1935

1935

*****

Pan-African Chronology

January 3

*Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations for arbitration into the Walwal incident.

January 4

*Boxer Floyd Patterson was born in Waco, North Carolina.  He would become the first Olympic gold medalist (1952) to win a world professional boxing title.

January 7

*On Pierre Laval's visit to Rome, the French and Italians signed a pact which, among other conditions, allowed Italy a free hand in dealing with Ethiopia in exchange for Italian support against German aggression.

January 9

*Earl G. Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, was born in Brooklyn, New York.

February 23

*Benito Mussolini dispatched Emilio De Bono to Eritrea and Rodolfo Graziani to Italian Somaliland along with 100,000 Italian troops to prepare for an invasion.

March 8

*Ethiopia again requested arbitration and noted the Italian military build-up.

March 13

*Italy and Ethiopia agreed on a neutral zone in the Ogaden.

March 17

*Ethiopia again appealed to the League due to the Italian military build-up.

March 19

*Tensions arising from racial discrimination and poverty fueled a riot in Harlem that killed three African Americans and caused over two million dollars in property damage.

March 22

*The Italians yielded to pressure from the League of Nations for arbitration of the Walwal dispute.

May 11

*Ethiopia again protested the Italian mobilization.

May 20 - 21

*The League of Nations held a special session to discuss the crisis in Ethiopia.

May 25

*The League council resolved to meet if no fifth arbitrator was selected by June 25, or if a settlement was not reached by August 25.

May 29

*Andre Philippus, a South African novelist, was born.

June 19

*Ethiopia requested neutral observers.

June 23 - 24

*Britain dispatched Anthony Eden to offer concessions about Ethiopia.  The concessions were rejected by Italy.

June 25

*African Americans received an emotional boost when the boxer Joe Louis defeated Primo Carnera, at Yankee Stadium in New York.  Louis then began his great boxing career in earnest.

*Italian and Ethiopian officials met in the Hague to discuss arbitration.

July 9

*The Hague arbitration discussions with the Italians and Ethiopians fell apart.

July 17

*Actress and singer Carol Diahann Johnson, known as Diahann Carroll, was born in the Bronx, New York.  She would earn an Oscar nomination as best actress for her work in the movie Claudine.

July 25

*Britain declared an arms embargo on both Italy and Ethiopia.

July 26

*The League of Nations confirmed that no fifth arbitrator had been selected to arbitrate the dispute between Italy and Ethiopia.

August 3

*The League limited arbitration talks between Italy and Ethiopia to matters except for the sovereignty of Walwal. The Italian and Ethiopian representatives were to meet again on September 4 to examine relations between the two countries.

August 7

*Jazz tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio.  He would become famous for making his own instruments and playing more than one at a time.

August 8

*Joe Tex, a rhythm and blues singer known for "Hold What You've Got", was born in Rogers, Texas.

Joseph Arrington, Jr. (b. August 8, 1935, Rogers, Texas – d. August 13, 1982, Navasota, Texas), better known as Joe Tex, was a musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styles of country, gospel and rhythm and blues.

The career of Joe Tex started after he was signed to King Records in 1955 following four wins at the Apollo Theater. Between 1955 and 1964, he struggled to find hits and by the time he finally recorded his first hit, "Hold What You've Got", in 1964, he had recorded thirty prior singles that were deemed failures on the charts. He went on to have four million-selling hits, "Hold What You've Got" (1965), "Skinny Legs and All" (1967), "I Gotcha" (1972), and "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" (1977). 

August 12

*Ethiopia (Abyssinia) pleaded for the British arms embargo to be lifted.

August 16

*France and Britain offered Italy large concessions in Ethiopia to avert war.  Italy again rejected the concessions.

August 22

*Britain reaffirmed its embargo on armaments with regards to Italy and Ethiopia.

September 3

*The League exonerated both Italy and Ethiopia of the Walwal incident since both powers believed it was within their border.

September 7

*Sculptor Richard Hunt was born in Chicago.

September 10

*Pierre Laval, Anthony Eden and Samuel Hoare agreed on limitations to Italian sanctions.

September 18

*Writer Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson died in Philadelphia.

September 25

*Ethiopia again asked for neutral observers.

September 28

*Ethiopia began to mobilize its large, but poorly-equipped, army.

September 30

*Singer Johnny Mathis was born in San Francisco, California.  He would earn more than 50 gold and platinum records.

October 3

*Italian troops invaded Ethiopia. Italian forces under De Bono advanced from Eritrea into northern Ethiopia.  Italian forces under Graziani stood ready to advance from Italian Somaliland into southern Ethiopia. Italy was condemned by the League for attacking without a formal declaration of war.

October 5

*The northern Italian army captured Adigrat in Ethiopia. 

October 6

*The northern Italian army captured Adowa in Ethiopia.

October 7
  
*The League of Nations declared Italy the aggressor in Ethiopia and prepared to set sanctions against it.

October 11

*League members voted to impose sanctions unless Italy withdrew from Ethiopia.

October 14

*De Bono, the Italian military commander, issued a proclamation ordering the suppression of slavery in Ethiopia.  

October 15

*The northern Italian army captured Axum in Ethiopia.

October 18

*Britain assured Italy that it would not take independent action in the Mediterranean.

November 6

*Due to the cautious approach of General De Bono, Mussolini threatened to replace him.

November 8

*Italian troops captured the Ethiopian provincial capital Makale (Mekele). 

November 18

*Sanctions went into effect against Italy. However, they did not include oil or steel.

November 25

*Namahyoke Sokum Curtis, leader of 32 African American nurses who aided yellow-fever victims in the Spanish-American War, died and was interred with honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

December 8

*The Hoare-Laval Pact  which called for the partition (dismemberment) of Ethiopia was proposed (December).

