The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 31 (2020)
Copyright © 2020 Yuko Matsumoto. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

Community Building in Harlem:
The New York Age in the 1910s

Yuko MATSUMOTO*INTRODUCTION
The concept of the community in American history is multifaceted, but
among the various types of communities, the necessary common factors thatenable us to define a community are solidarity, a sense of belonging to thecommunity, and communication among community members. Homogeneity
and a sense of exclusivity are also important to some degree. Based on thesecommonalities, scholars of American history have defined “the community”
broadly in two ways that are not mutually exclusive. One definition is agroup of people that is not necessarily geographically bounded but createdby the association or connection of people who share a sense of belonging orsocial ideas. The other is a group sharing the sense of belonging to someresidential area.1
Although scholars of racial and ethnic history have studied ethnic andracial communities in both the above aspects, they have stressed thesignificance of local ethnic and racial communities and tended to supposethat a homogeneous and solid community based on ethnicity or race should
be constructed naturally in a residential area. Furthermore, studies ofAfrican American communities have argued that the African American
community is defined more strictly by denial and exclusion in comparison
with ethnic communities that members construct willingly. In the1960s and*Professor, Chuo University

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1970s, African American urban history emphasized the formation of the“black ghetto” that was developed because of segregation and prejudice.
These studies acknowledged that African American business elites andmiddle-class African Americans made efforts to organize institutions within
the ghetto and helped bridge the gap between average African Americans
and elites. According to most “ghetto” studies, however, these elites did sofor profit while the majority of African Americans were passive inhabitants
or victims.2
Since the late twentieth century, based on the premise of African
American experiences of segregation and prejudice, historians who study
African American communities have argued that the exclusion did not
determine the nature of any African American urban community whileemphasizing the active agency of African Americans.3 By underlining theiragency, however, these scholars have been inclined to depict African
American communities as separate worlds.4 But were African American
communities well-circumscribed in urban areas from the start? What kind of
struggles or confusion arose in the process of forming the community?
These studies as well as “ghetto” studies have recognized that the actors or
leaders who built African American communities were their elites andmiddle-class members. Whatever the intents of the elites, how did they reachout to most African American residents? Was “racial solidarity” developed
through the efforts of “uplift” by leaders? Isn’t the formation of community
a more fluid and sometimes fluctuating process?5
In the search for answers to the above questions, in this article I review
the community building of African Americans in the Harlem neighborhoodof Manhattan in New York City from the early twentieth century, when
African Americans started to move into the area, to the end of World War I.
Scholars tend to focus on the 1920s, the age of the Harlem Renaissance, andto describe Harlem as the site of the miraculous emergence of a Negro
Mecca. In 1930, James Weldon Johnson, a poet and a civil rights activist
who was an editor of the African American newspaper the New York Age,proudly called Harlem “the greatest single community anywhere of people
descended from age-old Africa” and “the Negro capital.”6 This image ofHarlem as an ideal African American community has occasionally appearedin studies of the Harlem Renaissance.7
In Harlem, however, the daily lives of anonymous African Americans had
just begun in the early twentieth century. When Johnson described Harlem
as “the greatest” community, it had only been about twenty-five years sinceHarlem as an African American neighborhood took form. Gilbert Osofsky’sCOMMUNITY BUILDING IN HARLEM

23

classic work, published in the 1960s, described the real living conditions inHarlem from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s but put too
much emphasis on the “ghetto” aspect.8 In this article, therefore, I will try toilluminate how class and gender relations among African Americans, crossracial relations, and mobilization for the war intersected in Harlem while
African American leaders were attempting to transform Harlem from anaggregate of residents into a community.
I. THE NEW YORK AGE AND ITS IDEA OF COMMUNITY
I will focus on the formation of an African American community inHarlem through the eyes of the New York Age, which enjoyed a “virtual
monopoly” as the city’s leading African American journal until the end of
the 1910s.9 The African American press, the local press that took root in
African American residential areas in particular, is unquestionably therichest information source about African American communities. At thesame time, the local African American press was perhaps one of the mostsignificant actors in building their communities. The Age, which moved its
office into the center of Harlem in the early 1910s, expressed its views on
the necessity of building a community and agitated African American
readers to be conscious about the community while it advertised significant
local events and reported local news in detail. The owner and editors of theAge participated in forming African American organizations and meetings inHarlem with other leaders, and the Age itself hosted meetings, parades, andparties. By analyzing articles appearing in the Age, therefore, I will explore
how challenging the formation of the community in Harlem was from theviewpoint of one active participant. It can be assumed that following thevoice of one participant rather than summarizing topics related to thecommunity based on various materials is more effective in illuminating thefluid and fluctuating process of the formation of community. In New York, atthat time, a wide variety of African American activists were advocating theiropinions, some of whom did not share the same views on the community as
the Age. My attempt in this article, accordingly, is only an initial step inunderstanding the complexities of community formation. By eventually
collecting various voices, following each one and relating those voices with
one another, we will be able to present a more dynamic picture ofcommunity building.
The Age, first published in 1887, grew into one of the leading African
American newspapers in New York in the early twentieth century.

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Beginning at the turn of the century, it was supported financially by Booker
T. Washington. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of the so-called controversy
between Booker T. Washington, who emphasized the “racial uplift” throughthe education and economic progress of African Americans, and W. E. B.
DuBois, who demanded full civil rights and accused Washington of being anaccomodationist, we assume that the Age would have the so-calledaccommodationist tendency. In fact, it mentioned DuBois only when he ledor cooperated with local activities in Harlem. Nevertheless, the Age was notnecessarily an organ for voicing the theory of accommodation. The topics
covered by the Age varied from criticism of colonialism to sermons given at
local African American churches, and it appealed for civil rights andequality as well as self-help and progress as a race. Johnson, who became an
editor of the Age in the 1910s, condemned racial injustice harshly.10 Morethan anything, the Age repeatedly referred to the theme of community
building. An editorial in the Age in 1918 described its concept of thecommunity concretely. The editorial listed employment, commercial
activities, church work, and the achievement of “the health and the legal
rights of the community” as “the essential features of community building.”
Furthermore, it appealed for the cultivation of “community spirit.”11
Keeping this list in mind, I will analyze how community building proceededin Harlem.
II.

