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KEY • TOUR STOP ESRI, HERE, GARMIN, ©OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS, AND THE GIS COMMUNITY RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

Tenant’s League focused on how poor housing led to dispropor- tionately high death rates among Black residents and mobilized hundreds of Black women in the Harlem community. From 1933 to 1934, Burroughs ran the Harlem Worker’s School. In 1934, Bur- roughs ran for Lieutenant Gover- nor of New York with communist party organizer Israel Amter. Al- though she and Amter didn’t win, they received more votes than any other communist leader has ever received in a gubernatorial elec- tion. She died in 1945.

WILLIANA JONES BURROUGHS 200 WEST 135TH ST 415 LENOX AVE Williana Jones Burroughs (1882- 1945) was a Black Communist leader. She was born in 1882 to a formerly enslaved woman in Petersburg, and moved to when she was five years old. After she graduated from , Burroughs started a teaching career that led her into the world of Black Harlem intellectuals and elites, and introduced her to communism. She joined the New York Teachers’ REGINA ANDERSON ANDREWS Union and wrote for the Daily 103-105 WEST 135TH ST Worker and organized within the 580 ST. NICHOLAS AVE Communist Party around the “Negro Regina Anderson Andrews (1901- Question.” In 1928, Burroughs was 1993), born in in 1901, chosen as one of two Black commu- defied the stereotypical image nist leaders to go to Moscow to of the bookish, spinster li- attend Communist International’s brarian. In addition to being a (Comintern) Sixth Congress. She librarian, Andrews was a radical also worked with Louise Thompson activist, playwright, and enter- Patterson on the campaign for tainer. Regina began working as a defense of the Scottsboro Boys, librarian in the Chicago Public and organized within the Har- Library system making up half lem community with the Harlem of one percent of Black librar- 6 Tenant’s League. The Harlem ians in the U.S. When she moved A WALKING TOUR to New York, she worked at the ing Committee (SNCC); Baker was 135th Street Harlem branch of the both the organization’s mentor New York Public Library system and its fervent supporter. To (NYPL), which was the only branch her, it was “crystal clear that that hired Black librarians. At the current sit-ins and oth- the Harlem Branch, Andrews set er demonstrations are concerned aside workspace for famous Black with something bigger than a writers, like and hamburger... The Negro and white Claude McKay. Andrews also devel- students, north and South, are oped a theatre in the basement seeking to rid America of the of the Harlem Library Branch and scourge of co-founded the Krigwa Players and discrimination – not only at with W.E.B. Du Bois. The Krig- the lunch counters but in every wa Players, later known as the aspect of life.” Baker served as Negro Experimental Theatre, was a director of branches of the NAACP groundbreaking theatre company, and as the first executive di- instrumental to the Little The- rector of the Southern Christian atre Movement in Harlem. Andrews Leadership Conference (SCLC). As went on to to become the first an advisor to SNCC, she helped Black supervising librarian at to organize voter registration the previously all-white, 115th projects and was pivotal in Street branch of the NYPL. forming the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. Baker believed in democratic, grass- roots that stressed the role of many ordinary people, not of individual leaders. She lived this philosophy, inspiring a generation of young people in the to do the same.

