1939 The United States

The United States

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Academic Achievements

*Rose Butler Browne received a Doctor of Education degree from Harvard University.  She was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate from Harvard.

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Black Enterprise

*There were nearly 30,000 African American owned retail stores and restaurants.  They employed some 43,000 African Americans and generated about $71 million in sales (0.02% of total national sales).  Between 1929 and 1939, sales for African American owned retail stores declined 28%, whereas the national total declined only 13%.

*There were 67 African American insurance companies with incomes of $13 million.

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Civil Rights

*The Greater New York Coordinating Committee for Employment, led by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., demonstrated at the offices of the World's Fair in the Empire State Building, and succeeded in opening up several hundred jobs for African Americans.

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Educational Institutions

*Morgan State College was founded in Baltimore, Maryland.  It was developed from Morgan State Biblical College.

*Of the 774 libraries in the 13 southern states, only 99 admitted African Americans.

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Father Divine

In January 1939, the movement organized the first-ever "Divine Righteous Government Convention", which crafted political platforms incorporating the Doctrine of Father Divine. Among other things, the delegates opposed school segregation and many of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's social programs, which they interpreted as "handouts".

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The Ku Klux Klan

*In Miami, Florida, the Ku Klux Klan waged a strong but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to prevent African Americans from voting in a city election.

The Ku Klux Klan burned 25 crosses and paraded through the African American section of Miami, Florida, the night before a municipal election carrying African American effigies with signs saying "This Nigger Tried to Vote."  Despite this intimidation, 1,000 of the 1,500 registered African Americans voted the next day, led by Sam Solomon, an African American businessman.

*In July, the Ku Klux Klan in Greenville, South Carolina, issued a statement warning:  "The Klan will ride again if Greenville Negroes continue to register and vote."

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The Law

*The case of Lane v. Wilson concerned an Oklahoma statute stipulating that those who had not registered within 12 days would never be allowed to register (May 22).  Contested by I. W. Lane, an African American, the statute was declared unconstitutional.

Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268 (1939), was a United States Supreme Court case that found a 12-day one-time voter registration window to be discriminatory for African American citizens and repugnant to the Fifteenth Amendment.

In 1915, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Guinn v. United States that a grandfather clause to Oklahoma's literacy test for voting was unconstitutional, violating the Fifteenth Amendment. In response, the Oklahoma legislature passed a law giving citizens of the state a 12-day period, from April 30 to May 11, 1916, in which they were allowed to register to vote. Individuals who missed that registration period would be barred permanently from voting. But, a grandfather clause exempting citizens who had voted in 1914, that is, before Guinn, largely exempted white voters from the provisions of the narrow registration window.  In practice, the registration period worked against African American citizens.

Lane, an African American citizen of Oklahoma, was banned from voting under Oklahoma's rules, and sued for $5,000 in damages. The district court found against him, and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the district court. Lane appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Justice Frankfurter delivered the ruling of the court, holding that Oklahoma's registration window and grandfather clause violated the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

*Jane Bolin was named to New York City's domestic relations court, the first African American female judge.

Jane Matilda Bolin became the first African American woman judge when she was appointed to the Court of Domestic Relations in New York City by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

*The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of an NAACP law suit by declaring that the segregation of New Jersey beaches was illegal.

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Literature

*Arna Bontemps published his historical novel about Haiti, Drums at Dusk.

Drums at Dusk, Arna Bontemps' historical novel, deals with the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint l'Ouverture.  With the exception of a few particulars at the beginning of the revolution, Bontemps is accurate in the depiction of the era and the conditions.

*Waters Turpin's novel Oh Canaan was published.

Oh Canaan by Waters Edward Turpin was published.  It dealt with the great migration to Chicago, and covered the 20 year period from the race riot of 1919 to 1939.  In this novel, Turpin describes the urban conditions of the African American, the poor living conditions, the family disintegration and European American hostility.

*Jay Saunders Redding's anthology of poems and essays, To Make a Poet Black, was published.

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The Military

*The United States Army included 3,640 African American men.

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The Movies

*MGM's classic musical film The Wizard of Oz, based on L. Frank Baum's famous novel, and starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, as Dorothy, premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood (August 15).

