In early twentieth-century New York City, newly opened black-owned cabarets and hotels became important sites of cultural production for African American musicians and artists. White New Yorkers also began to frequent these establishments—to dance, drink, and socialize with African Americans. New York City’s most influential antivice organization, the Committee of Fourteen, sent its undercover investigators out to gather information on “race mixing.” City officials had delegated remarkable powers to the Committee of Fourteen, and the Committee used its power to push New York City’s black bourgeoisie into making a precarious bargain. The controversy over black-owned drinking establishments trapped black leaders in an untenable position, as they were forced to engage in trade-offs in the quest for both social equality and economic self-sufficiency. Ultimately, this debate demonstrates the way race was used as a marker of morality and how segregation was imposed in a state with strong antidiscrimination laws.
James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan, 1930 (New York: DaCapo Press, 1991), 119-119.
2.
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 118-119.
3.
David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), 28-29.
4.
D. Slattery to Frederick Whitin, September 28, 1908, Box 1, Folder 7, Committee of Fourteen Records, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library (hereafter C14).
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
7.
and Deborah Gray White, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
8.
and Kevin J. Mumford, Interzones: Black/White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
9.
Frederick Whitin to Ruth Baldwin, November 15, 1912, Box 2, Folder 10 “General Correspondence 1912 November 1-15,” C14.
10.
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 2-2.
11.
On the People’s Institute’s leisure alternatives, see Jennifer Fronc, “‘I Led Him On’: Undercover Investigation and the Politics of Social Reform in New York City, 1900-1919” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2005).
12.
In Black Manhattan, James Weldon Johnson distinguishes between gambling clubs, honky-tonks, and professional clubs. He defines the professional clubs as establishments that “nourished...artistic effort.” He notes that these places were “the rendezvous of the professionals, their satellites and admirers. Several of these clubs were famous in their day and were frequented not only by blacks, but also by whites.” He lists the Criterion and Barron Wilkins, among others (pp. 74-75).
13.
Mara L. Keire explains that in New York, “the mechanics of licensing required that each alcohol retailer pay the Excise Department $1,200 for its liquor license and then take out an additional bond of $1,800 from a surety company to cover penalties incurred during the revocation or forfeiture of the license.” Because these fees were too high for ordinary saloon keepers to pay on their own, “breweries often owned the building, held a chattel mortgage on the bar fixtures, or fronted the money for the excise tax certificate and bond. When a brewer subsidized the license, the saloon keeper usually signed over power of attorney to the brewer.” As such, saloon keepers were susceptible to pressure from many sides—and the Committee of Fourteen used this to their advantage. “Vice in American Cities, 1890-1925” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2002), 42-43.
14.
The Research Committee of the Committee of Fourteen, The Social Evil in New York City: A Study of Law Enforcement (New York: Andrew H. Kellogg Co., 1910), xxv-xxv.
15.
Research Committee of the Committee of Fourteen, Social Evil, 22-22.
16.
Ibid., 22.
17.
William F.Pogue’s Report on Marshall’s, April 6, 1911, Box 28, Folder “1910-1912,” C14-C14.
18.
Ibid.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ibid.
21.
O’Neill’s Report on Marshall’s, September 28, 1912, Box 28, Folder “Invest. Reports 1912,” C14.
22.
Ibid.
23.
Ibid.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid.
28.
Ibid.
29.
William S. Bennet to Walter Hook [sic], December 24, 1910, Box 1, Folder 1, C14. I have rearranged the order of this quote for clarity’s sake, but the logic remains the same.
30.
Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1034-1035.
31.
See also Pauli Murray, ed., States’ Laws on Race and Color, 1951 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 301-328.
32.
Murray, States’ Laws,8-8.
33.
New York State Consolidated Laws, Civil Rights Laws of 1909, Chapter 6, Article 40, Sections 40-45, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/nycodes/c17/a6.html, January 27, 2004.