CLAUDIA JONES ELLA BAKER SPEAKERS’ CORNER ON 135TH STREET 103-105 WEST 135TH ST 452 NICHOLAS AVE Born in Trinidad, Claudia Cumberbatch Jones’s (1915-1965) In 1960, Ella Baker (1903-1986) family immigrated to New York called for a student confer- when she was just nine years ence to organize the spontaneous old. In Harlem, Jones’s family sit-ins spreading throughout the lived in poverty, and her mother South. Those who gathered formed died working an un-unionized the Student Nonviolent Coordinat- factory job when Claudia was 7 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM just 12 years old. The Scottsboro Boys case drew Jones’s atten- tion to the work of the Communist Party USA. At 18, Jones joined the Young Communist League and quickly rose through the ranks of the Harlem Communist Party to become one of the few Black women leaders in the Party. Jones wrote in the Daily Worker about the struggles of poor Black life. For instance, she wrote a col- umn titled “Half of the World,” which tackled what the communist party called “the woman ques- tion.” Jones’s most cited work is her essay titled “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women,” which was published in LORRAINE HANSBERRY Political Affairs in June 1949. SPEAKERS’ CORNER ON 135TH STREET In the essay, Jones suggested an journal. While she did write, that Black women experience tri- Hansberry was mainly a full-time ple discrimination as workers, as activist. She was known for giv- Black people, and as women. Jones ing speeches at speakers corner was sent to prison four times for and was an active organizer and being a member of the communist protester. In 1951, Hansberry party and for her writings. In covered and participated in a December 1955, she was deported gathering billed as a “Sojourn to London. While in London, she for Truth and Justice.” A group founded the West Indian Gazette of 14 Black women leaders issued and started a carnival at Notting “a call to Negro women to convene Hill which millions of British in Washington, D.C. for a So- Caribbeans attend every year to journ for Truth and Justice.” The this day. Jones died at the age manifesto was a response to the of 49 from a heart attack stem- wave of repression that they were ming from her lifelong struggle living under. The conveners were with tuberculosis. She is buried concerned about many issues in- in Highgate Cemetery to the left cluding racial terrorism (lynch- of Karl Marx. ings, police violence, wrongful convictions, etc.) and ending the Korean war, colonialism, South African apartheid, poverty, Lorraine Hansberry was born and more. Later, after marrying and raised on the South Side of Robert B. Nemiroff, who gave her Chicago. She moved to New York space and financial support to in 1950 to study under W.E.B. Du write, Hansberry wrote A Raisin Bois, who said Hansberry was his in the Sun and became the first favorite student. In New York, Black woman to produce a show on Hansberry published a few Broadway. After Raisin, Hansberry 8 poems and wrote for a lesbi- A WALKING TOUR wrote two other plays. Although She supervised white nurses and she was married to Nemiroff for treated Spanish civilians and most of her adult life, Hansber- wounded volunteers of all nation- ry self-identified as a lesbian, alities. When she returned to the wrote about homosexuality, and U.S. in May 1938, she went on a had many women partners in her national speaking tour about her lifetime. She died of cancer at experiences in Spain. She died in 34 years old. Akron, Ohio on May 18, 1990.

MADAME C.J. WALKER 108-110 WEST 136TH STREET Madame C.J. Walker (1867-1919) was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana in 1867. She was raised on farms in Delta SALARIA KEE and in Mississippi, was married HARLEM HOSPITAL ON 506 LENOX AVE by age 14, and was widowed at Born in Milledgeville, Georgia 20. Walker went on to become a in July 1917, Salaria Kee (1917- successful hair and cosmetics 1990) grew up to become “the most entrepreneur – and, by the early prominent black woman in the 20th century, the richest self- international campaign to defend made woman in America. Walker saw Republican Spain (p.104, McDuff- her personal wealth not as an ie).” In 1933, Kee led a demon- end in itself but as a means to stration against segregationist help promote and expand economic policies at the Harlem Hospital opportunities for others, espe- with five other Black nurses. Her cially Black people. She took activism continued when Ita- great pride in the profitable ly conquered Ethiopia in 1935. employment – and alternative to Kee worked with a group of Black domestic labor – that her company nurses at Harlem Hospital to afforded many thousands of Black raise funds for medical supplies women who worked as commissioned for Ethiopia. In 1937, at sales agents. Walker also was 23 years old, she traveled to well known for her philanthropy, Spain where she met with Black supporting Black educational and volunteers from the U.S., the social institutions from the na- Caribbean, and Africa. Kee was tional to the grassroots levels. appointed by the International Medical Unit as the head surgical nurse in a hospital near Madrid. 9 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