POPULATION AND HOUSING

It is estimated that there were 22,000 African Americans living in Harlemin 1910. In the middle of the 1910s, 70 percent of Manhattan’s 109,000
African Americans resided in Harlem, and in 1920 the population of Harlem
was about 80,000.12 Despite this growth in the African American population,
Harlem as a residential area was not homogeneous. By 1923, it is estimatedthat Harlem’s Jewish population was 168,000.13 Even in 1930, the African
American population was only 66.4 percent of all of central Harlem’s
population.14 Also, around 33,000 immigrants from the West Indies moved
into Harlem in the 1910s.15 In short, the African American residential areas
were only part of Harlem, and in some areas whites and immigrants from theWest Indies lived side by side with African Americans.
This demographic composition has been attributed to the method of landdevelopment in Harlem. Harlem was not originally the kind of workingclass neighborhood into which African Americans from the South usually
moved when they came to Northern cities. At the turn of the century, Harlem

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25

was a relatively new and beautiful area with broad asphalt avenues andtransportation into the city. The planned extension of the Lenox Avenue
subway line led to a building boom. Speculation in West Harlem property
led to phenomenal increases in the price of land and the cost of houses.
When the inevitable bust came in 1904–5, Harlem had been overbuilt withnew apartment houses, and there were many vacancies. In this situation,
African American real estate companies bought or leased properties andfilled them with African Americans at high rents.16 By 1910, many of thecity’s most prominent African Americans had moved from other African
American neighborhoods in New York City to Harlem. Elites from theSouth also gathered in Harlem.
Noticing the change in the neighborhood, many white residents andlandlords feared the degradation of property values and tried to protect theirproperty value against African American realtors and tenants. Some white
residents and owners banded together in neighborhood protective
associations to block what they referred to as “the Negro invasion” by using
restrictive covenants and other measures. When blocking the influx of
African Americans proved to be difficult, they proposed “a plan to provide
better housing conditions for Negroes” in a limited area. The Age criticized
this proposal, using the term “segregation.”17
Despite the attempts of white owners to prevent it, African Americans
expanded their residential areas steadily. According to Osofsky, the streets
covered by restrictive covenants were known among African Americans as“covenant blocks,” and African Americans took pride in being the first“colored” landlords or tenants to live in them.18 In the end, all the organizedefforts of white residents collapsed because of the inability of any group to
gain total and unified support of all the white property owners in theneighborhood. In the middle of the 1910s, when a massive flight of white
owners began on a large scale, it became easier for middle-class and lowermiddle-class African Americans, which is to say “aspiring” African
American families, to move to Harlem. The Age pointed out that “thedemand on the part of Negro tenants for high-class, up-to-date apartments inHarlem” was met, and the tenants were professionals and small businessmen
and women, including dentists, clothing factory operators, dressmakers,
express shipping clerks, and the like.19
Most tenants paid substantially higher rents than whites paid for similar
accommodations in other areas of New York City.20 Even during the 1920s,
African Americans paid rents 50 percent higher than those charged forcomparable living quarters elsewhere.21 Not everyone could afford

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expensive rents, however. The high cost of living forced some residents totake in lodgers and to live in congested rooms without privacy.22 It isestimated that in 1915, 32 percent of the African Americans in Harlem werelodgers.23 The Age criticized what in many instances appeared to be “anentire disregard for the comfort, convenience, or even rights of the Negro
tenants.”24
Starting in the middle of the 1910s, the massive migration of African
Americans from the South to the city further changed the residential balanceof “Black Harlem.” On the one hand, the development of apartments for the
middle class continued. In 1917, an African American real estate operator
encouraged people in Harlem to invest in “high class elevator apartment
houses for colored people.”25 Furthermore, during the war, people who could
obtain wage work began to buy property. According to Johnson, despite
unfair appraisals and discrimination by title companies and most banks inthe acquisition and retention of real estate, buying property became “acontagious fever.”26 On the other hand, as migrants from the South moved
in, African American neighborhoods became very crowded. Scarcity ofspace for development and congestion added to the difficulties.27 Because ofcongestion and poor management of apartments, two-thirds of African
American residences were old and had no proper bathing facilities inHarlem in 1917. During the 1920s, Harlem’s African Americanneighborhoods began to expand even more, but some parts of Harlem
became so-called slums.28
Thus, the housing situation shows up class differences among African
Americans in Harlem. This situation was two-sided in terms of community
building. On the one hand, it was presumably difficult to bridge the gap
between the middle class and poor laborers, since they had different
economic interests. On the other hand, since many middle-class African
Americans, who were active in community organizations, and working-class
African Americans resided in the same neighborhoods and went to the samechurches, cross-class contacts and communication took place, andcommunity builders became aware of problems that needed to be solved.
In addition to the internal differences among African American residents,
Harlem during the 1910s did not have the demographic homogeneity thatwould facilitate community building. Despite the beginning of white flight,
Jews constituted the largest nonblack ethnic group in the uptown district
until the end of the war. The uptown “black enclave” was apparently a goodplace for Jews to live and to do business.29 In addition, as mentioned,
immigrants from the West Indies began to settle in Harlem in the 1910s.

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27

Even though they looked “black” to whites, these immigrants did notnecessarily identify with the African American community. African
Americans who were proud of being US citizens sometimes differentiatedthemselves on that basis from immigrants from the West Indies. Criticizing
the immigrants’ indifference to naturalization, the Age warned: “Our West
Indian brethren should embrace the opportunity to enroll themselves as fullfledged American citizens by taking advantage of the naturalization laws.”30
Consequently, even though Harlem’s core residential area grew gradually inthe 1910s, local African American leaders needed to develop psychologicaland social networks in order to ally African American residents for the
purpose of creating solidarity and communication.
III.