34.
“Discrimination Bill Is Signed—Can’t Draw Color Line,”New York Age, April 17, 1913.
35.
“Fight for Civil Rights in New York,”New York Age, February 13, 1913, editorial page.
36.
William Banks to Frederick Whitin, August 24, 1908, Box 1, Folder “General Correspondence: 1908, July-December,” C14.
37.
Whitin to Baldwin, August 31, 1909, Box 1, Folder 12 “General Correspondence, August 1909,” C14. Ruth Baldwin was a member of the Research Committee of the Committee of Fourteen and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women. She was also the widow of William H. Baldwin, Jr., who had served on the Committee of Fifteen and was president of the Long Island Railroad before his death. Baldwin was also a major contributor to and trustee of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.
38.
Ibid.
39.
Ibid.
40.
Booker T. Washington, “The Atlanta Exposition Address,”Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, 1901 (New York: The Modern Library, 1999), 145-145.
41.
Mrs. Baldwin did not immediately deliver that Washingtonian helpmate to Whitin. One year later, Whitin again contacted Baldwin on the “race issue.” In a letter dated August 10, 1910, he gently reminded her that “a year ago I had special difficulty in the matter of blacklisting the colored places. Among these places was one that was especially notorious as being a resort not merely for colored people, but also for whites.” Whitin also noted that the National Negro Business League will be “held in this city next week. Dr. Washington, as its president, will be in town....I would like very much to see Dr. Washington on the subject.” Box 10, Folder “Baldwin, Mrs. Wm. H.,” C14. On August 14, 1910, Booker T. Washington wrote to “my dear Mrs. Baldwin” and begged off on direct involvement with the Committee of Fourteen, citing a busy schedule, but also stating that he had “to bear in mind that I am not a citizen of New York and that I should not ‘dabble’ in many of these matters which are purely local. Anything that I can do, of course, to aid the work you are engaged in I am always willing to do, but purely local questions I think I ought not to take up.” Booker T. Washington to Ruth Baldwin, Box 10, Folder “Baldwin, Mrs. William H.,” C14.
42.
Dr. William Lewis Bulkley was born in slavery in 1861 in South Carolina. He earned a PhD at Syracuse University and moved to New York City in the 1890s. He worked as a teacher in New York City public schools and eventually became a school principal. Bulkley was a pragmatist and tried to address “conditions in the city as he saw them and tried to improve them immediately as best he could.” He was acquainted with Ruth Baldwin through the National League for the Protection of Colored Women. Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Elephant Paperbacks, 1996), 50-50, 64-64.
43.
Osofsky, Harlem, 54-54.
44.
See, for example, Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), chap. 5 and 6.
45.
Osofsky, Harlem, 241-241, footnote 13.
46.
Moore knew Ruth Standish Baldwin from the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, of which he was chair in 1910, and through his involvement with the Commission for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York and the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. Guichard Parris and Lester Brooks, Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 9-10, 33-33, 62-62. Moore was also the general manager of the National Negro Business League, a partner in the Afro-American Realty Company, and in March 1913, he was appointed minister and consul general to Liberia (although he resigned shortly after taking his oath of office).
47.
See also Charles Flint Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Volume I: 1909-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), 23-23, 133-134.
48.
Gaines, Uplifting the Race,2-2.
49.
Ibid., 3.
50.
“A Fulfilled Need?”New York Age, January 13, 1910, editorial page.
51.
Whitin to Bulkley, September 2, 1911, Box 1, Folder 18 “General Correspondence, September 1911,” C14.
52.
Ibid.
53.
Hooke to Fred R. Moore, September 15, 1911, Box 1, Folder 18 “General Correspondence, September 1911,” C14.
54.
Ibid.
55.
Ibid.
56.
Ibid.
57.
