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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

NY Amsterdam News - April 5, 1933

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April - Archived Posts
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April 1, 1950: Political April Fools’ Day wishes in Pittsburgh Courier.
April 2, 1966: Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Bill Nunn Jr. on Texas Western championship basketball team.
April 3, 1954: Cleveland Call and Post reports on death of nightclub owner and numbers racket king Bennie Mason.
April 4, 1968: The front pages of black newspapers after assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
April 5, 1933: Hamilton Lodge Ball and drag performances in New York Amsterdam News.
April 6, 1972: North Carolina Mutual insurance advertisement in Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 7, 1959: Ads for Lydia Pinkham’s tablets and topics to relieve menstrual and menopausal pain in the Philadelphia Tribune.
April 8, 1939: Norfolk Journal and Guide on controversy over Louis Armstrong’s swing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
April 9, 197: Hank Aaron’s record breaking 715th home run covered in the Atlanta Daily World.
April 10, 1909: New York Women’s Business Club featured in Baltimore Afro-American.
April 11, 1936: Chicago Defender on a Howard University student bet gone wrong.
April 12, 1947: Jackie Robinson’s Major League Baseball debut covered in the black press.
April 13, 1948: Philadelphia Tribune reports on killing of World War II veteran George Serrell, who refused to sit in a Jim Crow train car.
April 14, 1979: Disco advertisements in the Cleveland Call and Post.
April 15, 1939: Account from a fugitive from a North Carolina prison in the Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Daniel Arico, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 15, 1939: Marian Anderson’s landmark performance at Lincoln Memorial reported in Chicago Defender.
April 16, 1904: Anti-profanity campaign reported in The Appeal. Guest post by Caroline Arkesteyn, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 16, 1959: Francois Andre’s male fashion show at Hollywood’s Moulin Rouge in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 17, 1915: Ohio Governor Frank Willis blocks exhibition of racist photoplay, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Alex Bishop, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 17, 1943: African-American women protest racial discrimination at Bechtel-McCone-Parsons airplane modification plant in Birmingham, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Lillian G. Page, MA student in history at the University of Memphis.
April 18, 1942: Eleanor Roosevelt calls for equality in speech at the Hampton Institute, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Connor Callahan, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 19, 1958: New York Amsterdam News on dangerous apartment conditions. Guest post by Mark Speltz.
April 19, 1960: Chicago Defender on racial discrimination and student organizing at Indiana University. Guest post by Samuel Carter, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 20, 1929: Chicago Defender on teen runner killed after winning race. Guest post by Trent Cork, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 21, 1953: Washington Afro-American on discrimination in the U.S. Army. Guest post by Katelyn Culver, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 22, 1950: Housing discrimination in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Austin Demers, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 23, 1960: White woman in Alabama beaten for dating black men, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Thomas Esposito, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 24, 1954: Chicago Defender on discrimination in Baltimore hotels. Guest post by Mark Fowler, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 25, 1987: Indianapolis Recorder on black student demands at Purdue University. Guest post by Derek Gilman, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 26, 1930: Indianapolis Recorder on movie theater discrimination. Guest post by Ethan Hill, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 27, 1974: Chicago Defender salutes Duke Ellington on his birthday. Guest post by Luke Johnson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1962: Police brutality reported in Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Samanvay Kasarala, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1988: Cleveland Call and Post endorses Jesse Jackson for President.
April 29, 1904: Iowa State Bystander reports on practical joke gone wrong. Guest post by Robert Kinser, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 30, 1960: Student protests in Greensboro, North Carolina reported in the Chicago Defender. Guest post by Samuel Kramer, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 5, 1933 On April 5, 1933, the New York Amsterdam News ran a review and photo from “Surprises of 1933,” featuring Harlem male doctors and dentists in drag. The amatuer revue was a fundraiser for Harlem's Edgecombe Sanitarium. The Amsterdam News’ review (“Pu-leeze, Doctor! You’re Surprising”) noted that one doctors “snakehips were nothing to throw Earl Tucker into a panic of fright; his Charleston wouldn’t necessarily arouse the envy of Josephine Baker, but his willingness and enthusiasm were all that could be desired.” The newspaper also featured a picture of several of the performers under the heading “Not Quite Ladies”: “‘Oh you must come over,’ this charming quintet of ladies (?) seem to be saying. No, it is not the Hamilton Lodge Ball. It is only Drs. Albert Armstrong, Ralph Young, Conrad Edwards, James Granady, and Solomon Peterson at ‘Surprises of 1933,’ Friday and Sunday evening at Y.W.C.A. Surprised?” (Click to view article PDF.)

The reference to Hamilton Lodge Ball would have been immediately recognizable to Amsterdam News readers. Held at Rockland Palace (W. 155 St. & 8th Avenue), the Hamilton Lodge Ball was the largest of Harlem’s drag balls. The Amsterdam News noted that the 1932 affair drew over 7,000 people: “To use the exact words of one of the muscular-shouldered, beautifully-gowned creatures present, ‘a gorgeous, thrilling spectacle—a veritable glimpse of fairyland. Whoops!’” (Click to view article PDF.) The Amsterdam News review continued:
The frolic, which was respectfully called a “masquerade and civic ball,” is the annual occasion upon which members of one sex who wish to impersonate members of the other group may throw off their inhibitions and assume the roles of their desire. It is also the occasion for Harlem’s social elite, Broadway’s thrill seekers, and all the pseudo-scientists of the metropolitan area to gather and watch the spectacle. And, depression or no depression, Friday night’s affair was no exception...Compared to affair of other years, Friday’s “drag” maintained an almost respectable air until the pageant was finished. After that, though, the lid blew off and the impersonators started making promiscuous “passes” at the spectators. Open, and often encouraged, flirtations were carried on: telephone numbers were passed; and broad shouldered bodies which would grace any football player or truck driver were rubbed suggestively against any man who happened to be standing near. In the same way, scores of masculine-looking women sought to touch the few unattached feminine spectators.
The review was accompanied by a beautiful drawing of the beautiful people who won the pageant awards.