A’LELIA WALKER 108-110 WEST 136TH STREET A’Lelia Walker (1885-1931) was VICTORIA EARLE MATTHEWS the only child of Madame C.J. 262 WEST 136TH STREET Walker and hosted one of the most Victoria Earle Matthews (1861- memorable salons of the Harlem 1907) was born in Fort Valley, Renaissance. In “The Dark Tower,” Georgia to an enslaved mother. a converted floor of her New York After Emancipation, Victoria’s townhouse, she entertained Harlem mother moved her family to New and Greenwich Village writers, York. In New York, Matthews wrote artists, and musicians, as well stories about her childhood which as visiting African and European were published in New York Week- royalty. Her parties, along with ly, Waverly magazine, and other her regal beauty, lavish cloth- periodicals. Matthews became a ing, and glamorous lifestyle, freelance journalist writing for inspired singers, poets, and numerous , including sculptors. Langston Hughes called , the New York her the “joy goddess of Harlem’s Herald, the New York Globe, and 1920s”; out- later became a journalist for the lined a play about her and her New York Age, a respected Black mother; and Carl Van Vechten . Matthews also pub- based his Nigger Heaven char- lished a novel, Aunt Lindy, under acter, Adora Boniface, on her. a pseudonym. In 1892, Matthews A’Lelia helped her mother found organized an event to honor and the Madame C.J. Walker Manufac- fundraise for Ida B. Wells’s an- turing Company in 1905, then ti-lynching efforts. Matthews’s opened its New York office and event raised money for Wells’s beauty salon in 1913. Upon Ma- pamphlet, “Southern Horror: Lynch dame C.J. Walker’s death in 1919, Law in All Its Phases.” Wells A’Lelia Walker became president called the event “the greatest of the company. Her interest in demonstration ever attempted by Africa led her in 1922 to become race women for one of their own one of the only westerners to number.” In 1897, after Mat- visit Ethiopian Empress Waizeru thews’s only son died at 16, Zauditu. Matthews founded the White Rose Mission with the purpose of es- 10 tablishing a Christian “Home for A WALKING TOUR

Colored Girls and Women, where ogist, Hurston became a believer they may be trained in the prin- in voodoo. In the 1930s, Hurston ciples of practical self-help and made two trips to Haiti and Ja- right living.” Matthews died of maica. She died poor and mostly tuberculosis in 1907 at the age erased, buried in an unmarked of 45. In 1918, the White Rose grave. It was writer Alice Walker Home and Industrial Association who brought her books back from for Working Girls and Women moved obscurity and put a tombstone on to 136th Street in Harlem, where her gravesite that read “Zora it remained in operation until Neale Hurston: A Genius of the 1984. South.”

ZORA NEALE HURSTON 267 WEST 136TH STREET A writer in the Harlem Renais- sance during the 1920s, Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the LOUISE THOMPSON PATTERSON most prolific Black woman writer of her time. Born in Eatonville, 267 WEST 136TH STREET Florida (the first incorporated Born in 1901 in Chicago, Louise all-Black township in the U.S.), Thompson Patterson (1901-1999) Hurston was the daughter of a moved often as a child. Patterson minister and school teacher. She later was one of the first Black wrote numerous short stories for women graduates of UC Berkeley, literary magazines before en- and after graduation, followed tering in New W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston York as its first Black student. Hughes to Harlem. In Harlem, Hurston graduated in 1928 and Patterson helped Hughes and Zora then continued to work in gradu- Neale Hurston prepare their ate school at Columbia with the writing for publishing, mentored famous anthropologist, Franz Ralph Ellison, worked with the Boas. Over the next 30 years, she International Labor Defense and produced eight novels and three the , and compilations of short stories, joined the Communist Party USA all reflecting her interest in (CPUSA). Patterson became a full- anthropology and women’s issues. fledged organizer in the CPUSA Her best-known work, Their Eyes through the Scottsboro trials. Were Watching God, is a fictional She was the main organizer autobiography. A noted anthropol- of a high-profile protest in 11 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