December 9

*The Hoare-Laval Plan (Hoare- Laval Pact), which conceded two-thirds of Ethiopia to Italy, was made public. It was rejected by Ethiopians and caused large political embarrassment in France and Britain.

December 16

*In South Africa, the All-African Convention was founded in an effort to stop the disenfranchisment of African in the Cape.

December 17

*De Bono was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Commander in Chief of the entire Ethiopian operation and as the commander in the north. Soon after, Haile Selassie launched his "Christmas Offensive" to test the new Italian commander.

December 23

*"Little" Esther Phillips, a singer best known for the songs "And I Love Him" and "Release Me", was born in Galveston, Texas. 

December 26

*Aviator Tito Minniti was killed. Badoglio received permission to use mustard gas to speed up the invasion. This was in direct violation of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons. The alleged torture and mutilation of Minniti was claimed as justification for the use of mustard gas.

*****

The United States

*****

George Washington Carver

From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the United States Department of Agriculture Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.

*****

Father Divine

Father Divine's movement was largely apolitical until the Harlem Riot of 1935.  Based on a rumor of police killing a black teenager, it left four dead and caused over $1 million in property damage in Father Divine's neighborhood. Father Divine's outrage at this and other racial injustices fueled a keener interest in politics. 

*****

W. E.  B. DuBois

Back in the world of academia at Atlanta University, Du Bois was able to resume his study of Reconstruction, the topic of the 1910 paper that he presented to the American Historical Association. In 1935, he published his magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America. The book presented the thesis that black people, suddenly admitted to citizenship in an environment of hostility, displayed volition and intelligence as well as the indolence and ignorance inherent in three centuries of bondage. Du Bois documented how black people were central figures in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and also showed how they made alliances with white politicians. He provided evidence to show that the coalition governments established public education in the South, as well as many needed social service programs. The book also demonstrated the ways in which African American emancipation – the crux of Reconstruction – promoted a radical restructuring of United States society, as well as how and why the country failed to continue support for civil rights for African Americans in the aftermath of Reconstruction.

The book's thesis ran counter to the orthodox interpretation of Reconstruction maintained by European American historians, and the book was virtually ignored by mainstream historians until the 1960s. Thereafter, however, it ignited a "revisionist" trend in the historiography of Reconstruction, which emphasized African Americans' search for freedom and the era's radical policy changes. By the twenty-first century, Black Reconstruction was widely perceived as the foundational text of revisionist African American historiography.

In the final chapter of the book – "XIV. The Propaganda of History", Du Bois evokes his efforts at writing an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica on the "history of the American Negro". After the editors had cut all reference to Reconstruction, he insisted that the following note appear in the entry: "White historians have ascribed the faults and failures of Reconstruction to Negro ignorance and corruption. But the Negro insists that it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools." The editors refused and, so, Du Bois withdrew his article. 

*****

Marcus Garvey

In 1935, Garvey left Jamaica for London. He lived and worked in London until his death in 1940. During these last five years, Garvey remained active and in touch with events in war-torn Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and in the West Indies.  In 1937, he wrote the poem Ras Nasibu Of Ogaden in honor of Ethiopian Army Commander (Ras) Nasibu Emmanual.  In 1938, he gave evidence before the West India Royal Commission on conditions there. Also in 1938 he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.

Agriculture

*The average size of an African American operated farm in the South was 44 acres, compared to 131 acres for European American operated farms.

  *****

Civil Rights

*Tensions arising from racial discrimination and poverty fueled a riot in Harlem that killed three African Americans and caused over two million dollars in property damage.

A riot in Harlem on March 19 was set off when an African American boy was caught stealing a small knife from a 125th Street store.  He escaped, but rumors spread that he had been beaten to death.  Amid accusations of police brutality and merchant employment discrimination, African Americans smashed windos and looted.  Three African Americans were killed, 200 store windows were smashed and over $2,000,000 in damage was done.  An interracial committee on conditions in Harlem headed by E. Franklin Frazier, the African American sociologist, reported that the riot was caused by "resentments against racial discrimination and poverty in the midst of plenty."  Just prior to the riot, Harlem businessmen who had been forced through a boycott to hire African Americans had secured an injunction on the basis of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and subsequently had fired the African Americans.

At 2:30 in the afternoon on March 19, 1935, an employee at the Kress Five and Ten store at 256 W. 125th Street (just across the street from the Apollo Theater) caught 16-year-old black Puerto Rican Lino Rivera shoplifting a 10-cent penknife. When his captor threatened to take Rivera into the store's basement and "beat the hell out of him," Rivera bit the employee's hand. The manager intervened and the police were called, but Rivera was eventually released. In the meantime, a crowd had begun to gather outside around a woman who had witnessed Rivera's apprehension and was shouting that Rivera was being beaten. When an ambulance showed up to treat the wounds of the employee who had been bitten, it appeared to confirm the woman's story, and when the crowd took notice of a hearse parked outside of the store, the rumor began to circulate that Rivera had been beaten to death. The woman who had raised the alarm was arrested for disorderly conduct, the Kress Five and Ten store was closed early, and the crowd was dispersed.

In the early evening, a group called the Young Liberators started a demonstration outside the store, quickly drawing thousands of people. Handbills were distributed: One was headlined "CHILD BRUTALLY BEATEN". Another denounced "the brutal beating of the 12 year old boy [...] for taking a piece of candy."

At some point, someone threw a rock, shattering the window of the Kress Five and Ten store, and the destruction and looting began to spread east and west on 125th Street, targeting white-owned businesses between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.  Some stores posted signs that read "COLORED STORE" or "COLORED HELP EMPLOYED HERE". In the early hours of the morning, as the rioting spread north and south, Lino Rivera was picked up from his mother's apartment and photographed with a police officer. The photographs were distributed in order to prove that Rivera had not been harmed. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia also had posters drawn up urging a return to peace.

