boat debut seem to exist in Black newspapers; he did one performance in London before a contract dispute with Caroline Dudley prevented him from officially joining the cast. By 1932 he officially toured with Show Boat. 469 Murali Balaji, The Professor and the Pupil (New York: Nation Books, 2007), 9. 470 John Lyman, “A Negro Theatre,” The Opportunity, January 1934, 15. 471 Mordden, 234-235.

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472 Fay Jackson, “Fredi Washington hits new note in Imitations [sic],” New York Amsterdam News, December 15, 1934, 10. 473 Lucy Fisher, Introduction to American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 9-10. 474 “‘Hit the n****r’ new film insult,” Chicago Defender, February 28, 1914, 1. 475 Booker T. Washington, “Letter to editor,” Chicago Defender, May 22, 1915, 1. 476 “Rogers adds second slur to broadcast,” New York Amsterdam News, January 31, 1934, 1; “Rogers substitutes ‘darky’ for more offensive epithet,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 1, 1934, 1. 477 “Peter P. Jones takes moving pictures of Shriners,” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1914, 1. 478 Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 394. 479 “Proprietor and officials of moving picture placed on trial for assault,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 3, 1914, 1. 480 “Movie color line in Superior Court,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 13, 1915, 1; “First step taken to try to break up practice of drawing color line at moving picture theatres,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 3, 1917, 1. 481 “First step taken…” (See Note 487). 482 Steven J. Ross, Working Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 23. 483 “No ‘movies’ for race; mob puts shows to bad [sic],” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1914, 1. 484 “Race film banned,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 6, 1931, 1. The plot revealed at the end that the woman was 1% Black, but audiences did not get to see that part of the film; the theatre manager cut the film’s first viewing before that twist could be revealed. 485 Ross, 61. 486 “Strike threat looms here in movie houses,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 14, 1935, 1. 487 “Organizing the Negro actor,” The Messenger, August 1924, 12. 488 Bogle, 120. 489 “Race press ignored by big film interests,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1934, A9. 490 Fay Jackson, “Hollywood glad Bojangles Robinson is back in New York,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 22, 1935, 2. 491 J.A. Rogers, “‘Paul does not need me anymore’ says Mrs. Robinson,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 27, 1932, 1. 492 Richard B. Jewell, The Golden Age of Cinema: Hollywood, 1929-1945 (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 251. 493 Ibid. 494 Ibid. 495 Ibid. 496 Ibid. 497 The term “atmosphere players” appeared in “Bill Robinson picture uses hundreds of extras,” Chicago Defender, December 22, 1934, 8. 498 Bogle, 63. 499 Ibid. 500 Floyd C. Covington, “The Negro invades Hollywood,” The Opportunity, April 1929, 112-113. 501 Ibid. 502 Ibid. 503 Ina Rae Hark, Introduction to American Cinema of the 1930s: Themes and Variations (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 1. 504 Jewell, 30.

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505 Donald Bogle, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (New York: One World Books, 2005), 104. 506 Sitkoff, 27. 507 Bogle, 103. 508 “Bill Robinson godfather to Harlem kids,” Batlimore Afro-American, August 15, 1931, 5. 509 Fay Jackson, “Movies want only ‘Uncle Tom’ and ‘mammy’ types,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 12, 1935, 8. 510 Jackson, “Fredi Washington hits new note…” (See Note 480). 511 Jackson, “Movies want only…” (See Note 516). 512 Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), 120. 513 “Race press is ignored by big film interests,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1934, A9. 514 Fay Jackson, “Fredi Washington hits new note…” (See Note 480).. 515 Chappy Gardner, “Courier critic sees ‘Emperor Jones’ in the making,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 24, 1933. A6. 516 Ralph Matthews, “An Open Letter to Miss Ethel Waters,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 14, 1934, 20. 517 “Paul Robeson film cut,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 7, 1933, 1. 518 Stanley Cooper, “Robeson hit for his part in ‘Emperor Jones,’” Chicago Defender, November 11, 1933, 5. 519 Louis R. Lautier, “Paul Robeson had hard road to success,” Chicago Defender, October 7, 1933, 10. 520 “Prepared to go abroad to stay Robeson claims,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 7, 1932, 1. 521 “Robeson’s wife hits separation rumor as false,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 18, 1931, 1; “Robesons deny rift rumor,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 18, 1931, 1; “Insult, declares Paul Robeson, linked with Nancy Conard; may sure,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1932, 1. 522 “Guided hubby to fame” [caption], Pittsburgh Courier, September 27, 1924, 1. 523 “Geneva gossip links Paul Robeson with British policy,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 19, 1925, 23. 524 “‘Tired of each other’ – Robesons,” Atlanta Daily World, June 28, 1932, 1. 525 “Harlemites quizzed on Robeson,” Atlanta Daily World, June 30, 1932, 1. 526 “Robesons’ divorce suit is off,” New York Amsterdam News, February 8, 1933, 1. 527 “Wife of noted singer confirms report on return to U.S.,” Chicago Defender, February 11, 1933, 1. 528 Lydia T. Buckstall-Brown, “Looking at the stars: A woman’s defense of Paul Robeson,” November 4, 1933, 18. 529 Rob Roy, “‘Emperor Jones’ has more than Paul Robeson’s acting,” Chicago Defender, November 25, 1933, 5. 530 “Stepin Fetchit once studied for ministry,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 8, 1929, 1. 531 “Step-in-Fetchit steps out – tries matrimony,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 13, 1929, 1; “Three views of the lazy actor who suddenly came to life, last week when his valet and helper came to rehearsal late,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 23, 1935, 17. 532 Paul Robeson, “Robeson – ‘Crusader’ – shoots at Negro inferiority complex,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 17, 1934, 5. 533 Fritz Cansler, “Bill Robinson’s show clicks in Denver theatre,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 23, 1932, A7; “Bill Robinson comes to Howard,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 12, 1931, 18. 534 “She performed for charity – for $400” [caption], Philadelphia Tribune, August 2, 1934, 1. 535 “Bill Robinson puts over big benefit,” Chicago Defender, October 15, 1927, 9; “Bill Robinson’s show nets charities $3,084,” Chicago Defender, January 11, 1930, 10; “Bill Robinson plays Santa,” Chicago Defender, May 6, 1933, 5; “‘Bojangles’ Robinson made honorary member of Kiddies Club at Tribune annual party,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 16, 1931, 1; “Benefit rackets costly, says Bojangles,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 15, 1934, 7. 536 “Bill Robinson tells some dance secrets,” New York Amsterdam News, December 10, 1930, 8.