support of the “Scottsboro Boys” (nine Black boys who were falsely accused in Alabama of raping two white women on a train in 1931). Locking arms with Ruby Bates, one of the white women who had falsely accused the boys of rape, Patterson marched along with 5,000 others toward the demanding the freedom of the Scottsboro Boys and others. During the 1930s, Patterson was a member of communist-sponsored groups such as the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the International Worker’s Order, and 175-179 WEST 137TH ST the International Labor Defense. THE W 137TH STREET BRANCH YWCA These groups confronted issues and was spotted by NCNW presi- that affected the daily lives of dent Mary McLeod Bethune. Twenty Black workers, poor people, and years later, Height became presi- more. For instance, they ad- dent of the NCNW. A veteran civil dressed evictions, provided food, rights campaigner and organizer, and led hundreds of marches and Height also shaped national and strikes. Patterson was 50 years international policy regarding old when she served as the ex- the rights of women – first in ecutive secretary of Sojourners the early 1960s as a member of for Truth and Justice. She was a President Kennedy’s Commission on cultural worker, an organizer, a the Status of Women, and over the feminist, a committed interna- years in United Nations forums on tionalist, and a revolutionary women’s political and economic who traveled to the Soviet Union issues. Height was a human rights and around the globe. activist and organizer in local to international arenas for more than 50 years, and devoted her life to marshaling the creative Born in Richmond, Virginia energies of Black women for their in 1912, Dorothy Height (1912- own empowerment. 2010) grew up in and later studied social work at New York and Columbia Universi- The first Black woman to be ties. She was initially accept- ordained as an Episcopal priest, ed to Barnard College but when Pauli Murray (1910-1985), spent she arrived there, she was told much of her activist life helping that the school already had two to dismantle barriers of racial Black students and was denied and discrimination. “I admission. In 1937, as assis- entered law school preoccupied tant director of the Harlem YWCA, with the racial struggle and sin- Height assisted gle-mindedly bent upon becoming a at a meeting of the National civil rights but I grad- 12 Council of Negro Women (NCNW) uated an unabashed feminist as A WALKING TOUR

ties League (UNIA), the largest and most influential Pan-African organization of the 20th century. Garvey served as general secre- tary of the organization, fund- raised relentlessly, and helped popularize The Negro World news- paper. While Garvey was fiercely ded- icated to the Pan-African cause, she also was disappointed with the roles that women were allowed PAULI MURRAY to play in the UNIA. She left New 175-179 WEST 137TH ST York in 1922 and moved to London, THE W 137TH STREET BRANCH YWCA where she opened a restaurant in the West End which became a gath- well,” Murray said in 1956. ering spot for people like George She often attributed her fight- Padmore, C.L.R. James, and Jomo ing spirit to her upbringing in a Kenyatta. Midwestern working-class family that put a premium on education, character, and upward mobili- ty. From integrating Washington, D.C. lunch counters in the 1940s during her law school days at through her co-founding of the National Orga- nization for Women in the early 1970s, Murray took challenges head-on. In discussing at Howard, she said, “The only way I could counter it was to lead my class. Which I did. For three years.” She went on to teach at several universities and compile a massive reference work on state AMY ASHWOOD GARVEY race laws. In her later years, Murray turned her energies to the 552 BLVD spiritual, attending the Virginia LIBERTY HALL ON 120 WEST 138TH STREET Theological Seminary and serving When Garvey returned to the as an Episcopal priest in Balti- U.S. in 1944, she became active more. in the campaign to elect Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. to Congress. In 1945, she co-chaired, along- side W.E.B. Du Bois, the opening Amy Ashwood Garvey (1897-1969) sessions of the Fifth Pan-Afri- was born in Port Antonio, Ja- can Conference in Manchester, maica in 1897. She co-founded England. Garvey lived in West the Universal Negro Improvement Africa from 1946-1949 and Association and African Communi- was involved in the anti-co- 13 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