A number called "The Jitterbug" was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. 

Cab Calloway's 1934 recording of "Call of the Jitter Bug" (Jitterbug) and the film "Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party" popularized the use of the word "jitterbug" and created a strong association between Calloway and jitterbug. Lyrics to "Call of the Jitter Bug" clearly demonstrate the association between the word jitterbug and the consumption of alcohol.

In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, the "jitterbug" was a bug sent by the Wicked Witch of the West to waylay the heroes by forcing them to do a jitterbug-style dance. Although the sequence was not included in the final version of the film, the Witch is later heard to tell the flying monkey leader, "I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them." The song as sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy and some of the establishing dialogue survived from the soundtrack as the B-side of the disc release of "Over the Rainbow".

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*The epic historical romance film Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, and Hattie McDaniel premiered at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta (December 15). Based on Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of 1936,  it is the longest American film made up to this date (at nearly four hours) and rapidly became the highest-grossing film up to that time.

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic-historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.  It was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era,  the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara,  the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, to her marriage to Rhett Butler. The leading roles are portrayed by Vivien Leigh  (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).

The production of the film was difficult from the start. Filming was delayed for two years due to Selznick's determination to secure Gable for the role of Rhett Butler, and the "search for Scarlett" led to 1,400 women being interviewed for the part. The original screenplay was written by Sidney Howard, but underwent many revisions by several writers in an attempt to get it down to a suitable length. The original director, George Cukor, was fired shortly after filming had begun and was replaced by Fleming, who in turn was briefly replaced by Sam Wood while Fleming took some time off due to exhaustion.

The film received positive reviews upon its release in December 1939, although some reviewers found it dramatically lacking and bloated. The casting was widely praised and many reviewers found Leigh especially suited to her role as Scarlett. At the 12th Academy Awards, it received ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Best Director (Fleming), Best Adapted Screenplay (posthumously awarded to Sidney Howard), Best Actress (Leigh) and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award). It set records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time. The film was immensely popular, becoming the highest-grossing film made up to that point, and retained the record for over a quarter of a century.   When adjusted for monetary inflation, it is still the most successful film in box-office history.

The film has been criticized as historical revisionism glorifying slavery, but nevertheless, it has been credited for triggering changes to the way African-Americans are depicted on film. It was re-released periodically throughout the 20th century and became ingrained in popular culture. The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time; it has placed in the top ten of the American Film Institute's list of top 100 American films since the list's inception in 1998, and in 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

*Hollywood released Way Down South, an interracial movie, written by Langston Hughes and starring Clarence Muse.

Way Down South, a movie directed by Bernard Vorhaus and produced by Sol Lesser, starred Bobbie Breen and Clarence Muse.  An interracial Hollywood feature, its significance lies in the screenplay which was written by Langston Hughes and Clarence Muse, the lead African America star.

*Jed Buell produced and directed Harlem on the Prairie, the first all-African American Western.

August 15


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Music

*Billie Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit", the first anti-lynching song (April 20). 

"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism,  particularly the lynching of African Americans.  Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the 20th century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.

The song continues to be covered by numerous artists, and has inspired novels, other poems, and other creative works. In 1978, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

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*Charlie Christian, a pioneer of the electric guitar, met with bandleader Benny Goodman for the first time (August 16).

Charlie Christian (b. Charles Henry Christian, July 29, 1916, Bonham, Texas – d. March 2, 1942, New York City, New York) was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra from August 1939 to June 1941. His single string technique combined with amplification helped bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into the forefront as a solo instrument. John Hammond and George T. Simon called Christian the best improvisational talent of the Swing Era. In the liner notes to the 1972 Columbia album Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian, Gene Lees writes that "many critics and musicians consider that Christian was one of the founding fathers of bebop, or if not that, at least a precursor to it."

Christian's influence reached beyond jazz and swing, and in 1990 Christian was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2006, the City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma renamed a street in its Bricktown entertainment district "Charlie Christian Avenue." Oklahoma City is also the home of an annual jazz festival named for Christian.