EMPLOYMENT AND COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIESEmployment
In contrast to the African American neighborhoods of Chicago, wheremost residents worked in factories, the majority of African American
working-class people in New York were engaged in jobs categorized in local
statistics as “domestic and personal services” in the early twentieth century.
In this category, African American males were engaged in unstable andpoorly paid jobs, working as janitors, asphalt workers, subway construction
workers, and elevator boys. Women were also in poorly paid employment,
mostly in domestic and personal services.31 According to the statistics of1905, 40.2 percent of African American wage earners over fifteen in
Manhattan were engaged in these jobs.32 Janitors and elevator operators, twotypical occupations available to African American men in New York, earned
a maximum of $31 monthly in the 1910s.33 Union restrictions and racial
barriers in industry were so widespread that African American workers in
New York had few opportunities for well-paying work even if they had
skills.34 The Age pointed out in 1914 that preventing African American men
and women from getting jobs other than in personal service work was “thenorthern type of segregation.”35
It is true that during World War I opportunities for African Americans
expanded. Just before the war, the Age urged African American laborers to
prepare for opportunities because immigration from Europe would stop dueto the war.36 Nevertheless, it was difficult for many people in Harlem to findjobs, in contrast to the mass recruiting of African Americans in the South byfactories in the North. Even during the period of wartime labor shortages,

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for instance, the Woman’s Division of the Federal Employment Bureau
feared that it would cause serious problems to place colored women infactories and munition works because white employees would walk out.37
Under these circumstances, social service organizations tried to help job
seekers. One of the major activities of the Urban League, a social service
agency for African Americans in New York, was to find employment for thejobless. In 1918, the Urban League placed nearly six thousand men andwomen in industrial positions.38 The African American branch of the Young
Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Harlem also tried to find “safer”
jobs for African American women, demanding of employers “fair wages andhours, sanitary working conditions and preliminary training.”39 The
employment policy of the Urban League, however, was not always
favorable to laborers; it sometimes ended up supporting white businesses.
The Urban League argued that it was necessary to “stabilize” African
American working men in order to reduce the labor turnover in factories andto develop more “punctuality, regularity, and efficiency among theemployees.”40 In one case, the Urban League introduced African American
laborers as strikebreakers. When the strike ended, African American workers
were discharged from all their jobs.41
The close of the war reduced the demand for workers, and many African
American men and women who had the luck to find work during the war
were fired and fell into unstable employment situations. The Age warned
workers, but to no avail: “Northern manufacturers and employers of labor
expect steady workmen. . . . Colored workers have got to learn to stick totheir job.”42 Consequently, most male and female workers still worked inservice jobs. Johnson observed that at the end of the 1910s, African
Americans in Harlem were “employed as individuals” in comparison with
Chicago where “more than twelve thousand Negroes were employed at thestockyards.” Johnson attributed this situation to there being no major race
riot in Harlem at the end of the 1910s as there was in Chicago.43 From theviewpoint of community building, however, it was difficult to find acommon interest to unite African American workers in Harlem, unlike
factory workers in the industrial cities of the North.
Commercial Activities
In addition to a few African Americans who made their fortunes inmanufacturing, there were people working in small businesses of all kinds inHarlem.44 The Age repeatedly investigated the condition of small businesses

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29

in Harlem before the war began. It found a predominance of “white” storesor businesses in all cases.45 On nine blocks of Lenox Avenue, the mostpopular thoroughfare in Harlem in 1914, for instance, of 145 places ofbusiness, only 23 percent were owned by African Americans, while 117
stores were owned by “Russians, Chinese, Jews, Germans, Greeks, Italians,
Irish and Bohemians.”46
These white or non-black businesses and stores in African American
residential areas could not succeed without African American consumers.
Editorial in the Age in 1914 pointed out frequently the lack of a feeling for“race patronage” among African Americans.47 This subject illustrate themeaning of community for African American leaders in Harlem. In 1914,
Rev. Adam Clayton Powell in Harlem advocated “race patronage” from thepulpit to “build up strong race enterprises and strong race men.”48 An
editorial in the Age in the same year argued that “race economy” based on“race patronage” would give the African American in Harlem “a place of hisown, a foundation for confidence, loyalty and race pride.”49 In 1916, the Agetried to promote “economic awakening.” Since the largest group of
consumers was the wage-earning class, most of whom were ardent
churchgoers, the Age asserted that it would be effective to teach thesignificance of “race patronage” in churches. The Age believed that the massof people who learned the necessity of “race patronage” would act as“missionaries” and preach “the doctrine of buying from race merchants toall with whom they come in contact.”50 These religious terms used by theAge imply the idea that racial solidarity in economic activities would
develop a community spirit. In this way, the arguments related “racepatronage” to the sense of belonging to the community, solidarity, and racial
pride that are necessary factors for community development.
Realistically, however, there were obstacles to the promotion of a “raceeconomy.” Even if “race patronage” was put into practice, both the market
and the capital were small. George Edmund Haynes, who investigated theeconomy of African Americans in New York in 1912, warned: “The severest
test of a business enterprise is its relation to the community . . . 63 percent of
the Negro businesses investigated have to depend upon the small purchasing
power of their own people for the trade.”51 Discrimination in renting was
also a disadvantage for African American small businesses. African
Americans had difficulty in renting stores for business purposes from whitelandlords, and the rent was high. Landlords refused to let them have themore favorable locations.52
Despite all these obstacles, African Americans slowly developed their

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own businesses. For instance, “colored saloon keepers” developed their own
style of cabaret that offered amusement, in some cases with a complete
orchestra and a company of singers and dancers.53 By 1914, 37 percent of
the African American tenements in Harlem were managed by African
American agents, although less than 5 percent of these homes were owned
by African American landlords. In 1919, a plan to have a bank owned andoperated by African Americans in Harlem was realized.54
IV. THE POWER OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES
According to Johnson, in the 1930s, there were approximately 160
African American churches in Harlem. More than half were not establisheddenominations and were housed in stores or on one floor of a private
dwelling. This “little church movement” shows the power of religion in
African American lives.55
For raising the consciousness of residents about Harlem as a whole,
however, the established African American churches were more influential.
Johnson remarks that “in a community like Harlem, which has not yet
attained cohesion and adjustment, the church is a stabilizing force.”56 By the
middle of the 1910s, the established African American churches had moved
into Harlem.57 They became the center of economic development; providersof education, employment and houses; and venues for social interchange.
Churches were also centers for communication between the elites andlower classes of African Americans in Harlem. Some pastors appealed forfull civil rights for the race and discussed current topics such as “economic
awakening” from the pulpit.58 Churches also offered their facilities for
public and political meetings. During the war, churches repeatedly preached“patriotism.” The Age in 1917 advised cooperation among churches forstrengthening “race-wide power” and asked them to tackle practicalproblems: “It is a time to put the Negro church into close touch with thepractical questions that affect the welfare of the Negro people as citizens.”59
These activities of the African American churches showed the power of selfhelp, which is an essential factor in community building.
V.