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537 “Expert tells how Bill Robinson saved Louis-Rampage bout out west,” Chicago Defender, March 23, 1935, 16. 538 “Race riot barely averted when men insult actresses,” New York Amsterdam News, September 19, 1928, 1. 539 “World’s greatest single” [caption], Chicago Defender, February 23, 1924, 1. 540 Jewell, 280. 541 Robert L. Vann, “Saw Shirley Temple…and Bill Robinson,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 23, 1935, A7. 542 Jewell, 282. 543 “Bill Robinson wed 15 years; dancer still a baby to his wife,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 6, 1935, 5; Fay Jackson, “Hollywood turns on the heat for Bill Robinson,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 8, 1935, 9. 544 Bernice Patton, “‘Mayor of Harlem’ gets key to Hollywood,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 8, 1934, A8. 545 Sylvester Russell, “Bill Robinson tells his story,” New York Amsterdam News, October 16, 1929, 9; Fay Jackson, “Hollywood turns on the heat…;” Walter Welch, “Can Bill Robinson cut the fool as much as he pleases? [letter to the editor],” Baltimore Afro-American, September 14, 1935, 9; Chappy Gardner, “‘Born Buddies’ star stops Lafayette benefit,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 6, 1930, 18. 546 “Fredi Washington selected after long hunt,” Atlanta Daily World, January 17, 1935, 5. 547 Ibid. 548 Bogle, 127-128. 549 Ibid., 129. 550 Ibid., 130. 551 “Their drama poignant” [caption], Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1934, 1. 552 “Fredi Washington and film ‘Imitation’ capture the city,” Chicago Defender, February 16, 1935, 9; “She is star in ‘problem’ photoplay” [caption], Pittsburgh Courier, September 1, 1934, 1; “Talent plus looks” [caption], Atlanta Daily World, May 2, 1932, 1. 553 “Talent plus looks…” (See Note 560). 554 Hilda See, “You can thank Georgia for Fredi Washington,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1935, 8. 555 “Fredi Washington hands Hollywood a lemon,” Atlanta Daily World, April 15, 1934, 7. 556 “Fredi Washington broke oath for ‘Imitation,’” Atlanta Daily World, January 24, 1935, 3. According to Bogle, Washington was romantically involved with Ellington himself, but there is nothing in Black press newspapers to suggest that – if the two were involved – any journalists or gossip columnists had any idea. The only “evidence” is a lone photograph that ran in the Defender in 1932 of Washington perched on Ellington’s piano. 557 William Smallwood, “Louise Beavers in D.C.; tells of movie stars she knows,” Baltimore Afro- American, March 9, 1935, 9; Lula Jones Garrett, “Nothing Delilah-like in real Louise Beavers,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 18, 1935, 9. 558 Garrett, ” Nothing Delilah-like…” (See Note 565). 559 Ibid. 560 George Hall, “‘The Inside’ – Louise Beavers,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 14 1935, 1. 561 Louis R. Lautier, “Louise Beavers wouldn’t use epithet in ‘Imitation of Life,’” Baltimore Afro- American, March 3, 1925, 9. 562 “Louise Beavers believes talkie roles misunderstood,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 23, 1935, 8. 563 “Louise Beaver scored film role through luck,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1935, 8. 564 “Color bars Louise Beavers from film award,” Associated Negro Press release, March 2, 1935, A8. 565 Fay Jackson, “Louise Beavers, overnight star, snubs colored reporters,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 22, 1934, 8. 566 “Paul Robeson to hold lead spot in film ‘Show Boat,’” Atlanta Daily World, October 22, 1935, 2. 567 Bogle, 121.

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568 Ralph Matthews, “Watching the big parade: Paul Robeson, hero or coward?,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 26, 1935, 4.