By the end of the next day, the streets of Harlem were returned to order. District Attorney William C. Dodge blamed Communist incitement.  Mayor LaGuardia ordered a multi-racial Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem headed by African-American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier and included Judge Hubert Thomas Delany, Countee Cullen, and A. Philip Randolph to investigate the causes of the riot. The committee issued a report, "The Negro in Harlem: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935," which described the rioting as "spontaneous" with "no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The report identified "injustices of discrimination in employment, the aggressions of the police, and the racial segregation" as conditions which led to the outbreak of rioting. The report congratulated the Communist organizations as deserving "more credit than any other element in Harlem for preventing a physical conflict between whites and blacks." Alain Locke was appointed to implement the report's findings.

The Harlem Riot of 1935 was the first modern race riot in that it symbolized that the optimism and hopefulness that had fueled the Harlem Renaissance was gone.  The Harlem Riot of 1935 was the first manifestation of a 'modern' form of racial rioting satisfying three criteria:

1. violence directed almost entirely against property
2. the absence of clashes between racial groups
3. struggles between the lower-class African American population and the police forces

Whereas previous race riots had been characterized by violent clashes between groups of African American and European American rioters, subsequent riots (including those of the early twenty-first century) would resemble the 1935 riot in Harlem.

The Communist Party

*Many African Americans left the Communist Party when it was revealed that Russia sold large quantities of oil, coal, tar and wheat to Mussolini, some of it directly to Africa, to be used against Ethiopia. 

Communism gained a following in Harlem in the 1930s, and continued to play a role through the 1940s. In 1935, the first of Harlem's five riots broke out. The incident started with a (false) rumor that a boy caught stealing from a store on 125th Street had been killed by the police. By the time it was over, 600 stores had been looted and three men were dead. The same year saw internationalism in Harlem politics, as Harlemites responded to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia by holding giant rallies, signing petitions and sending an appeal to the League of Nations. Such internationalism continued intermittently, including broad demonstrations in favor of Egyptian president Nasser after the Suez invasion of 1956.

*****

Education

*A survey of elementary and secondary schools in 10 southern states revealed that an average of $17.04 was spent on each African American student as opposed to an average of $49.30 on each European American student.  African American schools also had more pupils per teacher, less transportation, a shorter school term, and poorer facilities than the European American schools.

*****

The Labor Movement

*After the American Federation of Labor (AFL) rejected proposals to unionize unskilled labor and to end discrimination, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was organized.  It created integrated unions in various industries, including the United Mine Workers.

When the AFL convention refused to unionize unskilled labor, the CIO was organized.  From the beginning, race was relatively unimportant and the CIO created interracial unions in steel, automobile, rubber and packinghouse plants and factories.  The generally integrated United Mine Workers was particularly instrumental in the maintenance of nondiscriminatory unionization.

*The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club was founded.

*****

The Law

*The United States Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that kept African Americans from voting in Democratic primaries.

Despite previous legal victories of the NAACP, African Americans were still denied the ballot in the Texas Democratic primary.  Supreme Court Justice Roberts upheld the Texas law which read:  "Be it resolved that all white citizens of the state of Texas who are qualified to vote ... shall be eligible to membership in the Democratic Party."

*An African American named Hollins had been convicted of rape in a trial in which he had no lawyer.  After a second Oklahoma trial, the NAACP received a stay of execution and brought the case (Hollins v. Oklahoma) to the Supreme Court on the question of jury procedure.  The Court ruled that the conviction of an African American by a jury from which all African Americans were excluded was a violation of due process and void.  A similar decision in Norris v. Alabama confirmed that exclusion of African Americans from juries was a violation of the 14th Amendment.

*Donald Murray attempted to integrate the University of Maryland Law School.  The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the Maryland practice of providing scholarships for African Americans to attend out-of-state integrated law schools was an unequal practice and in violation of law and the Constitution.  The decision was appealed and was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1936.  Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP argued the case. 

*****

Literature

*George W. Henderson published his novel Ollie Miss.

Ollie Miss, a novel about African American sharecroppers, by the African American novelist George Wylie Henderson was published.  The novel's emphasis is on farm activities, picnics, ball games, parties, etc.  providing diversions from the everyday world.  The book's importance is primarily sociological, as a portrait of the effect of the Depression on life in the Black Belt cotton fields.

*Black Man's Verse by Frank M. Davis was published.

*Mulatto, by Langston Hughes, culminated the protest-play cycle and was widely hailed by Brooks Atkinson and other New York critics.  For many years, it was second only to A Raisin in the Sun as far as being a financial success by an African American playwright.  Mulatto ran 373 performances at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York City.

*****

The NAACP

*The NAACP issued statements chastising President Roosevelt for not proposing or supporting civil rights legislation.

*In its August issue, Crisis reported to African Americans "that the powers that be in the Roosevelt Administration have nothing for them."  In the October issue Walter White said, "The Attorney General continues his offensive against crime except crimes involving the privation of life and liberty to Negroes."

*Senators Wagner of New York and Costigan of Colorado reintroduced an NAACP-drafted Federal anti-lynching bill.  A filibuster killed this bill.  African Americans were lynched at the rate of one every three weeks in this year.

*The NAACP withdrew its support from President Roosevelt when he refused to give his practical support to their anti-lynching bill, and because no civil rights legislation had been proposed in his term.  

*The 26th annual convention of the NAACP met in St. Louis, and asked Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief administrator, to appoint an African American as deputy administrator in every state with a large African American population.

*****

The New Deal

*The Social Security Act indirectly discriminated against African Americans by its exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers.  Also, the sums received for old-age assistance were generally lower for African Americans than for European Americans.