SOCIAL SERVICES FOR HEALTH AND LEGAL RIGHTSThe National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes
Social services for African Americans in New York as a whole had been

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provided by African American elites and white reformers in collaboration
with white philanthropists since the late nineteenth century.60 Three of thesesocial service organizations joined forces to form the National League on
Urban Conditions among Negroes (the previously mentioned Urban League)
in 1911. It grew rapidly, with affiliates appearing in principal cities in all
sections of the country. In 1918 the New York branch became an
independent organization. As the origin of the organization indicates, theUrban League was not an African American self-help organization. White
reformers and social workers as well as African American elites wereinvolved in its activities, and, above all, the Urban League was subsidized
mainly by white philanthropists. For instance, in 1918, John D. Rockefeller
Jr. and A. T. White pledged contributions to the Urban League if it raised$1,800.61
Scholars of African American history emphasize that the Urban League
before World War II had an “accommodationist” stance. There is no doubtthat the Urban League sought a nonconfrontational posture in comparison
with other African American organizations that fought for civil rights.62
Unlike these scholars and their low evaluation, however, the Age appreciatedthe contribution of the Urban League to Harlem and unfailingly covered its
activities. Since Fred Moore, publisher of the Age, took part in thefoundation of the Urban League, and the Age also had a deep relationshipwith B. T. Washington, we should discount the information about it in the
Age a bit. Nonetheless, in terms of community development, we cannot failto recognize the role of the Urban League.
There are two aspects that we should particularly notice. One is the Urban
League’s practical services for everyday life. According to Johnson, its main
purpose was “to work for the industrial, social, and health betterment of thecolored people, especially those living in urban centers.”63 To achieve this,the Urban League worked on all fronts: finding employment, giving
financial relief, providing legal counsel, donating goods to those in need,establishing playgrounds, conducting health campaigns, and so on. Itemphasized health care, for instance, by regularly holding a Negro HealthWeek. In 1918, the Urban League implemented a campaign to “save”
babies. It opened an examination center in a public school building where
babies were weighed, measured, and given a physical examination byphysicians.64
Housing was another significant problem for residents of Harlem. The
Urban League assisted tenants who protested rent increases and poor
management of tenements. For instance, in 1916, African American tenants

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on a block of 143rd Street formed a neighborhood association. Around 1,500
people, including white tenants who were forced to move out to make room
for colored tenants who would pay a higher rent, held meetings, and 109
people signed a petition of protest. The Housing Bureau of the National
Urban League circulated the petition to property owners, real estate agents,
newspapers, and the mayor.65
The second noteworthy aspect of the Urban League is its function ofbringing about coordination and cooperation among existing agencies andorganizations. Although the Urban League did not originate in Harlem, it
penetrated Harlem by partnering with various local organizations. In 1917,
for instance, the Negro Civic Improvement League, along with the United
Civic League, the Urban League, the 130th Street Association, and theHarlem Council of Women made a major effort to secure a municipal
bathhouse in Harlem, and a half year later a decision was made by New
York City to construct a public bath in the center of Harlem.66
These networks of social service organizations expanded, and in the
1920s some forty or fifty social service agencies were active in Harlem,
while their leadership passed to African Americans.67
White Middle-Class Morality
Historians rightly point out that white social reformers were eager toinculcate African Americans with white middle-class values. Mary W.
Ovington, who took part in founding the Urban League, believed that the“white race” should help “the Negro civilization” to be “uplifted.”68 In order
to “uplift” African American morality, the League focused on the family,
which was the major safeguard of morality for the white middle class. They
believed that because of slavery, African Americans had loose or no familyties.69 Furthermore, they worried that this situation was exacerbated bypoverty. In Haynes’s analysis, poverty made the family unable to protect
itself “from both physical and moral disease.”70
Among problems concerning the family, social service organizations
assigned the highest priority to juvenile delinquency, because they assumed
that loose family ties caused children and young people to becomedelinquents. During the 1910s, for instance, under the leadership of the
Urban League, the Big Brother and Big Sister movements started. In
connection with juvenile court and probation officers, these movements
enlisted African American volunteers as companions for boys and girls inorder to “save them from arrest.”71

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Although African American activists in Harlem denied the stereotypes of
the African American family, they also feared the increase of juvenile
delinquency, particularly misbehavior by young women. One reason for thefocus on girls was that a considerable number of women were arrested forprostitution. Several private institutions that aimed to be “a disciplinary andprotective home for unfortunate colored girls” were operated in Harlem.72
Discussing the increased number of African Americans committed to penal
institutions, the Age advocated reaching out to “the wayward girl” before she
became “a confirmed offender.”73 As the term “wayward girl” suggests, girls
and young women were to be educated, saved, and protected. The private
institutions for delinquent girls taught them techniques of homemaking andmade them live with “proper” families. Various other organizations,
including the Urban League, held classes on homemaking skills andprovided counseling and temporary residences. The African American
branch of the YWCA, one of the most active African American women’sorganizations in Harlem,74 also devoted attention to “the problem of theblack girl.” It regularly provided education, social activities, and moral
instruction. It paid special attention to protecting young female migrants
from the South and set up residences and programs for them.75
Paying special attention to girls reflects white middle-class values inwhich women were held responsible for upholding a moral standard andobserving the separate gender roles within the family. The African American
middle-class activists of the YWCA, however, could not ignore the realsituation of girls and young women. Even though women’s role in thefamily was important, and very few white married women worked outside
their homes at that time, most African American married women had nochoice but to work. Therefore, along with classes in homemaking, theYWCA put emphasis on finding better and safer jobs for them, as discussed.
Some white social reformers also recognized the situation and taught
African American women homemaking as an employable skill. But theAfrican American YWCA in Harlem assisted in training women in more
professional skills and made attempts at placing them in positions “nottraditionally open to African American female workers in New York City,”such as in clerical, bookkeeping, and stenographic employment.76
Regarding educational programs for girls, in 1919, following the Girl
Reserves movement of the national YWCA, the African American YWCA in
Harlem made its own programs with the slogan “a square deal for thecolored girl.” The original program of the national YWCA was to provide aforum where “ethics relative to how girls should act in public places, at

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home and on the street are discussed.” For the African American YWCA,
however, race was a primary concern, so the aim of the campaign wastransformed “to make them realize that first of all they are American girls
and second, that they are colored girls and as such have a distinct
contribution to American girlhood and womanhood.”77
We tend to consider that self-help in every sense was a requisite factor forcommunity building for African Americans and that African Americans
should have been antagonistic to the imposition of white middle-classvalues. As the activities of the African American YWCA show, however,African Americans adapted middle-class values to fit their purposes andutilized social services at their convenience.
VI.

