Harlem Nocturne

by Farah Jasmine Griffin

  Petry never suggested that her departure from the limelight and from New York may have been influenced by the nation’s changing political climate. There is no FBI file on Petry, and she doesn’t seem to have been personally sought out by Hoover or by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The very fact that she was hired by Hollywood to write a screenplay for That Hill Girl, a feature-length vehicle for blonde bombshell Kim Novak, during the height of the Red Scare suggests that no one believed her to have been a Communist. However, many of her former colleagues, contemporaries, and friends were. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. broke all ties with his Communist allies in 1947. Benjamin Davis, the black Communist city councilman from Harlem for whom Petry expressed support as late as 1949, was sent to prison under the Smith Act, and Marvel Cooke, her friend and colleague at the People’s Voice, was subpoenaed by Joseph McCarthy in 1953. Two of the men Petry most admired, W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, both lost their passports and were harassed by the FBI.

  Harlem had lost some of its glitter; like many other black urban communities, with the Housing Act of 1949 the Black Mecca fell victim to urban renewal, which included the development of high-rise housing projects and the destruction of a number of neighborhood institutions. A heroin epidemic ensued. Harlem lost much of its radical and intellectual leadership and much of its middle class. After the war, middle-class African Americans met with increased opportunity for mobility as other areas of the city opened up to black residents, and many of those who could move did so. Those who moved found opportunities for homeownership and entry into the middle class.48

  The American Left and the black poor did not fare well during the Cold War. McCarthyism and the Red Scare changed African American politics in New York, as figures such as FBI director Hoover and Senator McCarthy targeted the radical wing of the Left. They challenged the coalition between the labor and civil rights movements, tempered the call of black leaders for economic justice, and sought to silence vocal street protests and grassroots organizing.49 With the rise of McCarthyism, calls for economic justice often were deemed Communist propaganda. Urban renewal efforts to redevelop areas by “eliminating blight,” “clearing slums,” and building high-rise public housing projects also led to the disruption of the community’s networks and the isolation and immobilization of many of its poorer members.

  Petry’s final piece of writing to come out of her Harlem years would be the gorgeously illustrated essay “Harlem” that appeared in Holiday magazine in 1949. Written after she’d left Harlem, the essay closes with a pessimistic vision of New York, a place upon which the sun seemed to have set:

  Harlem has been studied and analyzed by sociologists, anthropologists, and politicians. It has been turned and twisted, to the right and to the left, prettied up and called colorful and exotic, defamed and labeled criminal. Sometimes its past has been glorified, more often it has been censured. But looked at head on, its thousand faces merge into one—the face of a ghetto. In point of time it belongs back in the Middle Ages. Harlem is an anachronism—shameful and unjustifiable, set down in the heart of the biggest, richest city of the world.50

  Here Petry contributes to a “Harlem as Ghetto” discourse that dominated mainstream representations of the neighborhood for decades. Alternatively, a new generation of activist artists like Lorraine Hansberry, Maya Angelou, Abbey Lincoln, Louise Merriwether, and Toni Cade Bambara followed in Petry’s footsteps and found inspiration in the Black Mecca’s social complexity, cultural vibrancy, and political energy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROLLIN’ WITH MARY LOU WILLIAMS

  By late autumn 1943, Harlem faced an uncertain future. It would never fully recover from the riot. Whites, who had been an important source of income, stopped patronizing its nightlife. Eventually, many of the residents of Sugar Hill moved to places like St. Albans, Queens, and the Bronx. Some of the buildings that had been damaged during the riots remained empty of occupants for years. The scourge of heroin and gang violence began to overwhelm Harlem’s streets. Eventually, urban renewal efforts would transplant large numbers of Harlem’s black poor from tenements to high-rise housing projects, thereby contributing further to the concentration of poverty.

