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CHAPTER ONE
Migration and urbanization, 1915â30
In the early twentieth century the United States was a rapidly changing place. In 1900 the majority of Americans lived in the countryside; by the end of the 1920s over half lived in towns and cities. In 1900 there were just 8,000 cars registered in the United States, and the horse, or horse-drawn vehicles, remained the most common form of private transport. In 1930 over 26.5 million cars were registered and the word horsepower had taken on a different meaning.
The overall impression was one of moving forward. The development of the new discipline of psychiatry provided fresh insights into the human mind. The emergence of professional groups, like social workers and city planners, offered new solutions for the social evils of the day. The period 1900â20 became known as the Age of Progressivism, an era in which it seemed that progress in science, technology and understanding of the human condition might lead to an epoch of contentment and prosperity.
Unfortunately, change was not always for the better. In 1915 the epic Birth of a Nation was a landmark in the development of the Hollywood film industry, costing $110,000 to make at a time when the average budget for a film was $20,000. It was over three hours in length at a time when productions usually ran for less than an hour. The film incorporated cinematic techniques that were revolutionary for the day, like tracking shots, close-ups and fade-outs. It ran for ten months in New York City and twenty-two weeks in Los Angeles. More than 25 million people saw the production, and for up to half of these it was the first film they had ever seen. It was also the first film to be screened at the White House, before Woodrow Wilson. A noted historian in his own right, the President endorsed the film as âwriting history with lightningâ because of what he regarded as its searing but accurate portrayal of historical events.
The storyline was ambitious, depicting the history of the nation from the days of slavery to Reconstruction as seen through the eyes of two families, the Stonemans from the North and the Camerons from the South. A key message of the film was to highlight the horrors of warfare and the need for the peaceful resolution of political problems. The release of the production in the midst of the First World War gave this message especial poignancy.
Regrettably, other themes in Birth of a Nation were less uplifting. The final third of the film, based on Dixonâs novel The Clansman, portrayed the Reconstruction era after the Civil War as a disaster in the nationâs history. It was depicted as a time when self-seeking northern carpetbaggers combined with corrupt southern white scalawags and ignorant ex-slaves to place the South under a form of political despotism in order to plunder the wealth of the region.
The depiction of African Americans was the most offensive aspect of the production. The image of the âblack bruteâ as popularized by Dixon was brought alive on the screen in the character of Gus, an ex-union army soldier. In one scene Gus sought to force his attentions on the innocent younger daughter of the Cameron family who only escaped rape by committing suicide. The impact of the chase on filmgoers was such that some viewers fired pistols at the screen in an attempt to save the white damsel.
Other black characters, if more sympathetic, were equally demeaning. The faithful retainers who continued to serve the Cameron family after the Civil War reinforced the image of the loyal black slave. The character of the household cook became one of the earliest representations of the jovial, rotund, black mammy, a figure hitherto uncommon, both in the writings of slave-owners and subsequent romanticized portrayals of the ante-bellum south.
Birth of a Nation also marked the first major screen appearance of the âtragic mulattoâ, a stereotype that, in literary form, dated back to Harriet Beecher Stoweâs Uncle Tomâs Cabin. Doomed by mixed-race ancestry, the mulatto longed to be accepted into white society, an aspiration that could never be fulfilled because of his or her black bloodline. Embittered and self-loathing, the mulatto served as a warning of the consequences of racial amalgamation.
The release of Birth of a Nation occurred at a time when, on average, one African American a week in the southern states was killed, often in horrific fashion, by lynch mobs, most commonly because of ill-founded allegations of sexual assault against white women. The filmâs glamorous portrayal of the Klan was partly responsible for the rebirth of the âInvisible Empireâ in 1915.
Civil rights leaders and organizations, most notably Booker T. Washington, William Monroe Trotter and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), came together in a rare show of unity to condemn the film and organize public protests against it. NAACP lawsuits in New York City and Boston sought to have the production banned. The results of these actions were generally unsuccessful. Attempts at prohibition sometimes led to the most inflammatory scenes being cut, but carried the stigma of seeking to restrict freedom of expression. Opponents of the film also suffered the classic dilemma of the advocates of censorship; the more controversial Birth of a Nation became, the more people wanted to see it.
The long-term impact of the film was also discouraging. Later filmmakers avoided the portrayal of black characters or racially sensitive issues altogether. The reasoning behind this was more commercial than idealistic. By the 1920s over 50 million Americans went to the cinema every week. Many films were marketed in Europe. Although this offered the prospect of large financial rewards the level of risk also increased, with the average cost of making a film rising to $300,000 by the mid-1920s. Controversial subject matter was therefore generally avoided, lest this lead to failure at the box office.