*African American semi-skilled, skilled, clerical and professional workers had greater difficulty than European American workers in gaining employment with the Work Projects Administration (WPA).  This was demonstrated by percentages of skilled heads of families on relief in three representative states: Virginia, African Americans 25.7%, European Americans, 43.3%; North Carolina, African Americans 19%, European Americans 42.9%; and Mississippi, African Americans 11%, European Americans 35.4%.  In these same states, the percentages of skilled employed by WPA respectively were: African Americans 9.3%, 9.4%, and 5.7%; European Americans 27.2%, 28.8%, and 36.5%.

*The African American enrollment in the CCC was only 6.1% of the total enrollment, although African Americans constituted 10% of the population.  There were 265 camps for African American youths. 

*****

Notable Births

*Actress and singer Carol Diahann Johnson, known as Diahann Carroll, was born in the Bronx, New York (July 17).  She would earn an Oscar nomination as best actress for her work in the movie Claudine.

*Earl G. Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, was born in Brooklyn, New York (January 9).

*Sculptor Richard Hunt was born in Chicago (September 7).

*Jazz tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio (August 7).  He would become famous for making his own instruments and playing more than one at a time.

*Singer Johnny Mathis was born in San Francisco, California (September 30).  He would earn more than 50 gold and platinum records.

*"Little" Esther Phillips, a singer best known for the songs "And I Love Him" and "Release Me", was born in Galveston, Texas (December 23). 

*Boxer Floyd Patterson was born in Waco, North Carolina (January 4).  He would become the first Olympic gold medalist (1952) to win a world professional boxing title.

*Joe Tex, a rhythm and blues singer known for "Hold What You've Got", was born in Rogers, Texas.

Joseph Arrington, Jr. (b. August 8, 1935, Rogers, Texas – d. August 13, 1982, Navasota, Texas), better known as Joe Tex, was a musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styles of country, gospel and rhythm and blues.

The career of Joe Tex started after he was signed to King Records in 1955 following four wins at the Apollo Theater. Between 1955 and 1964, he struggled to find hits and by the time he finally recorded his first hit, "Hold What You've Got", in 1964, he had recorded thirty prior singles that were deemed failures on the charts. He went on to have four million-selling hits, "Hold What You've Got" (1965), "Skinny Legs and All" (1967), "I Gotcha" (1972), and "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" (1977). 

*****

Notable Deaths

*There were 18 recorded lynchings in 1935.

*Namahyoke Sokum Curtis, leader of 32 African American nurses who aided yellow-fever victims in the Spanish-American War, died (November 25) and was interred with honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

*Writer Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson died in Philadelphia (September 18).

*****

Performing Arts

*Following a triumphal tour of Europe, contralto Marian Anderson performed at Town Hall in New York, prompting the New York Times music critic to call her "one of the great singers of our time."

*Todd Duncan starred as "Porgy," Ann Brown as "Bess," and John Bubbles as "Sportin' Life" in Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin's 'folk opera, at the Alvin Theater on Broadway.

Todd Duncan, an African American operatic singer, played the role of Porgy in George Gershwin's African American folk opera, Porgy and Bess.  John Bubbles, a long-time African American vaudeville star, appeared in the role of Sportin' Life.

*Eva Jessye became choral director of the premier of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Eva Jessye (1895-1992) was a composer, musician, choral director, educator, writer, and actress, became the first African American woman to achieve acclaim as director of a professional choral group.  The Eva Jessye Choir performed regularly at the Capital Theater in New York City, from 1926 to 1929.  Jessye directed the choir in Hollywood's first African American musical, Hallelujah, in 1929.  She was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, graduated from Western University (Quindaro, Kansas), and later attended Langston University in Oklahoma.  

*Langston Hughes' long-running play Mulatto, with Rose McClendon and Morris McKinney, opened on Broadway.  Another play by Hughes, Little Ham, was also staged on Broadway.

*The WPA launched the Federal Theater Project in Harlem, which produced such works as J. Augustus Smith's Turpentine and W. E. B. DuBois' Haiti.

The Federal Theater, which existed from this year through 1940 as part of the WPA, became the most successful Harlem group.  The Federal Theater Project in Harlem produced such works as J. Augustus Smith's Turpentine and W. E. B. DuBois' Haiti.  The project also performed such standards as Shaw and Shakespeare. 

*William G. Still's Afro-American Symphony was performed at the International Music Festival by the New York Philharmonic. 

*****

Politics

*A. Philip Randolph was appointed a member of New York Mayor LaGuardia's Commission on Race.

*****

Science and Technology

*Chemist Percy Julian developed physostigmine, a drug for the treatment of the eye disease glaucoma.

*****

Social Organizations

*The National Council of Negro Women was established in New York City.  Mary McLeod Bethune served as its first president.  Later in the year, she would receive the Spingarn Medal.

*The International Council of Friends of Ethiopia was founded in New York to protest Italy's invasion of that country.  Willis N. Huggins, an African American, was named the council president (executive secretary).  In this role, Huggins would go to the League of Nations to plead Ethiopia's cause.

*The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs was founded. 

*****

Sports

*Joe Louis defeated Primo Carnera, a European American boxer, at Yankee Stadium in New York and launched his meteoric boxing career.

Louis (born Joe Louis Barrow) was born in Lafayette, Alabama in 1914.  Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Detroit, Michigan where Louis attended the Duffield Elementary School for a short time.  After leaving school, he worked in an automobile plant and, in his leisure time, boxed.  Louis became the heavyweight champion of the world in 1937 and held the title until 1949, interrupting his career to serve in World War II.  A series of unsuccessful marriages and business ventures left Louis nearly penniless after his retirement from the ring.