COMMUNITY SPIRIT AND THE WARHarlem’s Hellfighters
In the midst of war mobilization, African Americans became conscious orwere forced to become conscious of what “solidarity” meant. In response to
the opinion of some African American activists that African Americans
should resist supporting the war effort,78 the black churches of Harlem aswell as the Age emphasized the necessity of participating in order to assert
the full citizenship of African Americans. In a sermon titled “The Negro’s
Americanism” at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, the pastor preached that “theNegro, in order to keep his case clean, must perform all the duties ofcitizenship, while he constantly renews his claim to all the corresponding
rights.”79
From Harlem, in addition to conscripted men, “Harlem’s Hellfighters,” avolunteer regiment of the New York National Guard, was dispatched to thebattlefields of Europe. Since the turn of the century, African American elites
had tried to get a bill through the state legislature authorizing an African
American regiment, because African Americans were excluded from thestate militia. Finally, in 1916, Governor Whitman signed into law a bill
authorizing the 15th New York Infantry Regiment, New York National
Guard, despite the opposition of the commander of the New York National
Guard.80
William Hayward, a public service commissioner for New York City, tookcommand of the regiment. He had to start from scratch. As Arthur Little, asenior captain in the regiment, recollected, the 15th was “the self-maderegiment of the American Army.”81 Unlike the situation in the Illinois 8th

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regiment, where the officers were all African Americans, all the officers
initially recruited by Colonel Hayward were white, including some fromprominent families, although the Age repeatedly demanded the appointmentof African American commissioned officers.82 Recruiting soldiers was not aneasy task at first, either. The Age urged African American men to enlist forthe purpose of “elevating the race in public esteem.”83 After the declarationof war, the enlisted men eventually numbered more than two thousand, andin July 1917, the 15th became the first regiment in the New York National
Guard to be mustered into the US Army.84
After experiencing harsh racial abuse at the training camp in Spartanburg,
South Carolina,”85 the 15th (US Army 369th Infantry Regiment) at lastdeparted for France in December 1917. In France, the 15th was integrated
into the French Army, along with the Illinois 8th and other African American
regiments, and fought in the trenches, while most conscripted African
American soldiers were assigned various kinds of labor. With records ofbravery and triumph, they came home in February 1919.86
The Age had stood steadfastly behind the regiment and reported its every
move. The story of Harlem’s Hellfighters inspired the community spirit in
two ways. First, the 15th became the local pride of Harlem. The African
American press consciously constructed the image of heroic, triumphant
African American soldiers. When the story of two soldiers (Henry Johnson
and Neadam Roberts) who received the Croix de Guerre in May 1918 wasreported, the Age acclaimed “the glorious and heroic deeds of Johnson andRoberts.”87 This heroic image of the 15th came to be equated with the imageof Harlem. In reality, the regiment was commanded by white officers,
supported by white politicians and philanthropists, and included somesoldiers from outside of Harlem and even outside of New York.
Nevertheless, the 15th represented Harlem and gave people there a feelingof solidarity. Just before the 15th’s return home, the Age called the regiment“the pride of all home folks.”88 Osofsky points out that “the Fifteenth’s
exploits” became part of “the ghetto’s folklore.”89 In other words, African
Americans felt a sense of belonging to an idealized Harlem.
The other way that the regiment inspired community spirit was by its
experiences of racism throughout the war. The New York National Guard
did not recognize the regiment even after it was authorized, and the US
Army stuck to a segregationist policy.90 The Age continuously criticized
segregated training camps and race riots at the camps.91 After the armistice,
the US Army did not permit the participation of African American soldiersin the Allied victory parade in Paris, although the black colonial troops of

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YUKO MATSUMOTO

Allied nations marched.92
In sharing these experiences, not only each soldier but also the African
American people in Harlem were confronted with the necessity of a broader
collective struggle for racial progress. African Americans in Harlem
expected that the valor of the 15th would convince American society of theirpatriotism and eligibility for full citizenship rights. Instead, after thearmistice, African American activists and newspapers including the Agecame under the surveillance of the FBI. Under these disappointing
circumstances, it was likely that African Americans in Harlem would pay
more attention to nationwide African American movements.
The Age’s support of an all–African American volunteer regiment and its
criticism of segregation in the US Army may seem paradoxical. Presumably,
African Americans could accept separation if they initiated it and owned theresults. Moreover, as in the case of African American churches and thecampaign for “race patronage,” African Americans who supported theregiment viewed separation and in-group development as necessary in orderto develop their own community.
Parades
Johnson recalled that Harlem streets were “a parade ground.” Almost
every Sunday, people marched in various kinds of parades with brass bands.
In the process of organizing the 15th before the war, and during wartime, forinstance, the parades were indispensable.93 Marching in parades
consolidated participants’ solidarity. At the same time, in Harlem, parades
often involved the active participation of viewers. Johnson noted: “For it is
not a universal custom of Harlem to stand idly and watch a parade go by. A
good part of the crowd always marches along, keeping step to the music.”94
Above all, parades that involved the whole African Americanneighborhood of Harlem exemplified the sort of community that African
Americans expected to build. Two representative parades took place in the
1910s. One was the victory parade held on February 17, 1919. The 15th
marched from downtown to Harlem along Fifth Avenue with the injured
Johnson in a car at the head of the parade, making an impressive formationof experienced soldiers.95 New York as a whole welcomed the return of the
15th (369th Infantry Regiment), and white New Yorkers also cheered their
homecoming. The Age observed that “thousands of white and coloredcitizens participated in such a tumultuous and enthusiastic demonstration.”96
When they reached Harlem, the regimental band, a source of great pride forCOMMUNITY BUILDING IN HARLEM