  Nonetheless, the sense of political optimism had not completely vanished, as was evident when, on October 24, 1943, the fourth Sunday of the month, close to 4,000 “too-too girls” and their companions found their way to the Golden Gate Ballroom at 140th and Lenox. New York would hold its first Fashion Week that fall, a gathering of designers, fashion editors, and buyers—fashion industry insiders all. Uptown, the “too-too girls” set their own trends, and the streets of Harlem were their runways. That night, some of them wore softly tailored suits with nipped waists and round collars; others donned shirtwaist dresses with thin fabric belts. Pompadours and platform pumps seemed to send them soaring. The sidewalk outside the Golden Gate filled with young couples and groups of young men and women, all anticipating the evening. The occasion: a political rally in support of African American Communist Benjamin J. Davis Jr., a candidate for city council.1

  On October 16, 1943, a full-page ad had run in the Amsterdam News:

  THRILLING—SENSATIONAL—INSPIRING—COLOSSAL

  . . .

  TERRIFIC ENTERTAINMENT TEDDY WILSON

  PRESENTS

  ALL STAR VICTORY SHOW

  IN TRIBUTE TO

  BENJ. J. DAVIS, JR.

  CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE.

  The ad featured photographs of Fredi Washington, Coleman Hawkins, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, and Mary Lou Williams. Tickets ranged from 55 cents to $2.50. That same issue ran an article about the planned event.

  After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1929, Benjamin Davis had opened a legal office in Atlanta, where he had represented Angelo Herndon, who faced the death penalty for simply leading a protest demonstration. Stunned by the bitter racism he confronted in court, Davis joined the Communist Party. It was the party’s support for and defense of Herndon—as well as the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men indicted for the rape of two white women—that helped to garner the party such widespread respect in many black communities during the thirties and forties. Consequently, Davis was already an admired figure when he relocated to Harlem in 1935. In New York he edited the journal Negro Liberator and worked on the staff of the Daily Worker. By 1937, he had become a secretary of the Harlem Division of the Communist Party. Within a few years, Davis was one of the most popular political figures in Harlem. He was a leader who gave voice to the community’s concerns and placed their plight in the context of larger national and global struggles. Davis saw “perfectly legitimate grievances” as the cause of the riots of 1943, including an increase in police brutality against blacks even as black soldiers fought against the fascists abroad.

  By the time he ran for Powell’s council seat, Davis had received the endorsement of the clergyman congressman and a bevy of Harlem’s religious, civic, and political leaders. Cultural figures, including the writers Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, and actress Fredi Washington had also endorsed him. Poet Countee Cullen joined Ben Gold, president of the Fur Worker’s Union, and Ferdinand Smith, secretary of the National Maritime Union, as a vice chairman of the nonpartisan committee to elect Ben Davis to the City Council of New York. Audley Moore, who would later be known as Queen Mother Moore, served as campaign manager. Moore is best known for her black nationalist politics, but at the time she was a leading black leftist. In the 1940s, ideological lines were not as harshly drawn between leftists and black nationalists; they were united in their commitment to the black freedom struggle. The brilliant pianist Teddy Wilson—the “Marxist Mozart”—chaired the Artists Committee. As pianist at Café Society and a widely respected musician, Wilson had helped to further Billie Holiday’s career by featuring her as vocalist on a number of his recordings. He was able to successfully organize his fellow artists to appear at the rally in support of Davis’s candidacy.

  Two hours before the show sta
rted, the fire department had to close the doors because the ballroom was already filled to capacity. According to Davis, another 5,000 people stood outside the ballroom awaiting entrance. The committee quickly rented another hall six blocks away, the Renaissance, at 121 West 138th Street, and over 2,000 people came to hear the entertainers give a second show.