*Boxer John Henry Lewis became the light heavyweight champion of the world.  Lewis would keep the title until he retired in 1939, the first African American boxer to do so.

*****

Statistics

*Median incomes of African Americans and European Americans in selected cities were: New York City, African Americans $980, European Americans $1930, Differential 49.2%; Chicago, African Americans $726, European Americans $1687, Differential 56.9%; Columbus, Ohio, African Americans $831, European Americans $1622, Differential 48.7%; Atlanta, Georgia, African Americans $632, European Americans $1876, Differential 66.3%; Columbia, Georgia, African Americans $576, European Americans $1876, Differential 69.3%; and Mobile, Alabama, African Americans $481, European Americans $1419, Differential 66.1%.

*The 3,500,000 African American families receiving relief represented 21.5% of the total African American population.  Of the European American population 12.8% were on relief.

*Georgia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana had higher European American rural relief rates than African Americans.  Southern relief administrators disbursed funds more easily to European Americans than African Americans.  In addition, Southern African Americans on relief in rural areas received from $2 to $6 less per month than European Americans.

*In the urban North approximately 50% of African American families were on relief (3 to 4 times more than European Americans).  In nine cities in the urban South, 25% of African American families and 11% of European American families were on relief.  More European Americans with an income below $500 were on relief than African Americans.

*In urban areas, African American relief grants were smaller than European American relief grants.  The average for African Americans was $24.18, and for European Americans $29.05.

*Of relief recipients who found employment, 8.8% of the African Americans received less in wages than they did on relief, while only 2.7% of the European Americans did.

*****

Visual Arts

*The Harlem Artists Guild was formed to voice African American artists' concerns.

*Sargent Johnson created his sculpture Forever Free, which won the San Francisco Art Association medal.

*The Whitney Museum of American Art purchased African Dancer and two other sculptures by Richmond Barthe.

*Under the WPA program, Charles Alston and other African-American artists painted the Harlem Hospital murals.

*****
The Americas

Marcus Garvey

In 1935, Garvey left Jamaica for London. He lived and worked in London until his death in 1940. During these last five years, Garvey remained active and in touch with events in war-torn Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and in the West Indies.  In 1937, he wrote the poem Ras Nasibu Of Ogaden in honor of Ethiopian Army Commander (Ras) Nasibu Emmanual.  In 1938, he gave evidence before the West India Royal Commission on conditions there. Also in 1938 he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.

Europe

France

*In 1935, the three young men published the first issue of the literary review L'Etudiant Noir (The Black Student), which provided the foundation for what is now known as the Negritude Movement, a literary and ideological movement of French-speaking black intellectuals that rejects the political, social and moral domination of the West.

Négritude is a literary and ideological philosophy, developed by francophone African and Caribbean intellectuals, writers, and politicians in France during the 1930s. Its initiators included Martinican poet Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor (a future President of Senegal), and Leon Damas of French Guiana.   Négritude intellectuals disfavored French colonialism and claimed that the best strategy to oppose it was to encourage a common racial identity for black Africans worldwide. They included the Marxist ideas they favored as part of this philosophy. The writers generally used a realist literary style, but later were also influenced somewhat by the Surrealism style, and in 1932 the manifesto "Murderous Humanitarianism" was signed by prominent Surrealists including the Martiniquans Pierre Yovotte and J. M. Monnerot. 

The term negritude was meant to be provocative. It takes its roots from the Latin "niger", which was used exclusively in a racist context within France. It would be used to refer to black people as "art nigre".  Negritude sought to appropriate the word. The term was first used in its present sense by Cesaire, in the third issue of L'Etudiant noir, a magazine which he had started in Paris with fellow students Léopold Senghor and Léon Damas, as well as Gilbert Gratiant, Leonard Sainville, Louis T. Achille, Aristide Maugee, and Paulette Nardal.  L'Étudiant noir also includes Césaire's first published work, "Conscience Raciale et Révolution Sociale" with the heading "Les Idées" and the rubric "Negreries," which is notable for its disavowal of assimilation as a valid strategy for resistance and for its use of the word "negre" as a positive term. The problem with assimilation was that one assimilated into a culture that considered African culture to be barbaric and unworthy of being seen as "civilized". The assimilation into this culture would have been seen as an implicit acceptance of this view. "Nègre" previously had been used mainly in a pejorative sense. Césaire deliberately incorporated this derogatory word into the name of his philosophy.

In 1885, Haitian anthropologist Antenor Firmin published an early work De l'Égalité des Races Humaines (On the Equality of Human Races), which was published as a rebuttal to French writer Count Arthur de Gobineau's publication Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines (An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races). Firmin influenced Jean Price-Mars, the initiator of Haitian ethnology, and 20th-century American anthropologist Melville Herskovits.  Black intellectuals have historically been proud of Haiti due to its slave revolution commanded by Toussaint L'Ouverture during the 1790s. Césaire spoke, thus, of Haiti as being "where négritude stood up for the first time".

The "Harlem Renaissance", a literary style developed in Harlem in Manhattan during the 1920s and 1930s, influenced the Negritude philosophy. The Harlem Renaissance's writers, including Langston Hughes and Richard Wright,  addressed the themes of "noireism" and race relations.

During the 1920s and 1930s, a group of young black students and scholars, primarily from France's colonies and territories, assembled in Paris. There they were introduced to some writers of the Harlem Renaissance by Paulette Nardal and her sister Jane. The Nardal sisters contributed to the Negritude discussions by their writings and by being the proprietors of the Clamart Salon, a tea-shop venue of the French-Black intelligentsia where Negritude philosophy was often discussed. Paulette Nardal and the Haitian Dr. Leo Sajou initiated La revue du Monde Noir (1931–32), a literary journal published in English and French, which attempted to appeal to African and Caribbean intellectuals in Paris. This Harlem association was shared by the parallel development of negrismo in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean region.