37

the men in the regiment and the people of Harlem,97 switched from playing
military marches to the popular Collins and Harlan song “Here Comes My
Daddy Now!” Colonel Hayward allowed the men to march through Harlem
singing and laughing.98 This parade demonstrated to African Americans aswell as whites in New York that the 15th belonged to Harlem and gave them
the impression that Harlem as a community seemed as solid as the 15th
Regiment. It reaffirmed people’s sense of belonging to the imaginedcommunity of Harlem that the 15th and its parade presented. For the Age,
this parade proved African American eligibility for full citizenship: “Wewonder how many people who are opposed to giving the Negro his fullcitizenship rights could watch the 15th on its march up the Avenue and not
feel either shame or alarm?”99 At the same time, however, we should notforget that this parade, in which only African American regiments marched,reflected the method of segregation in Northern cities.
The other parade was the Silent Protest Parade held on July 28, 1917. As
many as fifteen thousand African Americans, men in Sunday finery, womenin white dresses, little girls in white church dresses with ribbons in their hair,and little boys in jackets, marched from Harlem to downtown along Fifth
Avenue. There was no musical band, only muffled drums. They marched insilence and were watched in silence. Marchers carried banners. Some ofthem read: “Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy?!”and “Treat Us So that We May Love Our Country.” The parade, which wasorganized by the Age and other African American leaders in New York,
protested the East St. Louis riot, lynching, Jim Crow cars, segregation,
discrimination, and disfranchisement. Despite this harsh criticism of thefederal and local governments, however, the Age repeatedly declared African
American patriotism.100 African American leaders seemed to consider that
their criticism was not incompatible with war service in the 15th and on thehome front. Rather, they supposed that protecting human rights was apresupposition of the War for Democracy.
The Silent Protest Parade demonstrated Harlem’s community spirit in a
double sense. Community in the sense of the local Harlem neighborhood
was exhibited by the fact that “everyone,” including children, marched.
According to the Age, African Americans “representing all conditions andwalks of life,” and immigrants from the West Indies also participated.101 At
the same time, the parade manifested the association of African Americans
in their quest for civil rights beyond their geographical boundary.

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YUKO MATSUMOTO

War and Gender in Harlem
War is always a gendered phenomenon. In World War I, soldiers had toprove their masculinity, the supreme demonstration of which was a heroic
death. For the African American male in Harlem, the 15th was the supreme
opportunity to prove his masculinity. One of the soldiers in the 15th recalledin his memoir how he decided to enlist: “You had to belong to the 15th
Infantry or jealously look at them in uniform. Everybody loves a soldier. . . .
So, to be somebody, I joined up.”102 When the regiment experienced its firstreal training in small-arms practice at training camp, Hayward noted, themen were in the process of transformation “from colored boys . . . to men,real men.”103 And, finally, they came back as heroes. Describing the victory
parade in 1919, Little recollected that viewers cheered “because ours was aregiment of men, who had done the work of men” (italics in the original).104
It was necessary for African American men to prove their masculinity all
the more because whites stressed the stereotype that African American men
were sexually strong but socially weak or uncivilized. Accordingly, in orderto prove their eligibility for full citizenship, they needed to prove theirmasculinity. In addition to the stereotypes, the economic situation made thegender relations of African Americans complex. It was difficult for African
Americans to establish a traditional middle-class family supported by a malebreadwinner.105 The Age reported that many married African American
women brought in “incomes equal to and sometimes in excess of theincomes enjoyed by men.”106 Therefore, through the heroic battles of the
15th, African American men expected to prove their masculinity.
In a parallel way, African American women fulfilled roles that were
expected of women on the home front. Harlem’s war service on the homefront started when the Woman’s Loyal Union, the oldest African American
woman’s club in the city, was officially registered as the Women’s Auxiliaryof the 15th Regiment, New York Infantry, National Guard of Greater New
York in May 1917. Almost four hundred women assembled “comfort kits”
and other materials such as tobacco for enlisted men; corresponded withenlisted men; regularly visited the homes of soldiers with dependents todetermine what services they needed; and provided food, clothing, andmoney to dependent families. The Auxiliary held meetings and fundraisingparties. It was affiliated with the National League of Women’s Service andthe Red Cross and cooperated with other Harlem’s organizations providing
war services.107 The Age praised the Auxiliary for its support of racial andcommunity solidarity and reported its activities in detail.108

COMMUNITY BUILDING IN HARLEM

39

Members of the Auxiliary apparently did not consider the roles thatwomen were expected to play during the war as inconsistent with theirviews as African American women. After the East St. Louis riot of 1917, theAuxiliary appealed for the protection of all citizens and participated inplanning the Silent Protest Parade.109 The Auxiliary also protested the policyof the American Red Cross, the national center for war service. Although it
assisted the National Red Cross in its drive for funds in 1917, the Auxiliary
demanded that the National Red Cross remove its discrimination bars andgive “equal opportunity to all qualified for the Red Cross work.”110 Refusedby the Red Cross, the Auxiliary repeated its demands and issued a petition to
the US Army to “send some of our nurses over to France to care for ourboys.”111 The Age supported this campaign and criticized the Red Cross. In
November 1918, when an influenza epidemic overwhelmed existing
personnel, the Army finally decided to assign eighteen black nurses to two
integrated camps in the United States.112
Thus, the Auxiliary was not merely an organization that assembled“comfort kits” but, rather, one that actively enhanced the solidarity ofHarlem through its activities. By active support of the 15th, the Auxiliary
consolidated the image of community that the 15th Infantry represented. At
the same time, it searched for ways to balance the competing goals of racial
democracy and patriotism, even under the emergency conditions of war.
The war experiences in Harlem and on French battlefields illustrate that
separate spheres based on gender were maintained in Harlem, though theboundary was not a rigid one. This can also be seen by the fact that the Ageand the African American churches strongly supported the suffrage
movement of African American women in Harlem during the war. As
members of the Colored Women’s Suffrage Club of New York City,
affiliated with the New York City Women Suffrage Party, “coloredsuffragists” in Harlem held street meetings, participated in suffrage parades,
and canvassed the voters. In many churches, “suffrage sermons” werepreached.113 In early November 1917, a state law giving the women of New
York the right to vote passed.114 Once they acquired the voting right, African
American women organized the Woman’s Non-Partisan League and the
Woman’s Political League. They invited speakers from major politicalparties to their meetings and actively participated in local politics.115
It is true that the Age and churches supported women’s suffrage notbecause they supported gender equality but because they expected that “thepolitical effectiveness of the colored vote” would be “doubled.”116 At first,
the Age did not expect the full participation of women in politics but