Film roles requiring the portrayal of black characters were almost non-existent throughout the 1920s. The few parts that were available were almost always as servants, maids or chauffeurs and involved only brief appearances. A slight advance was that by the end of the decade these were usually played by African Americans rather than whites in blackface, as had been the custom in earlier productions, including Birth of a Nation. The reason for this change was commercial. Improvements in the quality of film, and a demand from cinemagoers that films look more realistic, meant that the use of burnt-cork make-up was no longer acceptable. An exception to the rule was the release of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer in 1927. Starring Al Jolson in blackface, the film exposed new generations of Americans to the racial caricatures of minstrelsy at a time when it was declining as a form of entertainment.
Another stereotype, the pickaninny, was kept alive in the Our Gang comedies of Hal Roach, the first of which was released in 1922. The series focused on the adventures of a group of white and black children but the names of the latter, âSunshine Sammyâ, âFarinaâ, âStymieâ and âBuckwheatâ, together with their comic appearance, set them apart from their white co-stars.
Small independent African American film companies like the Frederick Douglass Film Company, 1916â20, and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, 1915â23, tried to provide more dignified portrayals of black characters for African American audiences, but were commercial failures. They were unable to secure the funding needed to meet the high cost of film production. Equally, they found it hard to obtain sufficient outlets for their productions, many theatres up and down the country being solely for whites.
Occasionally, films with blacks in leading roles were made for the white market, but these also failed at the box office, despite the fact that the characters were portrayed in a way designed to meet stereotyped white expectations. Hearts of Dixie (1929) thus had an all black cast playing happy slaves on a southern plantation after the Civil War, whilst King Vidorâs Hallelujah (1928) starred Nina Mae McKinney as a tragic mulatto.
Film was not the only new form of popular entertainment available to Americans. In the 1920s radio emerged as a form of mass communication. Starting with only a few local broadcasters, by 1930 there were more than 1,000 radio stations in the United States with airtime dominated by two major national networks, CBS and NBC.
A strong component of radio broadcasts in the 1920s was the playing of music, either recorded or in live broadcasts from nightclubs, dance halls and hotel ballrooms. Whatever the venue, black musicians were given only a small amount of airtime, particularly on stations affiliated to the national networks. The best opportunities for black performers were on small local stations in large northern cities.
Between 1927 and 1930 Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performed over 200 times on New York stations. Other black musicians, like Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong, also featured. In 1927 Floyd J. Calvin produced the first programme devoted to black journalism on WGBS radio in New York. An hour in length, it was sponsored by an African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier.
On WGBC in Chicago The Negro Hour, launched by Jack L. Cooper, played recordings by leading black musicians, like Armstrong, Ellington, Henderson and King Oliver. A leading black pioneer in early radio, Cooper went on to become a millionaire and own his own broadcast studio and advertising agency by the end of the 1940s.
Cooperâs success was not typical. The Harlem Broadcasting Corporation, the first truly independent African American venture into commercial radio, collapsed within a few years. All major radio stations of the 1920s were white-owned. The unwillingness of white backers to give black artists airtime access ensured that white bands, like the Vincent Lopez Orchestra or Paul Whiteman Band, dominated music shows on early radio.
Often white ensembles played cover versions of numbers created by black bands. These imitations were generally of less intrinsic merit than the originals but were more acceptable to white listeners. This was an important consideration because radio audiences of the 1920s were predominantly white. African Americans comprised less than 15 per cent of the national population. This minority group status was accentuated by economic inequalities. In 1930 only 14.4 per cent of urban black households owned a radio, and in rural districts, where the majority of African Americans still lived, radios were typically owned by less than one per cent of the black population.
The owners of radio stations targeted their broadcasts at white audiences. This was also the case with commercial sponsors of radio shows. In the early 1920s there was little commercial advertising on radio and as late as 1927 advertising funded only 4.3 per cent of US radio stations. By the end of the decade commercial sponsorship became more important. Fear of alienating sponsors, combined with the desire to maximize listening audiences, reinforced the conservatism of station owners in devising broadcasting schedules. In another unfortunate development racist advertising stereotypes were brought to the airwaves. In the late 1920s Quaker Oats used a white actress, Tess Gardella, to play Aunt Jemima, both in a radio marketing campaign and a CBS show devoted to the character.