  Musicians Coleman Hawkins, Hazel Scott, Count Basie, Lucky Roberts, Art Tatum, Jimmie Lunceford, and Mary Lou Williams; vocalists Billy Daniels, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Josh White, and Ella Fitzgerald; and dancers Helen Tamiris and Pearl Primus were among the featured performers. There was even a performance by the Swa-Hili Dance Group “in Native African Dances.” Fredi Washington served as mistress of ceremonies. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. roused the crowd with his opening remarks: “The will of the anti-Fascists, anti-Christian Frontiers and anti–Ku Klux Klan will send Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., to the City Council on November 2.” Paul Robeson introduced Davis, remembering their long friendship, which had started when Robeson’s Rutgers football team played against Davis’s Amherst College team. (Davis had been the star of the team and was named “All Eastern Tackle” his senior year.) Hazel Scott received a roar of applause, not only because of her performance but also because of her $100 contribution to Davis’s campaign ($1,333 in today’s dollars). The cast of the Broadway play Oklahoma pledged $100 each to the campaign. And labor leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn joined others of note on the platform. The People’s Voice reported that the event “brought out more top flight stars than have ever honored any political candidate in the history of Harlem.” According to the Amsterdam News, the artists “gave from the heart in a thrilling performance for a cause close to their hearts.”2

  In November 1943, Harlem sent Benjamin Davis, a Communist leader, to the New York City Council to represent their interests. On November 11, 1943, shortly after the election, a New York Times headline read “Democrats Margin in New Council Cut, ‘Left’ Forces Gain.” Fellow Communist Peter V. Cacchione of Brooklyn joined Davis on the council. Davis noted that it was “crystal clear” that he had not been elected by Harlem alone or by the Communist Party alone. Davis had been elected by a coalition of voters who crossed religious, ethnic, and racial boundaries.3

  When Davis returned to the Golden Gate Ballroom to deliver his first report on the city council, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday, Pearl Primus, Josh White, and Mary Lou Williams provided the entertainment again. In 1945, Davis won reelection with the second-highest vote ever received by a councilman. However, in 1949, he was expelled from the council. Tried and convicted, along with other Communists, under the Smith Act for conspiring to overthrow the US government, he was imprisoned, and he was not released until 1954. But Harlemites and their beloved celebrities refused to give up on Davis and continued to hold rallies in support of him even after his arrest. As late as 1949, Ann Petry wrote that Harlemites had “voted for Ben Davis because [they] felt he would never sell Harlem down the river,” not because they were members of the Communist Party.4 For Petry, Davis’s commitment to black people, particularly those who were economically disadvantaged, endeared him to Harlem. They believed he would fight for their concerns and that he would not comply with policies that were not in their best interest. For them, his racial loyalties were more significant than his party affiliation.

  The artists who performed at the events in support of Davis’s candidacy more than likely shared these sentiments. They were not just the black community’s most popular stars; with the exception of Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, most of the musicians were also affiliated with Café Society, which meant that they were likely staunch supporters of progressive causes. Teddy Wilson drew on his colleagues at Café Society, and the club’s owner, Barney Josephson, encouraged his artists to be involved in political and civic events.

  Mary Lou Williams was one such artist. Williams performed at Café Society nightly, and the club quickly became the nexus of her political, social, and creative life. Mary Lou and other performers from Café Society performed at a number of benefits. According to Williams, “Josh White had just joined the show . . . and we used to do sometimes 2 or 3 benefits per night.”5 These might be performances for soldiers at the Canteen on 44th Street or benefits for war relief, war orphans, political rallies, or other causes.

  The Davis rally was the beginning of Mary Lou Williams’s political activity.6

  Of her political involvement, Williams later said, “There’s not one musician I think would be in any kind of political anything if they weren’t disturbed about the race, as being abused and whatnot, [and] trying to help the poor.”7 A child of the black poor, Williams believed they suffered from the twin evils of racism and poverty and that they were in need of special assistance. Williams remained deeply concerned about and committed to the plight of black Americans, especially the black poor, for the rest of her life. There were rumors she hosted Communist Party cell meetings in her Harlem apartment. It is unclear whether these rumors were true. But, although she sympathized with the Communist cause, and may have generously opened up her home to artists and activists who needed a place to meet, she was never a member of the Communist Party.