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YUKO MATSUMOTO

presumed that African American women would be interested in politics justas mothers and housekeepers concerned with “the protection of the home,
the purity of food and water supplies.”117 However, the Age was astonishedat the enthusiasm of African American women. It observed: “The coloredwomen in Harlem are showing unusual interest in politics and within thepast month have been holding numerous meetings.”118 One year after
women acquired the voting right, the Age acknowledged, “women can voteas well and as effectively as the men.”119Thus, African American women, female activists at least, could have agreater voice in such a public sphere as community building than was
expected in the norm of separate spheres.
CONCLUSION
In September 1917, the Age looked back on the history of Harlem andacknowledged the “immeasurable progress” in terms of housing and “equal
facilities” such as schools. Nevertheless, pointing out the necessity ofgreater effort in cooperative business enterprises, the Age noted, “muchremains to be accomplished along constructive lines in the matter ofbusiness and community upbuilding.”120 As discussed above, we can agree
that the community of Harlem made “immeasurable progress” in a shortperiod of time. At the same time, however, the interracial relations andintraracial differences made Harlem’s “progress” precarious. As a residential
area Harlem had a mixed population, and its housing reflected classdifferences. In economic matters, workers were hardly united, and selfdevelopment was insufficient. African American leaders needed to dependon cross-racial relations in social service activities. During the war, African
American leaders in Harlem barely kept the delicate balance between
patriotism and the appeal for civil rights. Because of space constraints, local
politics cannot be discussed in this article, but there were factional struggles
involving both white and African American politicians. Thus, it is difficult toconclude that the residents of Harlem succeeded in building a wellcircumscribed community before the 1920s. We can assume that people
were attracted to Marcus Garvey at this precarious stage of the realcommunity. Nonetheless, as the 15th Infantry Regiment, parades, andwomen’s activities on the home front demonstrate, Harlem as an imaginedcommunity, to which African Americans felt a sense of belonging and pride,
was indeed constructed during the 1910s. Based on this imaginedcommunity, the Harlem Renaissance bloomed.

COMMUNITY BUILDING IN HARLEM

41

NOTES
On my argument about the community in American history, see Matsumoto, Yuko,「民主主義の再生を求めて」[In the quest for the regeneration of democracy] in 紀平英作編著『アメリカ民主主義の過去と現在』[The past and present of American democracy] (Tokyo: Minerva
Shobo, ミネルヴァ書房、2008).
1

2
For instance, August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1966); Kenneth L. Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870–
1930 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1976). Among studies in Japan, see Takenaka,Koji,『シ カ ゴ 黒 人 ゲ ト ー 成 立 の 社 会 史』[Social history of the black ghetto in Chicago](Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 明石書店、1995).
3
Quintard Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870
through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), 135.
4
For a critical overview of historical works on Harlem, see Judith Weisenfeld, African
American Women and Christian Activism: New York’s Black YWCA, 1905–1945 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 92–3. See also, Lillian Serece Williams, Strangers in
the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, New York
1900–1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore,
To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910–1963(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
5In Japan, the following work proposes to re-examine the history of the African American
community as a community in flux. Higuchi, Hayumi ed.,『流動する「黒人」コミュニティ：ア メ リ カ 史 を 問 う』 [African American communities in flux: Interrogating US history](Tokyo: Sairyusha, 彩流社、2012).
6James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930), 3–4, 159.
7
See, for instance, Lionel Bascom, A Renaissance in Harlem: Lost Voices of an American
Community (New York: Amistad, 2016).
8
Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, Negro New York, 1890–1930 (NY:Harper &Row, 1963).
9
Ibid., 120.
10
On the history of the New York Age, see Jeffrey T. Sammons and John H. Morrow, Jr.,
Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African
American Quest for Equality (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 33; William G.
Jordan, Black Newspapers and America’s War for Democracy, 1914–1920 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 29–32.
11
New York Age, Jan. 12, 1918, 4.
12Gilbert Osofsky “Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto,” in John Henrik Clarke, ed., Harlem:
A Community in Transition (NY: Citadel Press, 1964), 25; Jeffery S. Gurock, When Harlem
Was Jewish, 1870–1930 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1979), 148–49.
13
Gurock, When Harlem Was Jewish, 145.
14
Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research, “A Harlem Almanac”(typewritten), 1964, 1. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York
Public Library.
15
Florette Henri, Black Migration: Movement North, 1900–1920 (Garden City, NY: Anchor,
1976), 89–90.
16
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 148.
17
Age, Feb. 12, 1914, 1.
18
Osofsky, Harlem, 107–8.; Age, March 19 and 24, 1914.
19
Age, Nov. 12, 1914, 1.
20
Ibid., April 19, 1919, 1.

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YUKO MATSUMOTO

21
The Guilds’ Committee for Federal Writers Publications, The WPA Guide to New York
City: The Federal Writers’ Project Guide to 1930s New York (1939; repr. NY: Pantheon
Books, 1982), 258.
22
Mark Robert Schneider, “We Return Fighting”: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz
Age (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002), 127; Gurock, When Harlem Was Jewish,
147–48.
23
Age, Dec. 23, 1915, 1.
24
Ibid., Dec. 14, 1916, 1
25
Ibid., Sept. 27, 1917, 1; Nov. 29, 1917, 1.
26
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 153.
27
Age, Jan. 6, 1918, 4.
28
Ibid., March 22, 1917, 1; Gurock, When Harlem Was Jewish 148–49.
29
Gurock, When Harlem Was Jewish, 148, 167.
30
Age, March 15, 1917, 4.
31
Mary White Ovington, Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York (1911; repr. NY:
Hill and Wang, 1969), 42.
32
George Edmund Haynes, “The Negro at Work in New York City,” Studies in History,
Economics and Public Law 49, no. 3 (1912): 74.
33
Sammons and Morrow, Harlem’s Rattlers, 110. According to this work, the average
Harlem family earned $1,300 annually in the 1920s.
34
Osofsky, Harlem, 42.
35Age, Oct. 1, 1914, 1; Jan. 25, 1917.
36
Ibid., July 6, 1916, 4.
37
Ibid., Aug. 31, 1918, 4.
38
Ibid., Dec. 14, 1916, 5; Dec. 27, 1919, 1.
39
Ibid., Sept. 20, 1917, 7; Jan. 19, 1918, 1; Oct. 19, 1918, 8; Nov. 9, 1918, 1; Feb. 8, 1919.
40
Ibid., Dec. 27, 1919, 1; May 25, 1918, 2.
41
Ibid., Nov. 2, 1916, 1.
42
Ibid., Nov. 23, 1918, 4.
43
Johnson, 157.
44
Haynes, “The Negro at Work,” 115.
45
Age, March 23, 1916, 1; March 30, 1916.
46
Ibid., April 6, 1914, 1.
47
Ibid., Dec. 24, 1914, 4.
48
Ibid., Jan. 8, 1914; Henri, Black Migration, 159.
49
Age, March 16, 1914, 4.
50
Ibid., Nov. 30, 1916, 1.
51
Haynes, “The Negro at Work”, 117, 123.
52
Age, Jan. 13, 1916, 1; March 9, 1916; March 16, 1916, 1.
53
Ibid., June 1, 1916, 1.
54
Ibid., April 26, 1919, 1.
55
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 163–64; Henri, Black Migration, 187.
56
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 166.
57
Henri, Black Migration, 182.
58
Schneider, Civil Rights Movement, 127.
59
Age, July 19, 1917, 4.
60
Osofsky, Harlem, 62.
61Age, Oct. 5, 1916, 8.
62
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Black Neighbors: Race and the Limits of Reform in the American
Settlement House Movement, 1890–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,