Although each of the initiators had his own ideas about the purpose and styles of la Négritude, the philosophy was characterized generally by opposing colonialism, the denunciation of Europe's alleged lack of humanity, and the rejection of Western domination and ideas. The movement also appears to have had some Heideggerian strands in the sense that the goal of this movement was to achieve blacks "being-in-the-world". This was to emphasize that blacks did have a history and a worthy culture, and that it was capable of standing alongside the cultures of other countries as equals. Also important was the acceptance of and pride in being black and a celebration of African history, traditions, and beliefs. Their literary style was realistic, and they cherished Marxist ideas.

Motivation for the Negritude movement was a result of Aime Cesaire’s, Leopold Senghor’s, and Leon Damas’s dissatisfaction, disgust, and personal conflict over the state of black French assimilation. All three shared a personal sense of revulsion for the racism and colonial injustices that plagued their world. Senghor refused to believe that the purpose of his education was "to build Christianity and civilization in his soul where there was only paganism and barbarism before". Cesaire's disgust came as embarrassment when he was accused by some of the people of the Caribbean as having nothing to do with the people of Africa—whom they saw as savages. They separated themselves from Africa and proclaimed themselves as civilized. He denounced the writers from the Caribbean as "intellectually... corrupt" and literarily nourished with "white decadence". Damas believed this because of the pride these writers would take when a white person could read their whole book and not be able to tell the author's complexion.

Aime Cesaire was a poet, playwright, and politician from Martinique.  He studied in Paris, where he discovered the black community and "rediscovered Africa". He saw la Négritude as the fact of being black, acceptance of this fact, and appreciation of the history and culture, and of black people. It is important to note that for Césaire, this emphasis on the acceptance of the fact of "blackness" was the means by which the "decolonization of the mind" could be achieved. According to him, western imperialism was responsible for the inferiority complex of blacks. He sought to recognize the collective colonial experience of Blacks—the slave trade and plantation system. Césaire's ideology was especially important during the early years of la Négritude.

Neither Césaire — who after returning to Martinique after his studies was elected mayor of Fort de France, the capital, and a representative of Martinique in France's Parliament — nor Senghor in Senegal envisaged political independence from France. Négritude would, according to Senghor, enable Blacks in French lands to have a "seat at the give and take [French] table as equals". However the French eventually presented Senegal and its other African colonies with independence.

Poet and the later first president of Sénégal, Senghor used la Négritude to work toward a universal valuation of African people. He advocated a modern incorporation of the expression and celebration of traditional African customs and ideas. This interpretation of la Négritude tended to be the most common, particularly during later years.

Damas was a French Guyanese poet and National Assembly member. He had a militant style of defending "black qualities" and rejected any kind of reconciliation with Caucasians. Two particular anthologies were pivotal to the movement, which would serve as manifestos for the movement. One was published by Damas in 1946, Poètes d'expression française 1900–1945. Senghor would then go on to publish Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française in 1948. Damas’ introduction to the anthology was meant to be a sort of manifesto for the movement, but Senghor's own anthology eventually took that role.  And ultimately, it would be the “Preface” written by French philosopher and public intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre for the anthology that would propel Negritude into the broader intellectual conversation.

As a manifesto for the Negritude movement, Damas’ introduction was more political and cultural in nature. A distinctive feature of Damas’s anthology and beliefs was that Damas felt that his message was one for the colonized in general, and included poets from Indochina and Madagascar. This is sharply in contrast to Senghor’s anthology which would be published two years later. In the introduction Damas proclaimed that now was the age where “the colonized man becomes aware of his rights and of his duties as a writer, as a novelist or a storyteller, an essayist or a poet.” Damas explicitly outlines the themes of the anthology. He says , “Poverty, illiteracy, exploitation of man by man, social and political racism suffered by the black or the yellow, forced labor, inequalities, lies, resignation, swindles, prejudices, complacencies, cowardice, failure, crimes committed in the name of liberty, of equality, of fraternity, that is the theme of this indigenous poetry in French.” Damas’ introduction was indeed a calling and affirmation for a distinct cultural identification.

In 1948, Jean-Paul Sartre analyzed the négritude philosophy in an essay called "Orphée Noir" ("Black Orpheus") which served as the introduction to a volume of francophone poetry named Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, compiled by Léopold Senghor. In this essay, Sartre characterizes négritude as the opposite of colonial racism in a Hegelian dialectic and with it he helped to introduce Négritude issues to French intellectuals. In his opinion, négritude was an "anti-racist racism" (racisme antiraciste), a strategy with a final goal of racial unity.

Négritude was criticized by some black writers during the 1960s as insufficiently militant. Keorapetse Kgositsile said that the term Négritude was based too much on blackness according to a caucasian aesthetic, and was unable to define a new kind of perception of African-ness that would free black people and black art from caucasian conceptualizations altogether.

The Nigerian dramatist, poet, and novelist Wole Soyinka opposed Négritude. He believed that by deliberately and outspokenly being proud of their ethnicity, black people were automatically on the defensive: "Un tigre ne proclame pas sa tigritude, il saute sur sa proie" (English: "A tiger doesn't proclaim its tigerness; it jumps on its prey").

*Josephine Baker appeared in the movie, Princesse Tam Tam.   


*Upon a visit to the United States in 1935–36, Josephine Baker was met with lukewarm audiences. Her star turn in the Ziegfeld Follies generated less than impressive box office numbers, and she was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee later in the run. Time magazine referred to her as a "Negro wench". She returned to Europe heartbroken.

Germany

*The Nuremberg Laws were expanded to include people of African descent (November 26). 

The Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) were two anti-semitic laws adopted in Nazi Germany.  They were introduced on September 15, 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights. A supplementary decree outlining the definition of who was Jewish was passed on November 14, 1935, and the Reich Citizenship Law officially came into force on that date. The laws were expanded on 26 November 26, 1935 to include Romani people (Gypsies) and Black people (people of African descent).  Out of foreign policy concerns, prosecutions under the two laws did not commence until after the 1936 Summer Olympics that were to be held 1936 in Berlin.

Africa

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Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)

*Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations for arbitration into the Walwal incident (January 3).

*On Pierre Laval's visit to Rome, the French and Italians signed a pact which, among other conditions, allowed Italy a free hand in dealing with Ethiopia in exchange for Italian support against German aggression (January 7).

*Benito Mussolini dispatched Emilio De Bono to Eritrea and Rodolfo Graziani to Italian Somaliland along with 100,000 Italian troops to prepare for an invasion (February 23).

*Ethiopia again requested arbitration and noted the Italian military build-up (March 8).

*Italy and Ethiopia agreed on a neutral zone in the Ogaden (March 13).

*Ethiopia again appealed to the League due to Italian build-up (March 17).

*The Italians yielded to pressure from the League of Nations for arbitration of the Walwal dispute (March 22).

*Ethiopia again protested the Italian mobilization (May 11).

*The League of Nations held a special session to discuss the crisis in Ethiopia (May 20-21).

*League council resolved to meet if no fifth arbitrator was selected by June 25, or if a settlement was not reached by August 25 (May 25).

*Ethiopia requested neutral observers (June 19).

*Britain dispatched Anthony Eden to offer concessions about Ethiopia (June 23-24).  The concessions were rejected by Italy .

*Italian and Ethiopian officials met in the Hague to discuss arbitration (June 25).

*The Hague arbitration discussions fell apart (July 9).

*Britain declared an arms embargo on both Italy and Ethiopia (July 25).

*The League confirmed that no fifth arbitrator had been selected (July 26).

*The League limited arbitration talks to matters except for the sovereignty of Walwal (August 3). They were to meet again on September 4 to examine relations between the two countries.

*Abyssinia pleaded for the arms embargo to be lifted (August 12).

*France and Britain offered Italy large concessions in Ethiopia to avert war (August 16).  Italy again rejected the concessions.

*Britain reaffirmed its embargo on armaments (August 22).

*The League exonerated both Italy and Ethiopia of the Walwal incident since both powers believed it was within their border (September 3).

*Pierre Laval, Anthony Eden and Samuel Hoare agreed on limitations to Italian sanctions (September 10).

*Ethiopia again asked for neutral observers (September 25).

*Ethiopia began to mobilize its large, but poorly-equipped, army (September 28).

*Italy invaded Ethiopia (October 3). Italian forces under De Bono advanced from Eritrea into northern Ethiopia.  Italian forces under Graziani stood ready to advance from Italian Somaliland into southern Ethiopia. Italy was condemned by the League for attacking without a formal declaration of war.

*The northern Italian army captured Adigrat (October 5). 

*The northern Italian army captured Adowa (October 6).  

*The League of Nations declared Italy the aggressor and prepared to set sanctions against it (October 7).

*League members voted to impose sanctions unless Italy withdrew (October 11).

*De Bono issued a proclamation ordering the suppression of slavery in Ethiopia (October 14).

*The northern Italian army captured Axum (October 15). 

*Britain assured Italy that it would not take independent action in the Mediterranean (October 18).

*Due to the cautious approach of General De Bono, Mussolini threatened to replace him (November 6).

*The northern Italian army captured Mekele (November 8). 

*Sanctions went into effect against Italy (November 18). However, they did not include oil or steel.

*Hoare-Laval Plan was signed, which conceded two-thirds of Ethiopia to Italy (December 8).

*The Hoare-Laval Plan was made public (December 9). It was rejected by Ethiopians and caused large political embarrassment in France and Britain.

The Hoare–Laval Pact was a December 1935 proposal by British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister Pierre Laval for ending the Second Italo-Abysinian War. Italy had wanted to seize the independent nation of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as part of its empire and also to avenge an 1896 humiliating defeat.  The Pact offered to partition Abyssinia, and thus achieve Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's goal of making the independent nation of Abyssinia into an Italian colony. The proposal ignited a firestorm of hostile reaction in Britain and France, and never went into effect. 

*De Bono was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Commander in Chief of the entire operation and as the commander in the north (December 17). Soon after, Haile Selassie launched his "Christmas Offensive" to test the new Italian commander.

*Aviator Tito Minniti was killed (December 26). Badoglio received permission to use mustard gas to speed up the invasion. This was in direct violation of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons. The alleged torture and mutilation of Minniti was claimed as justification for the use of mustard gas.

Nigeria

*Bernard Bourdillon was appointed Governor of Nigeria.

Bernard Henry Bourdillon (1883–1948) was a British colonial administrator who was Governor of Uganda (1932–1935) and of Nigeria (1935–1943).

Bourdillon was born on December 3,1883 at Emu Bay, Tasmania (now Burnie). He grew up in England and South Africa, and was educated at Tonbridge School in Tonbridge, Kent. He attended St. John's College, Oxford, graduating in 1906. In 1908 he entered the Indian Civil Service. He married Violet Grace Billinghurst in November 1909. In 1935 Violet was described as "the perfect Governor's wife".

