What Caused the Harlem Riots of 1935?

The Harlem Riot of 1935 was the first twentieth-century race riot, centered in Harlem, New York. There were many unfavorable conditions imposed on the black community at the time of this riot – conditions such as mass unemployment, frustrating inequality, and police brutality. The incident that sparked the initial outbreak took place on the afternoon of March 19, 1935. Lino Rivera, a black teenager, was caught stealing a pen-knife from a Harlem store on 125th street. The store owner and an employee detained the thief and waited for an officer to arrive at the scene. Meanwhile, a crowd of worried spectators gathered around the store. Rivera was released and escorted out the back of the store, but a few circumstances, such as an ambulance meant to treat the store owner's wounds, and a hearse which was stationed near the scene of the incidents, led spectators to assume that the thief had been killed. Of course, the death of a minor has always stripped people of the ability to keep their emotions in check. The crowd became violent and the rumor of the death of the teenager spread around Harlem, causing the riot.

Extra Credit: Taylor and Michael

I have done the extra credit assignment for this week by commenting on Michael's Gorgeous Shell and Destruction of Gotham posts. I have also commented on Taylor Alford's Fourth and Fifth blog posts. Check them out.

A Way with Words

Being that this week I have the opportunity to reflect on any aspect of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novella, “May Day”, I would like to take the chance to share my favorite passage in the narrative, and explain why it pleased me to the extent that I am now shedding some light on it. The passage appears on page 39.

“She thought of her own appearance. Her bare arms and shoulders were powdered to creamy white. She knew they looked very soft and would gleam like milk against the black backs that were to silhouette them tonight. The hairdressing had been a success; her reddish mass of hair was piled and crushed and creased to an arrogant marvel of mobile curves. Her lips were finely made of deep carmine; the irises of her were delicate, breakable blue like china eyes. She was a complete, infinitely delicate, quite perfect thing of beauty, flowing in an even line from a complex coiffure to two small slim feet.”

This passage is a stunning description of the novella’s main female character, Edith. The author is able to slow down time, in this description; he is able to romanticize the woman’s shoulders, her small figure, her ginger-colored strands of hair, her red lips and delicate eyes. For a moment, it is almost as if the setting fades into nothingness, and the only thing that matters is this mistress of the Gamma Psi dance. I believe that the combination of Fitzgerald’s attention to detail and his descriptive abilities make this passage a very strong and beautiful moment in the narrative, and it also makes the reader gain an appreciation to Edith’s character.

Assignment #6

For my sixth blog assignment, I have visited and left comments on the two most interesting blog posts that I came across --the blogs of other students from Violence Art Culture. I went through many blogs, but Jeelyan Martinez's post, "Violence in the Novel" and Marcela Romero's post, "A Potential Theme in Caesar's Column" were very strong and interesting ideas. I showed my interest by leaving comments in which I told them why I found their ideas interesting, and I also left them a few minor suggestions.

Nothing To Lose

“I could hear the volcanic explosions; I could see the sordid flood of wrath and hunger pouring through these halls; the cataracts of misery bursting through every door and window, and sweeping this splendor into never ending blackness and ruin.” (50)

This passage which comes up in the heart of chapter seven of Caesar’s Column, describes a prediction of how civilization will soon fall as a result of the oppression of the lower class. The novel’s protagonist, Gabriel Weltstein, believes that the people will rise up and destroy the rich men and civilization along with them, because the people have been victims of civilization; they have been abused the rich men –the people in power; and they have been put in a position where they have nothing to lose if they decide to destroy everything.

This theme of the poor destroying civilization comes up many times in the novel. A notable passage that captures this theme appears in chapter eleven, “How the world came to be ruined”. In the passage, Max is tells Gabriel that “As the domination of the ruling class increased, the capacity of the ruling class to resist, within the limits of law and constitution decreased.(76)” He claims that there was nowhere to turn because there was “corruption in every avenue.” The poor man could do nothing to defend himself against the rich and powerful, hence the Brotherhood of Destruction was formed.

The lower class no longer cares for justice or restoration of civilization; they believe it is too late for that; there is no way to fix the damage that has been done; no way to achieve equality in their world. In chapter twenty, The Workingmen’s Meeting, Gabriel wishes to appeal to the working men –trying to make them believe that if they decide to seek justice rather than destruction, they will be able to create a perfect society –a society where nobody starves or suffers injustices under the power of rich men. However, one of the workers replies that the workingmen are not members of society; they are its “victims”. He adds “[The rich men] depend on repression, on force alone; on cruelty, on starvation, to hold us down until we work our lives away. Our lives are all we have; –it may be all we will ever have.(130)” This passage ties back to what I said earlier. How the workingmen have nothing to lose, and they are victims of society.

 This theme is crucial to the story because it explains why the workingmen formed a Brotherhood of Destruction rather than a Brotherhood of Justice. These men don’t seem to believe that they can do anything to improve their lives; they simply want to destroy the thing that is oppressing them, regardless of the fact that this destruction won’t make things better.