COMMUNITY BUILDING IN HARLEM

431993), 39.
63
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 143–4.
64Age, March 3, 1917, 1; August 31, 1918, 2.
65
Ibid., Sept. 28, 1916, 1; Oct. 5, 1916, 1; Oct. 12, 1916, 1; Dec. 28, 1916, 1; Dec. 21, 1916,
1; Nov. 23, 1916, 1.
66
Ibid., Aug. 5, 1915, 1; Dec. 6, 1919, 8; March 22, 1917, 1; Nov. 1, 1917, 1.
67
Osofsky, Harlem, 151.
68
Ovington, Half a Man, 89.
69
Ibid., 32–33.
70
Haynes, “The Negro at Work”, 89.
71Age, March 29, 1917, 1; Dec. 4, 1915; March 3, 1917, 8; Nov. 15, 1917, 8.
72
Ibid., April 19, 1917, 1; May 25, 1918, 8; June 18, 1917, 8.
73
Ibid., Jan. 12, 1918, 2; Dec. 27, 1919, 4.
74
YWCA membership in 1918 included 1,022 adults and 250 girls (Age, Oct. 19, 1918, 8).
75
Chad L. Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2010), 102.
76
Weisenfeld, 1 Black YWCA, 46–48.
77
Age, Aug. 2, 1919, 1.
78
Weisenfeld, Black YWCA, 126.
79
Age, April 12, 1917, 1; March 29, 1917, 1; April 27, 1918, 4.
80
Sammons and Morrow, Harlem’s Rattlers, 46, 64; C. Williams, Torchbearers, 5; Johnson,
Black Manhattan, 233; Stephen L. Harris, Harlem’s Hell Fighters: The African-American
369th Infantry in World War I (Dulles: Brassey’s, 2003), 14.
81
Arthur W. Little, From Harlem to the Rhine: The Story of New York’s Colored Volunteers(NY: Covici Friede, 1936; repr. Haskell House, 1974), 19.
82Age, July 27, 1916, 1; July 20, 1916, 4.
83
Ibid., April 5, 1917, 4.
84
Sammons and Morrow, Harlem’s Rattlers, 115, 148; Johnson, Black Manhattan, 232–33;
Frank E. Roberts, The American Foreign Legion: Black Soldiers of the 93rd in World War I(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 7–10.
85
Age, Oct. 18, 1917, 1.
86
C. Williams, Torchbearers, 126; Henri, Black Migration, 304; Sammons and Morrow,
Harlem’s Rattlers, 397.
87
Age, May 25, 1918, 1.
88
Ibid., Feb. 15, 1919, 1.
89
Osofsky, Harlem, 171.
90
Little, Harlem to the Rhine, 357.
91
Age, March 15, 1917, 4; March 22, 1917, 4; May 17, 1917, 1.
92
C. Williams, Torchbearers, 90–91, 126, 129, 190; Roberts, American Foreign Legion, 9;Henri, Black Migration, 304.
93
Peter N. Nelson, A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighters’ Struggle for
Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home (NY: Basic Civitas Books, 2009), 2–4.
94
Johnson, Black Manhattan, 168–69; Mark Whalan, The Great War and the Culture of the
New Negro (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008), 185.
95
C. Williams, Torchbearers, 215; Sammons and Morrow, Harlem’s Rattlers, 390.
96
Age, Feb. 22, 1919, 1.
97
Roberts, American Foreign Legion, 4.
98
Ibid., Feb. 22, 1919, 1.
99
Ibid., Feb. 22, 1919, 4.
100
Ibid., July 28, 1917; Nelson, Unbending Battle, 27; Johnson, Black Manhattan, 238.

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YUKO MATSUMOTO

Age, August 2, 1917, 1.
Arthur P. Davis, Here and There with the Rattlers (Detroit, MI: Harlo Press, 1979), 22.
103
Sammons and Morrow, Harlem’s Rattlers, 130.
104
Little, Harlem to the Rhine, 361.
105
Haynes, “The Negro at Work”, 89.
106
Age, Oct. 1, 1914, 1.
107
C. Williams, Torchbearers, 100; Weisenfeld, Black YWCA, 144; Nikki L. M. Brown,“‘Your Patriotism Is of the Purest Quality’: African American Women and World War I”(PhD diss., Yale University, 2002), 58–60.
108Age, May 10, 1917, 4.
109
Ibid., July 19, 1917, 1.
110
Ibid., July 5, 1917, 8.
111
Ibid., Jan. 22, 1918, 1; Dec. 11, 1918, 1.
112
Brown, “African American Women,” 129.
113
Age, Sep. 6, 1917, 2; Sep. 27, 1917, 8; Oct. 11, 1917, 8; Nov. 1, 1917, 1.
114
Ibid., Nov. 8, 1917, 1.
115
Ibid., May 25, 1918, 5; Aug. 27, 1918, 1.
116
Ibid., Oct. 21, 1915, 4.
117
Ibid., Nov. 22, 1917, 4.
118
Ibid., May 25, 1918, 5.
119
Ibid., Nov. 2, 1918, 1.
120
Ibid., Sept. 20, 1917, 4.
101102