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569 James Miller, “Says jazz has a place in music,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 28, 1930, A6. 570 Thomas Cripps, Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 (London: Oxford University Press, 1977). 571 Court Carney, Cuttin’ Up: How Early Jazz Got America’s Ear (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2009), 13. 572 “Louis Armstrong to headline Fays Theatre show September 6,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 29, 1935, 11. 573 Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), xiv. 574 Ibid., 76. 575 Ibid., 77. 576 Ibid. 577 Floyd J. Calvin, “Cab Calloway’s rise to fame was sensational,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 31, 1931, A8. 578 Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 437. 579 Brooks, 444. For example, one advertisement read: “Do you own a phonograph of any make and have you tried to purchase records which would bring to your home the singing and playing of the best Negro artists? …You wanted to bring to your home and to your family and to your friends the voice of the individual Negro singer or the playing of the individual Negro performer who would take high rank among the invisible makers of music and singers of song whom the phonograph has brought to cheer your spare moments after the grind of the day’s work is done.” 580 “Roland Hayes’ success should ‘pave the way,’” Chicago Defender, November 24, 1923, 5. 581 J.A. Rogers, “Roland Hayes, The Negro Ambassador,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 22, 1927, 8. 582 “Roland Hayes makes contribution,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 17, 1925, 16. 583 “Roland Hayes, art and race prejudice,” Chicago Defender, December 19, 1925, A10. 584 “Flay Roland Hayes for Jim Crow,” Afro-American, January 9, 1926, 1. Summary of events pieced together from this and the following articles: “Hayes deserts stage,” Chicago Defender, January 16, 1926, 1; “Nagging Roland Hayes,” Chicago Defender, February 6, 1926, A12; “Afro readers blame Roland Hayes for Lyric Jim Crow,” Afro-American, January 16, 1926, 10; “Roland Hayes and the race rumpus,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 23, 1926, 10. 585 “Afro readers blame Roland Hayes for Lyric Jim Crow…” (See Note 593). 586 “Nagging Roland Hayes…” (See Note 593) 587 Spelled in some reports “Colloredo” 588 “Hayes’ engagement reported smashed,” Afro-American, December 22, 1928, 1. 589 Ibid. 590 “Roland Hayes denies rumor of engagement,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 8, 1926, 1. 591 “Hayes’ engagement reported smashed” (see Note 597) 592 “He is a Negro, a singer and a hero of a countess,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 25, 1926, 1. From the look of this front page, it appears that the Tribune was going through some changes itself, perhaps trying to shake its former conservatism in favor of more trendy reporting, in line with the Afro-American, Courier and Defender. Next to the Hayes story, dancer “Dot” Bell is featured in a seductive pose with the caption “Nudity: The Other Side of It.” 593 Ralph Matthews, “Roland Hayes: Still bachelor after 40 years,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 15, 1933, 9. 594 Ibid. 595 Miller, A6 (see Note 1). 596 “Jazz vs. the classics,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 7, 1925, 8.

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597 “Bessie Smith, blues queen, at the Royal,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 26, 1930, A8; “Bessie Smith’s going,” Chicago Defender, August 13, 1927, 6; “Bessie Smith,” Chicago Defender, July 19, 1930, 5. 598 “Bessie Smith here next week,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 15, 1924, 10. 599 Floyd G. Snelson, Jr., “Bessie Smith and ‘gang’ click at Grand Theatre,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 6, 1932, A7; “Bessie Smith, Columbia Records star, at Grand,” Chicago Defender, November 8, 1924, 6. 600 Rob Roy, “Lil Armstrong rivals her famous husband,” Chicago Defender, September 29, 1934, 8. 601 For example, see W.G.N., “Ethel Waters captivates city in ‘Africana,’” Pittsburgh Courier, January 28, 1928, A2; Marvel Cooke, “Ethel Waters does best amid turmoil,” July 6, 1935, 7; Louis R. Lautier, “Ethel Waters too busy so Hollywood comes to her,” Chicago Defender, December 8, 1934, 8; “Close-up of Ethel Waters, comedienne,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 6, 1926, 6; “Ethel Waters,” Baltimore Afro- American, June 16, 1922, 4. 602 “Close-up of Ethel Waters…” (See Note 610). 603 Carney, 30. See also, Burton W. Peretti, The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). Peretti noted that, specifically, blues and jazz have the following elements in common: blues harmony, melismatic phrasing, and instrumental improvisation, as well as roots in New Orleans. 604 Peretti, 39-57. 605 “Musicians will not follow star into crackerland,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 10, 1922, 11; “Musicians quit; Ethel Waters goes south,” Chicago Defender, February 22, 1922, 7. 606 “Cab Calloway mobbed twice in Memphis,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 22, 1934, 1. 607 Ralph Matthews, “Watching the big parade: Cab Calloway and the Memphis mob,” Baltimore Afro- American, September 29, 1934, 4. 608 Peretti, 178. 609 Ollie Stewart, “What price jazz? [sic],” Chicago Defender, April 27, 1934, 12. 610 Ibid. 611 E.G.P., “Reviewer finds Cab Calloway at best displaying wares for Broadway folk,” New York Amsterdam News, October 28, 1931, 10; Frank Marshall Davis, “Duke Ellington, ‘just plain folks,’ likes drinks, cards and movies,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 9, 1935, 9; “London gives its opinion of Cab Calloway,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 14, 1934, 21. 612 “Not normal after jazz,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 25, 1920, 1. 613 “Jazz music makes dancers drunk,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 20, 1923, 6. 614 Betty Barclay, “This jazz-mad modern generation,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 20, 1930, 11. 615 Henry T. McCrary, “Philadelphia minister decried prevalence of jazz music in our religious services,” April 21, 1934, A10. There are some clear indications that the Black church was going through a bit of a crisis during this period; several articles contemplated how to remedy stale religious services. For example, the Broadway Temple Methodist Episcopal Church invited Cab Calloway to play spirituals at Sunday service in fall 1932. Rev. Dr. Christian F. Reisner told the Afro-American, “What we need is more of the old-fashioned thrill in religion…Nowadays we have too much cold-storage religion.” (“Cab Calloway goes to church,” November 12, 1932, 10). 616 “Has jazz been a help or a hindrance to racial progress?” Baltimore Afro-American, October 14, 1933, 18. It is unclear how jazz’s connection to Jewish people, and therefore rejection by German Nazis, began, but in 1935 a Nazi publication, Stuermer, claimed that, “Jazz music hails from the brains of Jewish curb composers, invented at a time when the Jews reigned over the Fatherland and triumphed over German folk songs with their dirty Jewish jokes and ditties. It is quite wrong to say that jazz hails from colored people.” To the Nazis, Jazz represented “the Jewish idea of life with its disharmony and distortion.” These comments were published in the December 21, 1935 edition of the Baltimore Afro-American (“Jews, not colored people, blamed for jazz evil by Nazis,” p. 8). 617 Ibid. 618 James Lincoln Collier, Jazz: The American Theme Song (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 203.