In 1913 Bourdillon was appointed Under-Secretary to the Government of the United Provinces. In 1915 he was made Registrar of the High Court of Allahabad. While in India he earned a reputation as a linguist. During the First World War, Bourdillon joined the army as a temporary Second Lieutenant in 1917, and was posted to Iraq in 1918. He rose to the rank of Major, and during the Iraq insurrection of 1919 he was mentioned in dispatches. Bourdillon left the army in 1919 to join the Iraq civil administration, and was appointed Political Secretary to the High Commissioner of Iraq in 1921. From 1924 to 1929 he was Counsellor. Between 1925 and 1926 he was High Commissioner with Plenipotentiary Powers in the negotiations over the 1926 Anglo-Iraq treaty.

Bourdillon transferred to the Colonial Civil Service in 1929 to take the post of Colonial Secretary of Ceylon, serving in this role until 1932 and twice acting as governor of Ceylon. In 1932 he was appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Uganda. He was made Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria in 1935, holding this post until he retired in 1943.

South Africa

*The All-African Convention was founded (December 16).

The All-African Convention (AAC) sought to unite all non-European opposition to the segregationist measures of the South African government.

In May 1935, two bills supported by South African Prime Minister Barry Hertzog were tabled in parliament.  The Natives' Trust and Land Bill made provision for the extension of Reserves (African reservations) from 7.5 percent to 13 percent of the area of the Union.  However, this bill also barred rural Africans from acquiring land outside their stipulated areas -- outside their reservations.  The Representation of Natives Bill dealt with the question of the African vote.  Foremost among its provisions were the election of four Senators to represent Africans throughout the Union, the gradual elimination of the Cape African vote by refusing any further applications for registration and the establishment of a Natives' Representative Council.  Both bills, Hertzog announced, were to be considered at a special sitting of parliament to be held in 1936.

The newspaper Bantu World, echoing widespread concern among middle-class Africans, called for a national convention of Africans to fight the attack on their rights.  Backing the proposal, the ANC's Z. R. Mahabane described the bills as "a direct challenge to the African community".

The threat to the Cape vote provoked a broad revival of African political activity, and on December 16, 1935 (the day on which Afrikaners celebrated their Blood River victory over the Zulu), more than 400 delegates from every corner of South Africa -- from the major political groups, local organizations, trade unions, the churches, student movements and study groups in the protectorates -- gathered at Bloemfontein for the founding conference of the All-African Convention (AAC).

The leading lights of the AAC were Professor Davidson Jabavu and Dr. Alfred Xuma, who were elected president and vice-president respectively.  In his address, 45 year old Jabavu, one of the country's leading intellectuals, described the Cape vote as a "key experiment in the worldwide problem of race relations".  And the 38 year old, widely travelled Xuma called on white South Africa to "invite and welcome to its institutions all those who are capable of rising to its standards and are able to make it richer by their different cultural and temperamental origin".

Calls by communist and other radical delegates for militant action to reinforce opposition to the bills were firmly rejected by the main African leaders -- and so, except for agreeing to arranged protest meetings throughout the country, the AAC's plan of action was based mainly on the failed ANC model of prayer meetings, appeals, petitions and meetings with government authorities.   

*Malan broke away to form the "Purified" National Party.

The Purified National Party (Afrikaans Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party) was a break away from Hertzog's National Party which lasted from 1935 to 1948.

In 1935, the main portion of the National Party, led by J. B. M. (Barry) Hertzog, merged with the South African Party of Jan Smuts to form the United Party. A hardline faction of Afrikaner nationalists, led by Daniel Francois Malan, strongly opposed the merger. Malan and 19 other Members of Parliament defected to form the Purified National Party, which he led for the next fourteen years in opposition.

In 1939, the question of South African participation in World War II caused a split in the United Party. Hertzog's Nationalist wing broke away and merged with the Purified National Party to form the Reunited (Herenigde) National Party. This party went on to defeat the United Party in the election of 1948. 

*Andre Philippus, a South African novelist, was born (May 29).

André Philippus Brink, (May 29, 1935 – February 6, 2015) was a South African novelist. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and was a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town.  

In the 1960s he, Ingrid Jonker and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the significant Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends.

His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.  André Brink translated Kennis van die aand into English and published it abroad as Looking on Darkness. This was his first self-translation.  After that, André Brink wrote his works simultaneously in English and Afrikaans.

While Brink's early novels were especially concerned with apartheid, his later work engaged the new range of issues posed by life in a democratic South Africa.

*****

General Historical Events

*****

January 13

*The League of Nations plebiscite carried out in the Saar region showed that the people of the area would overwhelmingly prefer to be reunited with Germany.

March 1

*The League of Nations returned the Saar, with its coalfield, to Germany.

March 2

*King Rama VII of Siam abdicated and was succeeded by his ten year old nephew Rama VIII.

June 3

*The new French Line passenger linere, the Normandie, arrived in New York Harbor after her maiden voyage, crossing the Atlantic in four days, 11 hours.  The 79,000 ton liner was 340 meters/1,029 feet long.

June 12

*The three year war between Paraguay and Bolivia over the disputed Chaco region ended.

September 2

*A hurricane destroyed the Florida East Coast Railroad line between Key West and Florida City and killed 400 people.

October 3

*Italian troops invaded Ethiopia. 

November 8

*Italian troops captured the Ethiopian provincial capital Makale. 

November 18

*The League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy in retaliation for Italy's invasion of Ethiopia.

December 14

*Thomas Masaryk (age 85), the first President of Czechoslovakia, resigned and was succeeded by Eduard Benes.  

December 18

*President Gomez (age 78) of Venezuela died.  During his twenty-six year dictatorship, Venezuela became a major oil producer.

***** 

*Hitler denounced the Versailles Treaty clauses concerning German disarmament and created the Luftwaffe to give Germany air superiority.  

*Pursuant to an edict of the Shah, Persia was to henceforth be called "Iran".

*President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the United States Social Security Act.

*Huey Long, a United States Senator from Louisiana, was assassinated in the Louisiana Capitol Building.