Christian was born in Bonham, Texas, but his family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, when he was a small child. Both of his parents were musicians and he had two brothers, Edward, born 1906, and Clarence, born 1911. All three sons were taught music by their father, Clarence Henry Christian. Clarence Henry was struck blind by fever, and in order to support the family he and the boys would work as buskers, on what the Christians called "busts." He would have them lead him into the better neighborhoods where they would perform for cash or goods. When Charles was old enough to go along he first entertained by dancing. Later he learned guitar, inheriting his father's instruments upon his death when Charles was 12.

He attended Douglass School in Oklahoma City, and was further encouraged in music by instructor Zelia Breaux. Charles wanted to play tenor saxophone in the school band, but she insisted he try trumpet instead. Because he believed playing the trumpet would disfigure his lip, he quit to pursue his interest in baseball, at which he excelled.

In the 1920s and 30s, Edward Christian led a band in Oklahoma City as a pianist and had a shaky relationship with trumpeter James Simpson. After a rivalry with a certain girl, Simpson had the urge to get even with the egotistical Christian. Around 1931, he took guitarist "Bigfoot" Ralph Hamilton and began secretly schooling the younger Charles on jazz. They taught him to solo on three songs, "Rose Room," "Tea for Two," and "Sweet Georgia Brown." When the time was right they took him out to one of the many after-hours jam sessions along "Deep Deuce," Northeast Second Street in Oklahoma City.

"Let Charles play one," they told Edward. "Ah, nobody wants to hear them old blues," Edward replied. After some encouragement, he allowed Charles to play. "What do you want to play?" he asked. All three of the songs were big in the early 1930s and Edward was surprised that Charles knew them. After two encores, Charles had played all three and "Deep Deuce" was in an uproar. He coolly dismissed himself from the jam session, but his mother had heard about it before he got home.

Charles soon was performing locally and on the road throughout the Midwest, as far away as North Dakota and Minnesota. By 1936, he was playing electric guitar and had become a regional attraction, and jammed with many of the big name performers traveling through Oklahoma City, among them Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. It was Mary Lou Williams, pianist for Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy, who told John Hammond about him.

Charles soon auditioned for record producer John Hammond, who recommended Christian to bandleader Benny Goodman. Goodman was one of the first white bandleaders to feature black musicians — he hired Fletcher Henderson as arranger and Teddy Wilson on piano in 1935, and in 1936 added Lionel Hampton on vibraphone. Goodman hired Christian to play with the newly formed Goodman Sextet in 1939. It has been often stated that Goodman was initially uninterested in hiring Christian because electric guitar was a relatively new instrument. Goodman had been exposed to the instrument with Floyd Smith and Leonard Ware among others, none of whom had the ability of Charlie Christian. There is a report of Goodman unsuccessfully trying to buy out Floyd Smith's contract from Andy Kirk. However, Goodman was so impressed by Christian's playing that he hired him instead.

There are several versions of the first meeting of Christian and Goodman on August 16, 1939. Suffice to say the encounter that afternoon at the recording studio had not gone well. Charles recalled in a 1940 Metronome magazine article, "I guess neither one of us liked what I played," but Hammond decided to try again — without consulting Goodman (Christian says Goodman invited him to the show that evening), he installed Christian on the bandstand for that night's set at the Victor Hugo restaurant in Los Angeles. Displeased at the surprise, Goodman called "Rose Room", a tune he assumed that Christian would be unfamiliar with. Unknown to Goodman, Charles had been reared on the tune, and he came in with his solo — which was to be the first of about twenty, all of them different, all unlike anything Goodman had heard before. That version of "Rose Room" lasted forty minutes; by its end, Christian was in the band. In the course of a few days, Christian went from making $2.50 a night to making $150 a week.

By February 1940, Christian dominated the jazz and swing guitar polls and was elected to the Metronome All Stars. In the spring of 1940, Goodman let most of his entourage go in a reorganization move. He made sure to retain Charlie Christian, and in the fall of that year Goodman led a Sextet with Charlie Christian, Count Basie, longtime Duke Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams, former Artie Shaw tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and later drummer Dave Tough, an all-star band that dominated the jazz polls in 1941, including another election to the Metronome All Stars for Christian.