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619 Miller, “Says jazz…” (see Note 578). 620 Collier, 204. 621 Floyd G. Snelson, Jr., “Harlem limited Broadway bound: Duke Ellington,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 22, 1930, A8. 622 Ralph Matthews, “Looking at the stars: Cab Calloway: A boy who built a house of dreams and lives in it,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 30, 1932, 16. “Minnie the Moocher” is a reference to a character in one of Calloway’s signature compositions. 623 Warren Scholl, “Hot jazz is dead in America, but Duke Ellington, a creator, carries on,” Baltimore Afro- American, November 16, 1935, 9. 624 Duke Ellington, “Society slants: That certain swing is needed for real snappy lazy music,” Atlanta Daily World, July 21, 1935, 2. 625 Rob Roy, “Cab Calloway sets all-time mark at Savoy,” Chicago Defender, September 2, 1933, 5. 626 “Louis Armstrong, world’s best cornetist, here Monday, Tuesday,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 3, 1930, 8. 627 Frank Marshall Davis, “Duke Ellington, ‘Just plain folks’… (See Note 469). 628 “High tribute paid to Duke Ellington,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 15, 1931, 7. 629 “Hollywood calls the Duke Ellington rehearsals hot,” Chicago Defender, May 12, 1934, 9. 630 “Harlem asking itself, Why is Duke Ellington leaving the Cotton Club?” Baltimore Afro-American, January 24, 1931, 9. 631 Frank Marshall Davis, “Duke Ellington, ‘just plain folks’… (See Note 469); “Duke Ellington talks of the problems of well-dressed men,” Chicago Defender, April 28, 1934, 8. 632 “America’s highest paid and most glamorous band, led by the inimitable ‘Duke,’ coming here for monster coronation,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 28, 1930, 7. 633 Donald Bogle, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (New York: One World Books, 2005), 130-134. 634 Ralph Matthews, “Watching the big parade: Cab Calloway and the Memphis mob,” Baltimore Afro- American, September 29, 1934, 4. 635 Ralph Matthews, “What becomes of talented amateur actors? Many successful,” Baltimore Afro- American, March 14, 1931, 8. 636 “Cab Calloway is boy again as Ikoms and Dizzy Debs revel,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 23, 1933, 3. 637 “Cotton Club at the Lafayette,” New York Amsterdam News, May 25, 1932, 7. 638 Rob Roy, “Cab Calloway sets all-time mark at Savoy” (See Note 635). 639 Ralph Matthews, “Looking at the stars… (See Note 632). 640 George Murphy, “Cab Calloway, Cotton Club maestro, likes home, wife,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 4, 1931, 9; Rilious Reed, “Cab Calloway is tops with noise,” Chicago Defender, May 4, 1935, 13; Matthews, “LATS: A boy who built a house of dreams…” 16 (See Note 632); Ralph Matthews, “What becomes of talented amateur actors?..., 8 (See Note 645). 641 Oliver Smith, “Cab Calloway’s own story of his trip abroad,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 12, 1934, A8. 642 Rilious Reed, “Cab Calloway is tops..., 13 (See Note 650). 643 Matthews, “LATS: A boy who built a house of dreams…” 16 (See Note 632). 644 Scholl, “Hot jazz…” (See Note 633); “Duke Ellington’s trip abroad answers Europe’s plea for best in jazz,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 15, 1933, 11; “Paramount shudders as Duke rehearses,” Atlanta Daily World, May 13, 1934, 7; Ellington, 2. 645 Scholl, “Hot jazz…” (See Note 633). 646 “Paris hears and likes Louis Armstrong’s band,” Chicago Defender, December 1, 1934, 9. 647 “Louis Armstrong, world’s best cornetist…” (See Note 636). See also, “Louis Armstrong to open in New York,” Chicago Defender, February 16, 1935, 8; “Louis Armstrong goes back to Cotton Club; may retire,” Chicago Defender, April 9, 1932, 5; “Gangs theatre Louis Armstrong [sic],” Chicago Defender, January 1, 1932, 5. 648 Levi Jolley, “Louis Armstrong’s ex-manager takes receipts at dance,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 13, 1935, 8.

