Read Online One Righteous Man : Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York (9780807012611) by Arthur Browne - Free Book Online
Authors: Arthur Browne
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constant racial skirmishing. Inspired by the fighting, the enclave came to be called San Juan Hill after the site in Cuba of Teddy Roosevelt’s Spanish-American War victory.
Unsurprisingly, Battle’s landlord took a liking to him. James Mayhew served as something of a tutor to Battle, taught him to play the bridgelike card game whist, and gave him a fresh brush with greatness. The players who joined Battle at the card table included a curly-haired man with light cocoa skin—the great Arthur Schomburg.
A decade older than Battle, Schomburg had already embarked on his life’s work of collecting the lost histories and overlooked accomplishments of people of color. Perseverance as a bibliophile would make him a seminal figure of modern African American history and place his name on the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. When he met Battle, he was about thirty years old and working as a law firm clerk.
Battle remembered that Schomburg “took special interest in me” at their twice-weekly card playing. Increasingly focused on fighting for individual and racial dignity, Schomburg believed that blacks needed to stand on the same intellectual level as whites. He impressed upon Battle that learning was imperative. He stressed reading the newspapers. There was Timothy Thomas Fortune’s
New York Age
and there were the white newspapers like the
New York Times
,
New York Tribune
, and
New York Evening Post
. He spoke glowingly of books, be they histories, biographies, or fiction. Often in life, he fondly recalled reading Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
and being enthralled by Alexandre Dumas’s
The Three Musketeers
. Battle embarked on voracious reading and, he recalled, “was very much benefited.”
Away from the card table, Schomburg moved among talented black men and women. The center of the world became the blocks of West Fifty-Third Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues. There, Battle witnessed wonders that were unimaginable elsewhere—black people with money, blacks who were prominent entrepreneurs, blacks who were popular actors and musicians, blacks who lived in better-quality housing.
The Marshall Hotel was the place to dine, with a restaurant that featured an orchestra on Sundays, and the hotel’s bar was the place to socialize. Here, Battle began to learn from the likes of Harlem Renaissance poet and historian James Weldon Johnson and his brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson, who collaborated on the music and lyrics of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the “black national anthem.” Here, Battle got to know and be known by the stars of New York’s “Negro Bohemia.” Bright and affable, he struck up important friendships with Bert Williams and George Walker, the acclaimed musical comedy team of Williams and Walker; with song-and-dance men Charles Avery and Dan Hart; and with rising musician and bandleader James Reese Europe.
The Maceo Hotel was but a half step down in prestige from the Marshall. Weldon Johnson wrote that “the sight offered at these hotels, of crowds of well-dressed colored men and women lounging and chatting in the parlors, loitering over their coffee and cigarettes while they talked or listened to the music, was unprecedented.”
So, too, was style on the street. Jervis Anderson, author of the indispensable
This Was Harlem
, recounted that, on Fifty-Third Street, blacks dressed much as Battle had grown used to seeing whites attired on Fifth Avenue: “The men wore frock coats, vests, and wide-bottom trousers. Their shirts, fastened with studs, had detachable stiff collars and cuffs, made of linen, celluloid, cotton, or paper. Heavy watch chains dangled across their vests. Straw hats were commonly worn in summer, and derbies (or ‘high dicers’) in winter. They carried walking sticks and wore high boots polished with Bixby’s Best Blacking. The women were turned out in heavy-bosomed box blouses and full skirts that covered their ankles.”
Unsurprisingly, Battle’s landlord took a liking to him. James Mayhew served as something of a tutor to Battle, taught him to play the bridgelike card game whist, and gave him a fresh brush with greatness. The players who joined Battle at the card table included a curly-haired man with light cocoa skin—the great Arthur Schomburg.
A decade older than Battle, Schomburg had already embarked on his life’s work of collecting the lost histories and overlooked accomplishments of people of color. Perseverance as a bibliophile would make him a seminal figure of modern African American history and place his name on the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. When he met Battle, he was about thirty years old and working as a law firm clerk.
Battle remembered that Schomburg “took special interest in me” at their twice-weekly card playing. Increasingly focused on fighting for individual and racial dignity, Schomburg believed that blacks needed to stand on the same intellectual level as whites. He impressed upon Battle that learning was imperative. He stressed reading the newspapers. There was Timothy Thomas Fortune’s
New York Age
and there were the white newspapers like the
New York Times
,
New York Tribune
, and
New York Evening Post
. He spoke glowingly of books, be they histories, biographies, or fiction. Often in life, he fondly recalled reading Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
and being enthralled by Alexandre Dumas’s
The Three Musketeers
. Battle embarked on voracious reading and, he recalled, “was very much benefited.”
Away from the card table, Schomburg moved among talented black men and women. The center of the world became the blocks of West Fifty-Third Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues. There, Battle witnessed wonders that were unimaginable elsewhere—black people with money, blacks who were prominent entrepreneurs, blacks who were popular actors and musicians, blacks who lived in better-quality housing.
The Marshall Hotel was the place to dine, with a restaurant that featured an orchestra on Sundays, and the hotel’s bar was the place to socialize. Here, Battle began to learn from the likes of Harlem Renaissance poet and historian James Weldon Johnson and his brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson, who collaborated on the music and lyrics of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the “black national anthem.” Here, Battle got to know and be known by the stars of New York’s “Negro Bohemia.” Bright and affable, he struck up important friendships with Bert Williams and George Walker, the acclaimed musical comedy team of Williams and Walker; with song-and-dance men Charles Avery and Dan Hart; and with rising musician and bandleader James Reese Europe.
The Maceo Hotel was but a half step down in prestige from the Marshall. Weldon Johnson wrote that “the sight offered at these hotels, of crowds of well-dressed colored men and women lounging and chatting in the parlors, loitering over their coffee and cigarettes while they talked or listened to the music, was unprecedented.”
So, too, was style on the street. Jervis Anderson, author of the indispensable
This Was Harlem
, recounted that, on Fifty-Third Street, blacks dressed much as Battle had grown used to seeing whites attired on Fifth Avenue: “The men wore frock coats, vests, and wide-bottom trousers. Their shirts, fastened with studs, had detachable stiff collars and cuffs, made of linen, celluloid, cotton, or paper. Heavy watch chains dangled across their vests. Straw hats were commonly worn in summer, and derbies (or ‘high dicers’) in winter. They carried walking sticks and wore high boots polished with Bixby’s Best Blacking. The women were turned out in heavy-bosomed box blouses and full skirts that covered their ankles.”
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