  Most importantly, more so than Primus or Petry, Williams’s passion for racial and economic justice was as spiritually driven as it was politically motivated. In fact, one cannot separate her spiritual quest from her political and philanthropic activities. By the early 1940s, she had not yet found a religion or a denomination to which to direct her spiritual yearnings. Nonetheless, her sense of spirituality, deeply informed by a kind of organic mysticism, called her to act in the world to alleviate human suffering. Unlike Petry and Primus, Williams did not always do so through organized efforts; in fact, most often she was engaged in individual, one-on-one efforts to free people of debt, addiction, violence, and homelessness.

  By the time she moved to Sugar Hill in Harlem during the summer of 1943, Williams was already an established star in the black community. Black newspapers across the country documented her move to the city as well as her residency at Café Society. (It should be remembered that papers such as the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the Baltimore Afro-American had national distribution, so the news they reported was the news of black America.) When Williams moved to Harlem, the Amsterdam News reminded readers that “she is an Immortal of Jazz, one of the best female pianists in the business, and one of the top arrangers and composers regardless of sex.”

  Publicity photo, 1946. Courtesy of the Mary Lou Williams Collection, Institute for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University.

  A child prodigy, Williams had proven herself to be a gifted musician, composer, and arranger long before settling in New York. Born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, the second of eight children, on May 8, 1910, in Atlanta, Georgia, she was recognized early for her musical and spiritual gifts. Williams emerged from the womb with a veil, a thin membrane of placenta, thought by African Americans to be a sign of the child’s clairvoyance. “I used to hear so many stories about spooks and ghosts,” she remembered. “Seemed like I picked up on that when I was about two or three years old because my mother was afraid to take me out anywhere with us.”8 Early on the young girl experienced visions. Blessed from birth with a psychic sensibility, Williams would always link her musical gift to her deep spirituality.

  At age three, Williams stunned her mother, herself a talented musician (though not a professional one), when she played melodies on the piano that she’d heard. Mary Lou, on her mother’s lap at the piano, played the notes she had just watched her mother play, and it shocked her mother so much that she dropped her.9 An introspective child, Williams possessed a complex inner life that helped her to see both the significance of her musical gift and the role it might play in helping her make her way to a better life than that into which she was born. Williams always possessed a sense of self far beyond what might have been expected for a young person in her situation. At best, a young black woman born into poverty might have worked as a
domestic servant for most of her life. A musically talented one might have become a highly respected church musician. Had she acquired education, she might have become a teacher. As an entertainer, she might have acquired a modicum of success and fame. But Williams’s ambitions went beyond all of this. She was confidently aware of her genius, and throughout her life she sought opportunities to express it fully.

  Williams described her family’s home in Atlanta as “a wooden frame house near swampy woods” where her mother and grandmother went on “regular weekend drinking sprees.”10 In fact, Williams’s mother spent the week as a live-in domestic servant. If she enjoyed partying on Saturday night, she also regularly attended church on Sunday morning. There she served as pianist and organist. Eventually, both Williams’s mother, Virginia Burley (who married Williams’s stepfather, Fletcher Burley), and her grandmother, Anna Jane, earned money as laundresses.

  Williams hid under the bed when her great-grandparents recounted stories about slavery, but she heard the tales nonetheless. From these stories she learned about the history of her people and their music, and for the rest of her life she saw black music as the deepest expression of black history. This association drove her sense of purpose and mission as well as her pedagogy. In a number of essays, both published and unpublished, Williams insisted that “jazz began with the spirituals.” She wrote, “The black American Slaves were taken to church. They learned the hymns of the white people. Soon they began to create their own psalms or hymns. These became known as the spirituals. This is the first music that was later to develop into what we know as jazz.”11 Years later, she would have her friend David Stone Martin create an illustration of a black music tree with its roots in slavery and suffering.