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649 “‘Black rascal’ sold 100,000 records,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 18, 1932, 16. 650 George Tyler, “Louis Armstrong learned to blow trumpet in municipal home for boys,” Baltimore Afro- American, December 26, 1931, 9. 651Edgar Wiggins, “Louis Armstrong breaks with manager; sails home,” Chicago Defender, February 9, 1935, 9; Chappy Gardner, “Louis Armstrong arrested in big dope scandal,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 6, 1930, 1; “Louis Armstrong out of jail,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 26, 1931, 1. 652 Chappy Gardner, “Louis Armstrong arrested in big dope scandal,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 6, 1930, 1; “Louis Armstrong out of jail,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 26, 1931, 1. 653 This point made with specific reference to: Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009); Laurence Bergreen, Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life (New York: Broadway Books, 1997); and Harvey Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Cohen is particularly interested in positioning Ellington within the purview of Harlem Renaissance artists with whom he shared the desire to “live and create in a way that undermined racial barriers and stereotypes…without standing on a soapbox” (p. 3). However, James Lincoln Collier’s Duke Ellington (Oxford Univ. Press, 1987), with its emphasis on Ellington’s early career, undermines the general positioning of Ellington as a someone who was personally invested in the race issue; rather, Collier argued that Ellington was not generally vocal about racial politics until later on in his career. 654 Teachout, 17-18 655 Cohen, 8 656 “Louis Armstrong splits with manager; both admit to break,” Chicago Defender, October 21, 1933, 5. 657 Cleveland Allen, “East hears Louis Armstrong seeks divorce from his wife,” Chicago Defender, April 28, 1934, 8. 658 Omar LaGrange, “Texas town still raves over Duke Ellington,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 2, 1933, A6. 659 John Stokes Holley, “Brown skin may be an asset, Duke Ellington tells reporter,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 1, 1935, 11. 660 Brooks, 436. 661 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Working in the ‘Kingdom of Culture’: African Americans and American Popular Culture, 1890-1930,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011), 11.

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662 Ric Roberts, “Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Oze Simmons, J. Henry Lewis, Willis Ward startle the world,” Atlanta Daily World, November 4, 1935, 5. 663 David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller, Introduction to Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America (New York: Routledge, 2004), ix. 664 David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller, The Unlevel Playing Field (Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2003), 3. 665 Edwin B. Henderson, “Race hatred tends to decrease in the Olympics,” Atlanta Daily World, August 15, 1932, 5. 666 Juli Jones, Jr., “In the squared circle: Battling Siki,” Chicago Defender, March 17, 1923, 10. 667 For example, see “Afro reporter finds soft-voiced Battling Siki not the ‘savage’ pictured by the daily press,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 28, 1923, A1; “Battling Siki wins crowd at Gayety,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 28, 1923, 14; Warren Brown, “Knocked out, Battling Siki is borne from ring of life forever,” New York Amsterdam News, December 23, 1925; 6; “Battling Siki loses,” Chicago Defender, December 26, 1925, A8. 668 “Jesse Owens just normal American boy, Howard U. Scientist reveals,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 30, 1935, 1. 669 Henry V. Edwards, “The Olympics!” New York Amsterdam News, August 10, 1932, 9 670 Romeo L. Dougherty, “Sports Whirl: George Lattimer and Jesse Owens,” New York Amsterdam News, June 8, 1935, 14; see also Ric Roberts, “Joe Louis, Jesse Owens… (See Note 1). 671 Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, Introduction to Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America (New York, Routledge, 2004), xi. 672 This point is made with particular reference to the story of Willis Ward, who played football for Michigan State during the 1930s. In 1934, Georgia Tech refused to take the field against Michigan if they played Ward; in response, Ward was forced to sit out. Ward’s story lives on, in part, because teammate and future President Gerald Ford refused to take the field if his friend Ward did not. No doubt there were countless other “Wards” during this period whose stories have been lost or forgotten. 673 Kasia Boddy, Boxing: A Cultural History (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 209-213. Previously, boxing had been considered an underground phenomenon, tied closely with criminality and immoral behavior. 674 “Louis Firpo robbed of the heavyweight crown,” The Chicago Defender, September 22, 1923, 10; “Fay says…” The Chicago Defender, January 17, 1925, 9. 675 Baltimore Afro-American would run articles intermittently like this: “Jack Johnson, Peter Jackson, world’s greatest heavyweights,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 15, 1927, 12. The Defender ran a series starting with this article in 1923: Tony Langston, “Ringside Recollections,” Chicago Defender, January 20, 1923, 7. 676 For a full discussion of this coverage, see Carrie Teresa, “Great Hopes Forgotten: A Narrative Analysis of Boxing Coverage in Black Press Newspapers, 1920-1930,” paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, August 8-12, 2013. 677 Jack Johnson, My Life and Battles, trans., Christopher Rivers(London: Praeger 2007); Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out (National Sports Publishing Company, 1927); for information on Jack Johnson’s recording career, see Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004). 678 Jack Johnson, “Godfrey greater fighter than Wills but Dixie pugs are timid,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 18, 1929, B4. 679 Ralph Matthews, “Joe Gans: Master boxer, great lover, champion stone thrower,” Baltimore Afro- American, January 21, 1927, 4. 680 For example see Juli Jones, Jr., “Joe Gans, world’s welter and lightweight champion,” Chicago Defender, July 24, 1920, 9; Juli Jones, Jr., “Joe Gans, Old Master of them all, fought his way to the top,” Chicago Defender, December 17, 1921, 9; “Joe Gans real master among ring supermen,” Pittsburgh