Poor Man's Paradise

You don't have to read much into Caesar's Column to be able to make a connection between this novel and Joaquin Miller's, The Destruction of Gotham. By the time you have read up to the fifth chapter of Mr. Donnelly's novel, it is clear that there is a theme of great financial inequality between the classes; and the protagonist is on the side of the lower class --same as Miller's novel.


Donnelly's protagonist, Gabriel Weltstein, despises greed as much as Mr. Walton (from The Destruction of Gotham). Weltstein firmly believes that pursuit of money is the greatest problem in society.

At the beginning of chapter twelve, when asked what his own "Utopia" is, Gabriel replies that he envisions a world where people have no "interest on money". He claims that "Interest on money is the root and ground of the world's troubles" (80). It creates unnecessary inequality by allowing some people to "feel secure" while others struggle to achieve this sense of security.






Keep in mind that this bitterness towards money and upper class people has been a constant theme in all of the riot reading and the novels. There is really no need to overanalyze it --any society that has this unfair financial distinction between its citizens is always going to have people who believe that money and wealthy men are the source of their problems.
    

"Just Shoot 'em Down" -- Railroad Riots of 1877

Had the people risen en masse and put down the rioters on the first day, or had the military acted with promptness and decision, and on the first attempt at violence by the mob shot down half a dozen, dispersed the rest, and set the trains rolling on their way, the great railroad strike of  1887 would never have disgrace the country and it would have been spared the suffering and loss that have followed.  
Page 365

I chose this passage from the great railroad riots of 1887 as the most important passage of the reading.  The passage clearly exposes the author's opposition to the riots, and it gives the reader his solution for preventing these outbursts.  I believe that this solution of shooting down the rioters before they grow out of control is the message that the author wishes to get across in writing this story.

The author raises a valid point in this passage.  He says that if the civilians or the military forces would have shot down the insurgents on the first day of the riots, all of the violence and destruction thar followed would have reached an early end. There is no contradicting the truth of this statement due to the fact that the author and the readers know that the riots of 1877 spread to different states and caused a great deal of violence, death, amd destruction.

However,  if we take the author's words to be an argument that states that all insurgents must be shot down on the first day of a riot in order to avoid violence and destruction at all costs,  the passage becomes controversial.  Rioters should not be shot down by civilians or military forces on the first day of a riot  because there is no predicting how large and out of control the riots will become. Therefore,  nobody knows if killing the insurgents is the best thing to do.

Close Reading Chapter 2: In the Great City

"It is estimated that every day hundreds if young women enter New York never to return more than as many young men, also strangers, young, eager, ambitious, pour in upon the wonderful city from the South, the East, the West --from the four parts of the world."

 

This is the opening passage of the second chapter. It is a fantastic image of people coming into New York, with hopes of finding something that they don't have in their places of origin. 

Some of these young women enter the city looking for work; they know that there are already thousands of women working in the great city, and that there is much money to be earned in this place. 

Other girls come into the city after they have been afflicted by the lonelinesses that haunts them in the rural parts of the country they reside in. These girls hope to find friends or a strong, handsome, romantic man who will be the relief of her troubles.

Regardless of their exact reasons, all the young people who come to New York are blinded by the superficial glamour of the city. These people believe that they are coming to a marvelous place of endless possibilities, where they will escape all their troubles. However, these people will soon come to realize that the perfect city is just an illusion.  

 

"The girl pushed on, confused, frightened, lost in the wilds of civilization! Each step forward bore her only deeper in the heart of this new and to her almost terrible wilderness."

 

In this passage, one of the young women has gotten into New York; she has been stripped of her illusion of the perfect city, now she is only terrified in the "wilds of civilization". She hasn't found any friends or a handsome, kind-hearted man; she is all alone and scared.  And her troubles are just beginning. She will continue to endure hardships in the great city.

Omission of Important Content in "The Great Railroad Riots"

I was recently reading “The Great Railroad Riots of 1887”, as I am sure most of you have done as well, and I feel obliged to say that this reading stood out –I mean compared to the previous stories in the course packet.  What I found to be of such interest, in this narrative, was the poor job that the author did in exposing the issues which led to the uproar of the citizens. Of course, I am certain that this issue was not the effect of a humble mistake.

In the “Flour Riot of 1937”, the author makes it clear that he is opposed to the riot and all of the destruction and lawlessness that comes with the riot.  But there are moments in the narrative that help the reader understand and even try to justify the actions of the rioters. The author constantly mentions the hunger and frustrations that the high cost of living.  This is not the case in the railroads riots narrative. In the aforementioned, the narrator spends dozens of pages describing a storm of death and anarchy; yet he writes less than a paragraph presenting the conditions that led to the violent actions of the insurgents. I must also point out that even though the author wastes only a few milliseconds describing the rioters’ frustrations, he does not hesitates in negating the validity of these conditions.

In my opinion, the author deliberately avoids adding any content that might make the reader believe that the behavior of the insurgents can be justified.

What do you think?