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"Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Social conditions -- 20th century"
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Playing the Numbers
The phrase “Harlem in the 1920s\" evokes images of the Harlem Renaissance, or of Marcus Garvey and soapbox orators haranguing crowds about politics and race. Yet the most ubiquitous feature of Harlem life between the world wars was the game of “numbers.\" Thousands of wagers, usually of a dime or less, would be placed on a daily number derived from U.S. bank statistics. The rewards of “hitting the number,\" a 600-to-1 payoff, tempted the ordinary men and women of the Black Metropolis with the chimera of the good life. Playing the Numbers tells the story of this illegal form of gambling and the central role it played in the lives of African Americans who flooded into Harlem in the wake of World War I. For a dozen years the “numbers game\" was one of America’s rare black-owned businesses, turning over tens of millions of dollars every year. The most successful “bankers\" were known as Black Kings and Queens, and they lived royally. Yet the very success of “bankers\" like Stephanie St. Clair and Casper Holstein attracted Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, and organized crime to the game. By the late 1930s, most of the profits were being siphoned out of Harlem. Playing the Numbers reveals a unique dimension of African American culture that made not only Harlem but New York City itself the vibrant and energizing metropolis it was. An interactive website allows readers to locate actors and events on Harlem’s streets.
eBook
On the corner : African American intellectuals and the urban crisis
In July 1964 when a Harlem riot shifted attention to the crisis in northern cities, African American intellectuals were thrust into the spotlight as interpreters of black urban life to white America. On the Corner revisits the moment when black urban life became, for these intellectuals, \"the topic that is reserved for blacks.\".
eBook
On the Corner
In July 1964, after a decade of intense media focus on civil rights protest in the Jim Crow South, a riot in Harlem abruptly shifted attention to the urban crisis embroiling America's northern cities.On the Cornerrevisits the volatile moment when African American intellectuals were thrust into the spotlight as indigenous interpreters of black urban life to white America, and when black urban communities became the chief objects of black intellectuals' perceived social obligations. Daniel Matlin explores how the psychologist Kenneth B. Clark, the literary author and activist Amiri Baraka, and the visual artist Romare Bearden each wrestled with the opportunities and dilemmas of their heightened public stature. Amid an often fractious interdisciplinary debate, black intellectuals furnished sharply contrasting representations of black urban life and vied to establish their authority as indigenous interpreters. In time, however, Clark, Baraka, and Bearden each concluded that acting as interpreters for white America placed dangerous constraints on black intellectual practice.On the Cornerreveals how the condition of entry into the public sphere for African American intellectuals in the post-civil rights era has been confinement to what Clark called \"the topic that is reserved for blacks.\"
eBook
Newsreel. 63, El pueblo se levanta = The people are rising
In the late '60s, conditions for Puerto Ricans in the US reached the boiling point. Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Rican communities began to address these injustices by using direct action. This film focuses on the community of East Harlem, capturing the compassion and militancy of the Young Lords as they implemented their own health, educational, and public assistance programs and fought back against social injustice. An excellent portrayal of inner city organizing in the late 60s.
Streaming Video