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Courier, March 25, 1929, B6; “Joe Gans-McGovern battle recalled,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 11, 1926, 15; Chester L. Washington, “Downfall of Gans, the Old Master, in boxing’s halcyon days recalled,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 10, 1934; “Joe Gans, king of the lightweights, fought best bout in 1898,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 31, 1927, 11; Nat Fleischer, “Supermen of the ring - No. 10: Joe Gans,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 29, 1927, A5; R.L.D., “Joe Gans downed White 25 years ago,” New York Amsterdam News, March 17, 1924, 13. 681 For example see, “Joe Louis tells his own story: Admires Sam Langford and Joe Gans for lessons they left him,” New York Amsterdam News, September 7, 1935, 2A; “‘Joe Louis is another Joe Gans’ – Sam Langford,” Chicago Defender, July 20, 1935, 14. 682 Juli Jones, Jr., “Joe Gans, world’s welter…” (See Note 692); Juli Jones, Jr., “Joe Gans, Old Master…” (see Note 692). 683 Juli Jones, Jr., “Joe Gans, world’s welter…” (See Note 692). 684 Chester L. Washington, “Downfall of Gans…” (See Note 692). 685 David L. Hudson, Jr., Boxing in America: An Autopsy (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012), 27. 686 William Gildea, The Longest Fight: In the Ring with Joe Gans, Boxing’s First African American Champion (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 4. 687 Randy Roberts, Jack Dempsey: The Manassa Mauler (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2003), 141. 688 “Walk Miller thinks we’re out,” New York Amsterdam News, August 25, 1926, 13. 689 Juli Jones, “1929 was best year boxers had of past ten,” Chicago Defender, January 8, 1921, 6. 690 Ibid. 691 Ed Hughes, “Godfrey and McVey color line victims,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 7, 1928, 12. 692 “Cause celebre” quote in Roberts, Jack Dempsey, 214; “size as impressive as his record” quote in Roberts, 141. 693 “Dempsey finds another loophole,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 28, 1925, 9. 694 Roberts, 143. 695 Juli Jones, “In the Squared Circle,” The Chicago Defender, February 23, 1923, 10. 696 “You tell ‘em, we haven’t the heart,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 16, 1921, 8; see also, “The Week,” Chicago Defender, May 26, 1923, 13. 697 Rollo Wilson, “‘Harry Wills worse than I thought’ – Wilson,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 23, 1927, A4; see also Wm. Pickens, “Harry Wills – a success,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 23, 1927, A14. 698 “The sportive realm,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 15, 1923, 6. 699 “Wills greatest but most unpopular champion,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 11, 1925, A6. 700 “Battling Siki born in Africa kidnapped by German dancer,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 27, 1922, 5. 701 “Battling Siki pays visit to Defender office,” Chicago Defender, February 2, 1924, 9. 702 “Afro reporter finds soft-voiced Battling Siki not the ‘savage’ pictured by the daily press,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 28, 1923, A1; William White, “New York police arrest Battling Siki in theater,” Chicago Defender, September 29, 1923, 13; Al Monroe, “Battling Siki knows little English,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 8, 1924. 703 G.L. Mackey, “Sports Mirror: Battling Siki,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 6, 1924, A4. 704 “Thug murders Battling Siki,” Chicago Defender, December 19, 1925, 1. 705 Fay King, “Don’t be silly like poor Mister Battling Siki,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 26, 1925, 3. Article originally printed in the New York Daily Mirror. 706 This was especially surprising given the popularity of Negro League baseball, in particular. Though, as most histories on the subject will admit, many of the Negro League players that lived on in memory (i.e., Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Roy Campanella, and others) only emerged in the 1940s, as the opportunity to cross over to the Major League made baseball a particularly newsworthy phenomenon, thanks of course to Jackie Robinson and the sportswriter who chronicled his crossover, the Courier’s Wendell Smith. 707 “Jesse Owens: He wouldn’t let a sore leg stop him,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 3, 1935, 6. 708 Nannie Burroughs, “Stars of Olympics have set example for youth to follow,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 13, 1932, 16.