Christian's solos are frequently referred to as "horn-like", and in that sense he was more influenced by horn players such as Lester Young and Herschel Evans than by early acoustic guitarists like Eddie Lang and jazz/bluesman Lonnie Johnson, although they both had contributed to the expansion of the guitar's role from "rhythm section" instrument to a solo instrument. Christian admitted he wanted his guitar to sound like a tenor saxophone. Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt had little influence on Christian, but he was obviously familiar with some of his recordings. Guitarist Mary Osborne recalled hearing him play Django's solo on "St. Louis Blues" note for note, but then following it with his own ideas. By 1939 there had already been electric guitar soloists—Leonard Ware, George Barnes, trombonist/composer ("Topsy") Eddie Durham had recorded with Count Basie's Kansas City Six, Floyd Smith recorded "Floyd's Guitar Blues" with Andy Kirk in March 1939, using an amplified lap steel guitar, and Texas Swing pioneer Eldon Shamblin was using amplified electric guitar with Bob Wills. However, Charles Christian was the first great soloist on the amplified guitar.

Guitarists who followed Christian and who were to varying degrees influenced by him include Mary Osborne, Oscar Moore (Nat King Cole trio), Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, and—-a generation later—-Jim Hall. "Tiny" Grimes, who made several records with Art Tatum, can often be heard quoting Christian note-for-note.

Christian paved the way for the modern electric guitar sound that was followed by other pioneers, including T-Bone Walker, Les Paul, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, B.B. King, Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix. For this reason Christian was inducted in 1990 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence."

Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that he influenced not only guitarists, but other musicians as well. The influence he had on "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Don Byas can be heard on their early "bop" recordings "Blue'n Boogie" and "Salt Peanuts." Other musicians, such as trumpeter Miles Davis, cite Christian as an early influence. Indeed, Christian's "new" sound influenced jazz as a whole. He reigned supreme in the jazz guitar polls up to two years after his death.

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*The Dixie Hummingbirds, a male gospel quartet, recorded for the first time (September 19).

The career of the Dixie Hummingbirds spans more than 80 years from the jubilee quartet style of the 1920s, through the "hard gospel" quartet style of Gospel's golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, to the eclectic pop-tinged songs of today. The Hummingbirds inspired a number of imitators, such as the legendary Jackie Wilson and James Brown, who adapted the shouting style and enthusiastic showmanship of hard gospel to secular themes to help create soul music in the 1960s.

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*Charlie Christian recorded "Rose Room" with the Benny Goodman Sextet (October 2).

The NAACP

*The NAACP created the Legal Defense and Educational Fund to fight discriminatory laws throughout the United States (October 11).  It was headed by Thurgood Marshall. 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, pledging itself to an all-out war on discrimination, was organized.  Charles H. Houston, a brilliant Amherst and Harvard-trained lawyer, spearheaded the effort to consolidate some of the nation's best legal talents in the fight against bias sanctioned by law.

*The NAACP initiated nine court cases claiming the right of African Americans to attend tax-supported colleges and universities in their home states.  

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The New Deal

*The WPA employed, or provided relief for, over one million African Americans.

More than one million African Americans had earned a living by being employed or given relief by the WPA.  The WPA employed African Americans in many fields, including the professions and the fine arts.  African American artists, for example, were commissioned to paint murals in government buildings.

*Although African Americans were generally represented proportionally on National Youth Administration programs, they were often underrepresented on the programs in Southern states.  Only 19.3% of the youths in NYA Out-of-scholl Work Projects were African Americans in the 17 Southern states and Washington, D. C., although they constituted 24.9% of the appropriate age group (15-24) in the population.  The projects needed a local public service organization as a sponsor in the South, and these organizations were controlled by European Americans.

*From 1936 to 1939, 12.5% of all rehabilitation loans granted by the Farm Security Administration were made to African Americans.  African American farmers constituted 12.6% of all farm operators.  Although African Americans constituted 37% of the low-income farm families in the South, only 23% of the low-income loans were made to African Americans there.

*The African American who had received a Farm Security Administration loan in the South had by 1939 repaid an average of 41%.  The European American, on the other hand, had repaid only 39%.  The average annual net income of African Americans rose 62%, that of European Americans rose only 48%.

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