The United States
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.
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*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.
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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 (March 19).
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:
- violence directed almost entirely against property
- the absence of clashes between racial groups
- 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.
*In New York City, a fundraising rally was held in Madison Square Garden for the Italian Red Cross (December 14). The crowd cheered every mention of Mussolini's name and booed references to Britain and sanctions. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia spoke at the event but kept his comments politically neutral.
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The Communist Party
*About 25,000 people in Harlem, New York marched in protest against the threatened Italian invasion of Ethiopia (August 3).
*In New York City, a fundraising rally was held in Madison Square Garden for the Italian Red Cross (December 14). The crowd cheered every mention of Mussolini's name and booed references to Britain and sanctions. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia spoke at the event but kept his comments politically neutral.
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*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.
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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.
*****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.
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Marcus Garvey
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The Labor Movement
*The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first official bargaining agent for African American railroad workers (October 1).
A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first major nationwide African American union. It would take ten years of struggle and new federal labor legislation before the union established a collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Palace Car Company. In 1957, Randolph became the first African American vice-president of the AFL-CIO. He served until 1968.
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*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.
A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first major nationwide African American union. It would take ten years of struggle and new federal labor legislation before the union established a collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Palace Car Company. In 1957, Randolph became the first African American vice-president of the AFL-CIO. He served until 1968.
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*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.
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*The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club was founded.
*The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club was founded.
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The Law
*The United States Supreme Court decided the case of Grovey v. Townsend (April 1).
Grovey v. Townsend 295 U.S. 45 (April 1, 1935), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held a reformulation of Texas' white primaries system to be constitutional. The case was the third in a series of Court decisions known as the "Texas primary cases".
In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), Nixon sued for damages under federal civil rights laws after being denied a ballot in a Democratic party primary election on the basis of race. The Court found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, while not discussing his Fifteenth Amendment claim. After Texas amended its statute to authorize the political party's state executive committee to set voting qualifications, Nixon sued again. In Nixon v. Condon (1932), the Court again found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Democratic Party of Texas state convention then adopted a rule banning black voting in primary elections. R. R. Grovey, a black Texas resident, sued Townsend, a county clerk enforcing the rule, for violation of Grovey's civil rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Court unanimously upheld the party's rule as constitutional, distinguishing the discrimination by a private organization from that of the state in the previous primary cases. However, Grovey would be overturned nine years later in Smith v. Allwright (1944), another of the Texas primary cases.
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*The United States Supreme Court decided the case Patterson v. Alabama (April 1).
*The United States Supreme Court decided the case Patterson v. Alabama (April 1).
Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 600 (April 1, 1935), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that an African-American defendant is denied due process rights if the jury pool excludes African-Americans.
This case was the second landmark decision arising out of the Scottsboro Boys trials (the first was the 1932 case, Powell v. Alabama). Haywood Patterson, along with several other African-American defendants, were tried for raping two white women in 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama. The trials were rushed, there was virtually no legal counsel, and no African-Americans were permitted on the jury. All defendants, including Patterson, were convicted. The Communist Party of the United States assisted the defendants and appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions in 1932 (in the Powell v. Alabama decision) due to lack of legal counsel. A second set of trials was then held in Decatur, Alabama. In spite of lack of evidence, the jury convicted Patterson and he was sentenced to death in the electric chair. Judge James Edwin Horton overturned the verdict, and a third trial was held in 1933. The third trial also resulted in a death penalty verdict. No African Americans from the jury pool denied the defendants due process. The Supreme Court agreed, and the convictions were overturned. In 1936, the defendants were tried, some for the fourth time, again for rape. In this trial, the verdicts were again guilty, but sentences were long prison terms, rather than the death penalty.
This case was the second landmark decision arising out of the Scottsboro Boys trials (the first was the 1932 case, Powell v. Alabama). Haywood Patterson, along with several other African-American defendants, were tried for raping two white women in 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama. The trials were rushed, there was virtually no legal counsel, and no African-Americans were permitted on the jury. All defendants, including Patterson, were convicted. The Communist Party of the United States assisted the defendants and appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions in 1932 (in the Powell v. Alabama decision) due to lack of legal counsel. A second set of trials was then held in Decatur, Alabama. In spite of lack of evidence, the jury convicted Patterson and he was sentenced to death in the electric chair. Judge James Edwin Horton overturned the verdict, and a third trial was held in 1933. The third trial also resulted in a death penalty verdict. No African Americans from the jury pool denied the defendants due process. The Supreme Court agreed, and the convictions were overturned. In 1936, the defendants were tried, some for the fourth time, again for rape. In this trial, the verdicts were again guilty, but sentences were long prison terms, rather than the death penalty.
*In response to the Patterson v. Alabama decision, Alabama Governor Bibb Graves ordered that the names of colored persons be put on the jury rolls in all 67 state counties (April 5).
*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.
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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.
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*Black Man's Verse by Frank M. Davis was published.
*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.
Music
*William G. Still's Afro-American Symphony was performed at the International Music Festival by the New York Philharmonic.
The NAACP
*Charles Hamilton Houston became the first full-time paid special counsel for the NAACP.
Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) devised a strategy at the NAACP which led to school desegregation. The campaign against discrimination in education ended two decades later, after Houston's death, when the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. During his career, Houston helped prepare civil rights cases in lower federal and state courts, and argued such cases before the United States Supreme Court. Houston was born in Washington, D. C., and graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Law School, where he studied under Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Houston was the first African American to serve on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review. In 1929, he became dean of Howard University Law School, Washington, D. C., and led the school into full accreditation by the American Bar Association. Civil rights and civil libertarian groups acknowledged him for his work at Howard and his philosophy of social engineering. For his pioneering work in developing the NAACP legal campaign, Houston was posthumously awarded the Spingarn Medal on September 27, 1956.
*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.
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