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709 Ibid. However joyful, the games were marred by one incident in which track and field female competitors Louise Stokes and Tydie Pickett were, the day of their races, replaced by two white competitors with little explanation offered. Though clearly disappointed, journalists stopped short of suggesting that racism had played a significant role in the replacement of Stokes and Pickett. 710 Harry V. Edwards, “The Olympics!” (See Note 681); see also “‘Olympic victories not all joy,’ says Tolan,” Atlanta Daily World, August 16, 1932, 5; Thomas J. Anderson, “Eddie Tolan wins 100 meter Olympic classic,” New York Amsterdam News, August 3, 1932, 1. 711 “Jesse Owens straightens out tangled love affairs,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 6, 1935, 1; “Jesse Owens: Popularity is worrisome to sprinter,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 7, 1935, 21; “Jesse Owens,” Has the world’s greatest jumping legs,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 24, 1935, 20. 712 “What! Jesse Owens considering Ohio?” Chicago Defender, August 5, 1933, 8; Vernon Williams, “Jesse Owens, schoolboy sprinter, born in Decatur, Ala., always was ‘swift’ boy,” Baltimore Afro- American, August 26, 1933, 20; “Captain Jesse Owens: An Editorial,” Chicago Defender, June 15, 1935, 13. Ohio State had previously segregated its home economics program, so that a young African American woman participating in the program was unable to participate in an internship designed to have female students get practical experience living in and running an actual household. 713 “Our own Jesse Owens!” Atlanta Daily World, May 31, 1935, 5. See also, “Jesse Owens hopes to coach team of a Negro college,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 13, 1935, 11. 714 Fay M. Jackson, “Los Angeles likes Owens, and Jesse likes city too,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 29, 1935, 21; “Life story of Jesse Owens,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 20, 1935, 21; Williams, “Jesse Owens, schoolboy sprinter…” The one exception to this overwhelming sense of acceptance was a New York Amsterdam News article which charged that the Southern press did not sufficiently cover Owens’s Big Ten performance (“Dixie solons would ignore great athlete,” June 8, 1935, 14). 715 All quotations from the follow paragraph taken from: Harry Levette, “Sift news of marital intent of Jesse Owens,” Chicago Defender, June 29, 1935, 4; Bill Crain, “Miss Nickerson explains what Jesse Owens meant in her young life,” Atlanta Daily World, July 29, 1935, 1; Florence M. Collins, “Louis and Owens create mild riot in Washington,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 31, 1935, 13; “Jesse Owens straightens out tangled love affairs,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 6, 1935, 1; “Put on spot, Jesse Owens declares he’ll marry Cleveland love,” Atlanta Daily World, July 3, 1935, 1; Jackson, “Los Angeles likes Owens…” (See Note 727). 716 Collins, “Louis and Owens…” (See Note 716). 717 “Track and field stars shine at Chicago,” New York Amsterdam News, June 21, 1933, 8A. 718 See for example “Owens, Peacock, Metcalfe, favor running in Olympics,” Chicago Defender, December 14, 1935, 14; “Olympic body in a fuss over Jesse Owens,” Chicago Defender, November 16, 1935, 15. 719 “The 1936 Olympic Games: An Open Letter,” New York Amsterdam News, August 24, 1935, 1. 720 Ibid. 721 “Stay out of the Olympics: An editorial,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 14, 1935, 23. 722 Eustace Gay, “Facts and Fancies: The Olympics,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 19, 1935, 4. 723 Owens did end up not only competing in the 1936 Olympics, but also making history. He brought home four gold medals: 100-meter, 200-meter, long-jump, and as part of the 4x100 relay team. 724 For example see Barney Nagler, Brown Bomber (New York: World Publications, 1972); Chris Mead, Champion Joe Louis: Black Hero in White America (New York: C. Scribner’s & Sons, 1985); David Margolick, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink (New York: Knopf, 2005); Randy Roberts, Joe Louis: Hard Times Man (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2010); and Richard Bak, Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope (Dallas: Taylor Publications, 1996). 725 Edgar T. Rouzeau, “Joe Louis here to knock ‘em out! Theatre fans first, Carnera next,” New York Amsterdam News, May 18, 1935, 1. 726 Roberts, “Joe Louis, Jessie Owens…” (See Note 672). 727 Orrin C. Evans, “Louis cool, silent,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 26, 1935, 1. 728 Florence M. Collins, “Louis and Owens… (see Note 728).

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729 Bill Gibson, “Mail at Joe Louis’s camp totals 75 letters a day,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 15, 1935, 1; Russell J. Cowans, “Joe Louis’s fan mail is increasing daily,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 13, 1935, 1; Russell J. Cowans, “Joe Louis gets oodles of love notes,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 24, 1935, 1. 730 “Joe Louis to honeymoon at sea,” Baltimore-Afro-American, September 14, 1935, 1. 731 Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006). 732 “Courier writers with a ‘punch’ to cover Louis-Carnera fight,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 22, 1935, 1. 733 “And the Courier ‘marches ahead’ again,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 10, 1935, 1. 734 Al Monroe, “Joe Louis in secret drill,” Chicago Defender, September 21, 1935, 1. As Monroe told it, Louis singled him out as the “short one” from the collection of journalists present at camp and allowed him to watch the session because Monroe had lost a game of pool the evening before.