Moore letter, forwarded to Hooke, July 2, 1913, Box 2, Folder 20 “General Correspondence 1913 July,” C14. Perhaps not surprisingly, Lucien H. White, the theatre and arts reporter from the New York Age, began to work as an undercover investigator for the Committee in 1914. Box 28, Folder “1914,” C14.
58.
“About Committee of Fourteen,” New York Age, November 2, 1911. In the original article, all of the w’s were printed as y’s. I have made the appropriate changes for ease of reading.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Ibid.
61.
“Saloonkeepers Organize,”New York Age, June 8, 1911.
62.
Ibid.
63.
For Wilkins’ promissory note dated September 23, 1909, for his saloon at #253 West 35th, see David E. Tobias to Walker [sic] G. Hooke, September 12, 1910, Box 15, Folder “Tobias, David Elliot,” C14.
64.
See, for instance, unnamed investigator’s report on 331 W. 37th Street Walter Herbert’s Criterion Club Café, Box 28, Folder “1910-1912,” C14, and William Pogue’s “Report of Investigations April 5th (1911),” section on Young’s Café, Box 28, Folder “1910-1912,” C14.
65.
Present were Fred R. Moore, Dr. E. P. Roberts, Counselor James L. Curtis, and Dr. P. A. Johnson for the Committee of Fourteen, and the saloon men were represented by Barron Wilkins, G. L. Young, J. W. Connor, William Banks, and J. H. Press.
66.
“To Raise the Moral Tone of Local Saloons,”New York Age, December 14, 1911.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Ibid.
69.
W. E. B. Du Bois to William Bennet, September 23, 1911, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14. There is no reply to this letter in the Committee’s records.
70.
W. E. B. Du Bois to Frederick Whitin, October 10, 1912, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14.
71.
Frederick Whitin to W. E. B. Du Bois, October 11, 1912, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14.
72.
Ibid.
73.
W. E. B. Du Bois to Frederick Whitin, October 14, 1912, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14.
74.
Whitin wrote a letter about his exchange with Du Bois to Committee member Ruth Standish Baldwin. He wrote that he needed “to confer with you upon the perennial problem of the proper treatment of the colored race.” Frederick Whitin to Ruth Baldwin, November 15, 1912, Box 2, Folder 10 “General Correspondence 1912 November 1-15,” C14.
75.
Whitin to Du Bois, October 15, 1912, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14.
76.
Du Bois to Whitin, October 18, 1912, Box 2, Folder “General Correspondence 1912 October 1-20,” C14.
77.
Whitin to Du Bois, October 15, 1912, Box 11, Folder “W. E. B. Du Bois Correspondence,” C14.
78.
Du Bois to Whitin, October 18, 1912, Box 2, Folder “General Correspondence 1912 October 1-20,” C14.
79.
Whitin to Du Bois, October 1912, Box 2, Folder “General Correspondence 1912 October 21-31,” C14.
80.
Du Bois to Whitin, October 29, 1912, Box 2, Folder “General Correspondence 1912 October 21-31,” C14.
81.
Ibid.
82.
Ibid.
83.
Whitin to Du Bois, October 30, 1912, Box 2, Folder “General Correspondence 1912 October 21-31,” C14.
84.
James Marshall to Walter Hooke and Frederick Whitin, October 11, 1912, Box 2, Folder 8 “General Correspondence 1912 October 1-20,” C14.
85.
“Too Many Saloons in Harlem,”New York Age, October 1, 1914.
86.
Ibid.
87.
Ibid.
88.
Committee of Fourteen Annual Report for 1913 (New York, 1914), 41-42.
89.
Stewart to Whitin, September 28, 1912, Box 14, Folder St-Sz, C14.
90.
Ibid.
91.
Ibid.
92.
Moore letter, forwarded to Hooke, July 2, 1913, Box 2, Folder 20 “General Correspondence 1913 July,” C14.
93.
Ibid.
94.
Oppenheim’s report on Chadwick’s Novelty Café, November 21, 1915, Box 30, Folder 9, C14.