lonial struggle. For the rest ics. After this, several under- of her life, she split her time cover FBI agents were sent to among England, the Caribbean, track Holiday’s every move, and West Africa, and the U.S. Over she was sent to prison in 1947 time, Garvey became more vocal in for possession of narcotics. She addressing women’s issues. In the was released a year later, but late 1950s, she organized a com- not allowed to sing at any jazz munity center in London and was clubs that sold alcohol (every active in the aftermath of the jazz club in the U.S.). Still, Notting Hill race riots of 1958. she performed a sold-out concert Garvey died in Jamaica in 1969. at Carnegie Hall and recorded some of her biggest hits around this time. Though the FBI con- stantly tracked Holiday because of her activism, she refused to be silent on issues of . After she was put on trial for a third time, many singers were too scared to sing Strange Fruit in public. In 1959, when she was 44 years old, Holiday became very sick and was hospitalized due to liver disease. While hospital- ized, the FBI confiscated all of Holiday’s belongings. Holiday was not given proper medicine when BILLIE HOLIDAY she was in the hospital and – 108 WEST 139TH ST while protestors marched outside the hospital chanting “Let Lady 151 W 140TH ST Live” – she died surrounded by Billie Holiday (1915-1959) was FBI agents and penniless as a re- born Elenora Fagan in Philadel- sult of consistently being cheat- phia on April 7, 1915. Early in ed out of her earnings. Holiday’s her life, Holiday worked clean- music genius and legacy continue ing homes and running errands to influence American culture and for a brothel. At 15, she moved inspire jazz singers. to Harlem with her mother. Her first singing job was in a club in Jungle Alley on 133rd Street, and she made her recording de- Born in Harlem to West Indi- but in 1933. In the late 1930s, an parents on February 18, 1934, Holiday was recording with Co- Audre Lorde (1934-1992) began lumbia records. It was then that writing poetry when she was in she began to sing Strange Fruit, high school. She earned a Mas- which she continued to sing for ter’s Degree in Library Science 20 years. Immediately after she at and worked sang Strange Fruit in front of as a librarian while raising her a mixed-race audience, she re- children. In 1968, while a po- ceived her first threat from et-in-residence at Tougaloo Col- 14 the Federal Bureau of Narcot- lege – a historic Black college A WALKING TOUR

Madame Stephanie St. Clair (1897-1969) may have been born in Guadeloupe and may have been 13 or 23 years old when she ar- rived at Ellis Island in 1913. Soon after her arrival, St. Clair worked as a numbers runner in an illegal gambling ring. In 1923, with $10,000 in savings, she launched her own “policy bank” – even though in the 1920s, Black people owned less than 20% of Harlem’s businesses. St. Clair AUDRE LORDE funded community projects, em- 108 WEST 142ND ST ployed hundreds of people, loaned money to those who needed it, and in Mississippi where the campus more. She became known in Harlem was under siege by white people as “Queenie” and was one of the who routinely shot at or arrested largest policy bankers in Harlem. students for non-crimes – Lorde In the 1920s and 1930s, Madame realized she wanted to use poetry Queenie’s power and wealth could as a weapon against social and not be underestimated. She earned political forces that assailed over $200,000 a year and employed marginalized members of soci- hundreds of people. St. Clair was ety. “I realized I could take my heavily surveilled and harassed art in the realist way and make by police even though she paid it do what I wanted,” she said, bribes to keep them at bay. After “altering feelings and lives.” she was imprisoned, St. Clair Lorde held teaching posts at decided to go to war against the multiple universities, was named police and others. She took out New York State Poet Laureate, and ads in the Amsterdam News and co-founded with Barbara Smith and other Black newspapers calling Cherrie Moraga Kitchen Table: out corrupt cops, white mobsters, Women of Color Press in Harlem. and even some politicians. St. Clair also wrote a column in the Amsterdam News where she would offer “Know Your Rights” advice to her fellow black Harlemites. She married Harlem activist Sufi Abdul Hamid and was accused of shooting him in 1938. He sur- vived the shooting, and St. Clair maintained that the gun went off accidentally during a struggle between them. There is no infor- mation about how long she was incarcerated in prison or when she was released. St. Clair is MADAME STEPHANIE ST. CLAIR thought to have died in New 117 W 141ST ST York in 1969. 15 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