The use of white actors and comedians to play black characters on radio was essentially a modernized version of blackface minstrelsy, which in its traditional form was in decline by the 1920s. The expansion of radio enabled minstrel stereotypes to live on and opened them up to larger audiences. The most striking example of this was the Amos ânâ Andy Show. Devised by two white entertainers, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the production centred on the comic experiences of two black migrants to the north.
The venture had modest beginnings, airing initially on local radio in Chicago as the Sam ânâ Henry Show. It was an instant success. In August 1929 the show was given nationwide billing on NBC, with Gosden and Correll receiving a $100,000 contract to perform the show on primetime slots six nights a week. At the height of its appeal 53 per cent of the national radio audience, more than 40 million people, regularly listened to Amos ânâ Andy.
One reason for the showâs success was its genuinely witty dialogue. It also had contemporary resonance, exploiting the comic possibilities inherent in the transition from rural to urban life, an experience that many Americans shared for real in the 1920s. Less positive, but just as important, the show made use of stereotyped images of African Americans that had been a part of mainstream American popular culture since the advent of minstrelsy. The well-meaning but gullible Amos was a modern version of the âJim Crowâ character of the 1830s. Similarly, Andy, who was lazy and ignorant, but also domineering and self important, shared many of the traits of âZip Coonâ.
In sport, memories of Jack Johnson were still fresh. Jess Willard, the new champion, defended his title as little as possible and limited contests to white challengers. Jack Dempsey, who defeated Willard for the title in 1919, also drew the colour line. Gene Tunney, who bested Dempsey in two contests in 1926 and 1927, retired undefeated, leaving the title vacant and the prospect of a black contender seemingly no closer.
In athletics, one of the few other areas of sporting activity in which interracial contests were still possible, black participation at the highest level was virtually non-existent. In 1920 two African Americans made the United States track and field team at the Olympic Games in Antwerp, though neither succeeded in winning a medal. At the 1924 Olympics in Paris three blacks were present in the American track and field team. Dehart Hubbard became the first African American to win a gold medal in an individual event, the long jump, ahead of fellow African American Edward Goudin in second place. If this achievement represented a modest advance it was short-lived. At the 1928 Olympics there were no black competitors in the United States squad.
Largely excluded from sport and the new opportunities created by technological advances in film and radio, African Americans were still affected by the major social and economic changes brought about by industrialization and urbanization in the United States between 1915 and 1930.
Although many large urban centres in the North contained black communities, before the First World War African Americans played a limited part in the population drift to the cities. This changed with the Great Migration of 1915â25 when 1.25 million blacks left the South to seek a new life, in the cities of the North.
There were several reasons for this exodus. The expansion of wartime industries created new job opportunities. At the same time, the war resulted in an end to large-scale immigration from Europe creating labour shortages in northern factories. In contrast, the South experienced economic difficulties. From the 1890s through to the 1920s a new insect pest, the cotton-boll weevil, devastated cotton crops. New generations of black Americans, with no direct experience of slavery, were also less willing than their parents and grandparents to endure the oppressive racial conditions of the South.
The social and cultural impact of the Great Migration was far reaching. Large black ghetto residential districts developed in northern cities, such as Harlem in New York, and the South Side in Chicago. One reason for this was the growth of segregation in the North, making it impossible for black families to move into white neighbourhoods. Finance was also a consideration, with migrants only being able to afford accommodation in the least desirable areas. Often African Americans preferred to live in racially autonomous neighbourhoods that were removed from white surveillance.
Young artists, painters, poets, writers and musicians were drawn to the new ghettos where they were able to meet, exchange ideas and find sources of inspiration. This resulted in a flowering of black cultural achievement that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Centred on Harlem, New York, the Renaissance, or New Negro Movement as it was also called, embraced almost all areas of artistic activity but became most closely associated with a talented new generation of black writers and poets. These included Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer and Countee Cullen.
Generally well educated, and from middle-class backgrounds, these artists showed empathy with ordinary black Americans in their writings. They also expressed their anger at racial injustice. Claude McKayâs collection of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922), typified this sense of outrage, with poems like âThe Lynchingâ, âTo The White Fiendsâ, and âIf We Must Dieâ.
Leading Renaissance figures often carried their rebellion against social constraints into their personal lives. Langston Hughes resisted attempts by his parents to persuade him to take up a career in accountancy, giving up his studies at Columbia University to pursue a literary career. Claude McKay became a member of the Communist Party and Countee Cullen rejected the religious values of his father.
The work of Renaissance artists became espe...