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735 Roz Edward, “Let’s hope hip-hop steps up in 2014,” Atlanta Daily World, January 2, 2014. 736 Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Song-ho Ha, “A Unity of Opposites: The Black College-Educated Elite, Black Workers, and the Community Development Process,” in Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900-1950, eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Walter Hill (New York: Garland, 2000), 35. 737 Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News (2nd Ed.) (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012), 72. 738 Ibid., 75. 739 “Race press is ignored by big film interests,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1934, A9. 740 Jessie Fauset, “The Symbolism of Bert Williams,” The Crisis, Vol. 24, No. 1, May 1922, 12-14. 741 Floyd G. Snelson, Jr., “Harlem limited Broadway bound: Duke Ellington,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 22, 1930, A8. 742 Barbie Zelizer, “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12, no. 2 (June 1995): 219. 743 Murali Bulaji, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois (New York: Nation Books, 2007), 26. 744 For example, see Martin Baumi Duberman, Paul Robeson (New York: New Press: 1988). 745 Andrea Tuttle Kornbluh, “Municipal Harmony: Cultural Pluralism, Public Recreation, and Race Relations,” in Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900-1950, eds. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. and Walter Hill (New York: Garland: 2000), 78; Nagueyalti Warren, Grandfather of Black Studies: W.E.B. DuBois (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011), 111. 746 Ibid., 4. 747 Ibid., 6. 748 Ibid. 749 Carolyn Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 99. 750 Schudson, 29-30. 751 Frank Marshall Davis, “Duke Ellington, ‘just plain folks,’ likes drinks, cards, and movies,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 2, 1935, 9. 752 John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (7th Ed.) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 434. 753 S.R. Nelson, “Duke Ellington over London,” New York Amsterdam News, July 26, 1933, 7. 754 W.E.B. DuBois, “The Talented Tenth,” The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of To-day (New York, 1903). 755 Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York; Basic Books, 2004), 246. 756 Ibid. 757 Orrin C. Evans, “Harlem wild as tidal wave of joy sweeps through streets,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 27, 1935, 1. 758 W.E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1903), 3. 759 Ibid. 760 Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, African American History Reconsidered (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 18-20. 761 See for example Roberts, Jack Dempsey; Bruce Evensen, When Dempsey Fought Tunney: Heroes, Hokum, and Storytelling in the Jazz Age. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1996. 762 The Baltimore Afro-American, for instance, is now subsumed under the online publication the Afro News. 763 Tim Wise, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equality (San Francisco: City Lights Books), 2010; Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism

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and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States (New York: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003). 764 Thomas M. Shapiro, The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2012). 765 Wise, 191. 766 Kris Ex, “Kendrick Lamar vs. GQ: Racism Rears its Head?” Ebony.com, November 18, 2013. 767 Ibid. 768 Karen Matthews and Nekesa Mumbi Moody, “Jay Z defends deal with Barneys New York,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 29, 2013. 769 Ibid. 770 Edward, “Let’s hope…” (See Note 736). 771 Ibid. 772 [caption], The Crisis, Fall 2013, 1.

307

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Films

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Nelson, Stanley. Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind. Streaming video.

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Nelson, Stanley. The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords. VHS. Directed by Stanley

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Farrar, Hayward. “See What the Afro Says: The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892-1950”

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Jackson, Sarah. “African American Celebrity Dissent and a Tale of Two Public Spheres:

A Critical and Comparative Analysis of the Mainstream and Black Press, 1949-

2005.” PhD diss., University of Missouri, 2010.

Teresa, Carrie, and Carolyn Kitch. “The Kids Are Not Alright: The Symbolic Functions

of Children in Anniversary Memory of September 11.” Paper presented at the

Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication, Chicago, IL,

August 10-13, 2012.

Teresa, Carrie. “Great Hopes Forgotten: A Narrative Analysis of Boxing Coverage in

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PRIMARY SOURCES

Newspapers

Atlanta Daily World Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: December 1931 – December 1932; January 1934 – December 1935

Baltimore Afro-American Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: January 1895 – December 1899; January 1901 – December 1935

Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition) Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: July 1909 – December 1935

Cleveland Gazette Source: America’s Historical Newspapers: African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 [digital] Dates available: January 1895 – December 1925; January – December 1935

Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer Source: America’s Historical Newspapers: African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 [digital] Dates available: January 1889 – December 1935

New York Age Source: Center for Research Libraries, Global Resources Network [digital] Dates available: January 1919 – December 1926

New York Amsterdam News Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: November 1922 – December 1923; January 1925 – December 1935

Philadelphia Tribune Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: January 1912 – December 1921; January 1923 – December 1935

Pittsburgh Courier Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Historical Newspapers [digital] Dates available: March 1911 – December 1912; January 1923 – December 1935

Savannah Tribune Source: America’s Historical Newspapers: African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 [digital] Dates available: January 1889 – December 1922

323

Magazines

Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA:

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, January 1910 – December 1935

The Opportunity, January 1923 – December 1935

The Messenger, January 1917 – December 1928

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA:

Negro World, February 1923 – October 1933

Selected writings of the period

DuBois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth.” The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by

Representative Negroes of To-day. New York, 1903.

DuBois, W.E.B. “Criteria of Negro Art” in The New Negro: Readings on Race,

Representation, and African American Culture 1892-1938, edited by Henry Louis

Gates Jr. & Gene Andrew Jarrett, 257-259. Princeton: Princeton University Press,

2007.

DuBois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1903

Locke, Alain. “Enter the New Negro.” Survey Graphic (March 1925).

Government documents

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Negro Population, 1790-1915.

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Negroes in the United States,

1920-1932. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935.

324

Films

Emperor Jones, 1933

Imitation of Life, 1934

The Littlest Rebel, 1935

The Little Colonel, 1935

Check and Double-Check, 1930

325