ditions, Cooke quit and started working at the Daily Compass in 1950. Cooke was the first Black and first woman reporter at the Daily Compass. After two years of working at the Daily Compass, she shifted her focus toward orga- nizing. Cooke served as treasur- er for the Defense Committee, raising thousands of dollars and organizing mass international support to release Davis from prison. She also head- ed the New York Council of Arts and was national vice chairman of the National Council for Sovi- et-American Friendship. MARVEL COOKE 2293 ADAM CLAYTON POWELL JR. BLVD Born in in 1903, Marvel Cooke (1903-2000) left for Harlem in the 1920s to be- come a writer. She came to Har- lem to work as a journalist at Crisis. Cooke lived at 409 Edgecombe, “The White House of Harlem,” where she lived near other Black intellectuals, writ- ers, and artists such as Faith Ringgold, , and . After Crisis, Cooke became the first woman journal- ist at the Amsterdam News. She is most famous for publishing a five-part series in the Amsterdam ESLANDA GOODE ROBESON News with Ella Baker titled “The 250 SEVENTH AVE – NEAR 133RD STREET Bronx Slave Market.” Cooke was a Born in Washington, D.C. in member of the communist party, December 1895, Eslanda Cardozo well known by the FBI as a high- Goode (1895-1965)—or Essie, as ly connected communist and well she was more commonly known—moved known in her community as a com- to with her family munist recruiter. Much of Cooke’s as a young girl after the death journalistic work reflects her of her father. She studied at relentless pursuit to expose both the University of exploitation of Black workers in and Columbia University and was Harlem. After striking at the awarded a B.S. in chemistry in Amsterdam News in an effort 1923. She met while to gain better working con- 16 living in Harlem and married him A WALKING TOUR in 1921. After years of working Mulzac moved to Guyana (then at New York-Presbyterian Hospi- known as British Guiana) to start tal, Essie became the first Black a bookstore and to work for the person to hold the position of party of Cheddi Jagan, a revolu- head histological chemist of sur- tionary Marxist. One day a pack- gical pathology. age arrived at the bookstore and Essie also took on the role of exploded when a colleague opened her husband’s manager and pro- it, killing him. Mulzac suffered moter. She was a shrewd business wounds to an eye and her chest. person and a zealous advocate She moved back to the U.S. in for Robeson’s talent. Later, she 1966 and opened Liberation Book- studied anthropology and became store – the legendary bookstore a prolific writer and pan-Afri- that existed on West 131st Street canist thinker. Essie advocat- for 40 years. Liberation Book- ed for women’s rights and was a store was an important community committed anti-colonialist. She meeting center for authors, mili- traveled the world alone and with tants, and activists. her husband, with a particular interest in Africa. Essie would co-found the Council on African Affairs and the Sojourners for Truth and Justice.

GRACE CAMPBELL LAFAYETTE HALL ON 131 STREET AND 7TH AVE UNA MULZAC Grace Campbell (1882-1943) was born to Jamaican immigrants in 421 MALCOLM X BOULEVARD Georgia in 1882, and she moved to Una Mulzac (1923-2012) was born New York in 1905. Campbell was a in 1923 in and moved to community organizer in Harlem, the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of leading the Harlem Tenants League Brooklyn as a little girl. After with Williana Burroughs. Camp- graduating from high school, she bell founded the 21st branch of got a secretarial job at Random the Socialist Party and was the House, where she became interest- first Black person to join ed in publishing. Around 1963, the Socialist Party. In 1919 17 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

and 1920, she ran for office in Mallory organized with various the New York State Assembly on leftist organizations (including the Socialist ticket. Although briefly with the Communist Par- she did not win the election, ty). In 1957, she sued the New Campbell received 10 percent of York Board of Education challeng- the vote. Later, she moved away ing their zoning policies, which from the Socialist Party and she argued forced Black children founded the African Blood Broth- to stay in inferior schools. erhood (ABB) with Cycil Briggs. Mallory became the spokesperson The ABB was founded as a response of the group that became known as to racism in the Communist Par- the Harlem 9. The Harlem 9 de- ty USA. While many communists in manded an “open transfer” policy the U.S. attempted to forg racist that would allow them to send exploitation, the ABB believed their children to schools out- that racism was the root cause side of their district and also of capitalist exploitation and would allow community control centered the “Negro Question.” In of Harlem schools through par- the 1920s, Campbell joined the ent associations. Before there Communist Workers’ Party in the was a FREE ANGELA or FREE ASSA- U.S. She was tracked by the FBI TA campaign, there was a FREE for most of her life, but she re- MAE MALLORY campaign. In August mained involved in communism and 1961, Mallory fled from North activism until she died in 1943. Carolina to Ohio in fear for her life. She and journalist Julian Mayfield had visited Black rad- ical Robert Williams and his family in Monroe, North Caroli- na. During that visit, Williams was falsely accused of kidnap- ping an elderly white KKK couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Stegall. As a result of these (false) charges of kidnapping, Mallory and the other Monroe Defendants faced a harsh prison sentence and years of legal troubles. While she was incarcerated at Cuyahoga County Jail, Mallory wrote letters and shared her thoughts about the experience. Mallory died in 2007 WILLIE MAE MALLORY at the age of 80. She is buried LINCOLN HOUSES ON 2110 MADISON AVE in an unmarked grave in the Fred- erick Douglass Memorial Park on Willie Mae Mallory (1927-2007) Staten Island. was born in Macon, Georgia in 1927. She moved to New York City with her mother in 1939 and lived in Harlem. Mae Mallory played an integral role in the Black 18 freedom movement in the U.S. A WALKING TOUR

