12019-03-12T23:56:34+00:00Stanford University Pressaf84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a1282415plainpublished2019-10-11T18:49:51+00:00AnonymousOn December 20, 1930, the Norfolk Journal and Guide ran a feature on jazz singer Alberta Hunter. The piece, an Associate Negro Press Story by George Schuyler, focused on Hunter’s contrasts between Europe and the United States. “Of course I prefer Europe,” Hunter said. “What Negro with sense doesn’t? There I was received with kindness, consideration, and appreciation: here I have met with little except unkindness and lack of appreciation. The only time I knew I was colored in Europe was when I came in contact with certain types of white Americans.” Hunter also described theatrical agents in the U.S. as “very unkind and brusque, regardless of one’s record. They do not want refinement and finesse in a Negro performer: all they want is ‘niggerism,’ a whole lot of foot-stamping and shouting.In Europe it is just the opposite—they don’t try to put the Negro in a certain groove and keep him there. The white agents here will give the most mediocre white actors consideration before they will a Negro with the finest European reputation.”