BACKRGOUND According to a 1910 Census, HARLEM, NEW YORK Harlem had a population of around 500,000 – only 50,000 residents Harlem is both an idea and a were Black, while 75,000 resi- place. What became known as the dents were native-born whites and “Black Mecca” began as a farming the rest were immigrants from village inhabited first by the Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Rus- Lenape and then by the Dutch. The sia, England, Italy. and Scan- first Black people in Harlem, dinavia. Between 1910 and 1930, both freed and enslaved, worked New York City’s Black population on farms in the area known as increased from 91,709 to 327,700, Nieuw Haarlem. Nieuw Haarlem was making it the world’s largest formally established as a settle- Black urban center. Harlem became ment by Peter Stuyvesant in 1658 a magnet for Black southerners and was named after the Dutch fleeing poverty and racial ter- city of Haarlem. For generations, rorism. They were joined by Ca- the sole connection between Nieuw ribbean and, to a lesser degree, Haarlem and Nieuw Amsterdam was African immigrants looking for a diagonal road built on an old opportunities. From 1920 to 1930, Native path: a street we now call the Black population of Harlem Broadway. increased by over 158 percent to Once railroad lines made it 186,000. By 1930, Harlem had be- to Harlem, more people began to come the largest and most diverse build and settle in the communi- urban Black community in the U.S. ty. A subway line completed in While the majority migrated 1904 made Harlem more accessi- from the South, one quarter of ble to people living in southern Harlem’s Black residents were parts of New York City. In the foreign born, immigrating from early 1900s, crowds started to over fourteen Caribbean nations. visit Harlem for entertainment, During the depression years, the visiting local theaters, clubs, unemployment rate in Harlem hov- and speakeasies. ered around 60 percent, and al- In 1904, Philip A. Payton, Jr. most half of the families in the founded the Afro-American Real- neighborhood were on government ty Company and launched a drive relief. By 1940, the population to bring Black people to Harlem. of Black people in Harlem reached He used outdoor billboards to 267,000, including 33,000 school- advertise and also put ads in age children. elevated and subway trains. In December 1905, a New York Herald headline announced “Negroes Move Into Harlem.” The article pointed out that “[d]uring the last three years the flats in 134th Street between Lenox and Seventh Ave- nues, that were occupied entirely by white folks, have been cap- tured for occupancy by a Negro population... The cause of the colored influx is inexplicable.” 19 RADICAL BLACK WOMEN OF HARLEM

New York Amsterdam News building at 2293 Seventh Avenue in Harlem. A WALKING TOUR

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NICHOLAS AVE

FREDERICK DOUGLASS BLVD LENOX AVE

REGINA ANDERSON ANDREWS DREAM HAVEN

W 135 ST

AUDRE LORDE FAMILY HOME

E 135 ST

BILLIE HOLIDAY, HOME AT AGE 15 HURSTONS NIGGERATI MANOR WHITE ROSE MISSION

THE W TH STREET BRANCH YWCA AMY ASHWOOD GARVEY LIBERTY HALL AMY ASHWOOD GARVEY RESIDENCE HARLEM HARLEM WORKERS SCHOOL WALKER HOME ELLA BAKER RESIDENCE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS HARLEM HOSPITAL

CLAUDIA JONES HARLEM BRANCH LIBRARY

SPEAKERSʼ CORNER ON 135TH STREET

HURSTON RESIDENCE LIBERATION BOOKSTORE HARLEM WORKERS SCHOOL LOCATION

LINCOLN HOUSES

E 139TH ST

7TH AVE

LENOX AVE E 130TH ST

5TH AVE KEY • TOUR STOP ESRI, HERE, GARMIN, ©OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS, AND THE GIS COMMUNITY