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 t left, a nine-room home in an all-white neighborhood is heavily vandalized after being sold to an African American doctor and his family.
The Times says vandals caused $15,000 ($109,315.53 USD 2007) damage to the newly redecorated home at 4240 Cerritos Ave., Long Beach, by putting a garden hose up on the second story letting the water run all night; splashing bleach on the new carpeting; and cutting a huge hole in the carpet.
Dr. Charles T. Terry said he still intended to move into the home, noting that he believed the vandalism did not reflect the feelings of his neighbors.
The next day, 150 neighbors joined a nonprofit organization that would decide whether people were eligible to buy homes in the area. The group condemned the vandalism to the Terrys' home but said they needed to protect their property values by deciding who could buy a house in the area.
The City Council, meanwhile, passed a resolution saying that "people of all colors and creeds are welcome in Long Beach."
Also note the killing of Police Officer Thomas Scebbi after he and his partner, Ramon Espinoza, pulled over about 2 a.m. on June 20 in front of 332 S. Kingsley Drive to question a man wearing white gloves about a series of liquor store holdups. Espinoza (The Times also called him Espinosa) was badly wounded and expected to die of his injuries, but he recovered to testify against James Eugene Hooten. Hooten was executed in the gas chamber for the killing, May 13, 1960.
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s difficult as this may be to believe (and I'm sure it is), traffic is not a new problem in Los Angeles. The city's streets were congested 50 years ago, they were congested 70 years ago and, yes, they were a mess a century ago. As regular readers of the Daily Mirror know, proposals for elevated trains, subways, one-way streets, bans on curbside parking and prohibitions against large, cumbersome vehicles have been kicked around for decades.
So here we are in 1938, taking yet another look at the city's impassible streets. You might find yourself asking why people living 70 years ago didn't adore our sainted streetcar system, because this is before (according to conspiracy theorists, anyway) the shadowy cabal of bus companies and car manufacturers plotted the postwar demise of the beloved Red Cars.
And there's an update in the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette in the Harry Raymond bombing, in which the defense, out of desperation in a doomed case, throws everything imaginable at the jury in a vain attempt keep their client out of jail.
Above left, apparently all one needed for a dialect joke in 1938 was an African American and a mule. Incredibly enough, this gem of ethnic humor appeared on The Times editorial page.
Really.
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There are times when the old newspapers absolutely leave me speechless--and not in the good way. Yes, I realize this is a comic strip ("Tarzan") and yes, I realize it's 1938 and not 2008. But good grief, I still find it shocking that something like this could be syndicated in the mainstream media. And to think that the comic books of the 1950s were persecuted because they supposedly warped young minds.
"Reprints of Rex Maxon's Tarzan strips in the USA have been a rarity." --Dale Broadhurst.
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e have a very newsy day in Los Angeles. At left, the Shriners convention winds up with floats and Hollywood stars in the Motion Picture Electrical Pageant.
This kind of writing is hard to duplicate: "The West's largest arena--Memorial Coliseum--was transformed for the night into a gargantuan jeweled brooch such as Cellini might have been proud to have fashioned.... The electrical giants on the Colorado River groaned and whined as switches were thrown, hurtling the entire load of one high-power line direct from the dam power houses to the Coliseum."
The host is Jack Benny and the parade features Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Boris Karloff, Mickey Rooney, some starlet named "Movita.," My favorite moment? Leo Carrillo on a "white neon-lighted horse." Of course there are elephants... and Eastern potentates ... and Nubian slaves...
Franklin Pierce McCall is arrested in the kidnapping and death of 5-year-old Jimmy Cash. McCall's mother says: "The boy has been in no trouble before in his life."
And Luise Rainer and Clifford Odets are splitsville.
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Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
People line up to get into the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette in the Harry Raymond bombing.
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n the case of the Harry Raymond bombing, defense attorney George Rochester attacks witnesses' credibility, especially George Sakalis, who is getting $100 a month from the district attorney, Rochester says.
Rochester also charges that John Fisher, who said Police Capt. Earle Kynette tried to buy pipe that would shatter easily (presumably for a pipe bomb), was once a member of the KKK and might be prejudiced against Kynette, a Catholic.
Also, 178 girls from the Los Angeles Orphan Asylum get a day at the beach ... Britain is buying 400 airplanes from Southern California's manufacturers: 200 bombers from Lockheed and 200 trainers from North American Aviation ... Eleanor Holm, who was suspended from the Olympic swim team for drinking, and bandleader Art Jarrett are splitsville. No, I've never heard of them either.
And you can get this hairdo at the Broadway.
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Above and at left, what do you do with an African American professor who is a faculty member at an African American school, Alcorn A&M College, and attempts to enroll at an all-white campus, the University of Mississippi at Oxford?
Obviously, the poor man is insane. Obviously the poor man needs to be taken into custody for his own protection and sent to the state mental hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
This story was front-page news for the Mirror--and completely ignored by The Times. Ouch.
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Above, President Eisenhower tells African Americans to be patient about gaining civil rights ... Below, Dr. Lawrence Michael Dillon, formerly Dr. Laura Maude Dillon, who was apparently the world's first trangendered man, is interviewed in Philadelphia. In 1945, Dillon began a series of operations to change his sex, The Times said. Dillon was a member of the British nobility and his change was noticed by readers of books on British peerage. According to the Gender Centre website, Dillon fled after his operation was revealed and eventually became a Tibetan monk in Bengal, taking the name Lobzang Jivaka.
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 Below, an update in the saga of some "Hearstlings" who stole pictures of the Great White Fleet to be published in the Examiner ... Note the story about the 1906 Brownsville, Texas, incident in which African American troops of the 25th Infantry were charged with going on a deadly rampage. I haven't touched on this case (so many stories, only one Larry Harnisch), but reports on the congressional hearings crop up regularly in 1908 editions of The Times ... Also note the article about the U.S. postmaster taking action against alleged abortionists who used the mail to provide birth control information. Well into the 1950s, The Times was squeamish about using the term "abortion," preferring "illegal operation," "criminal operation" or something similar.  Email me
Above, David Belasco's play, which closed on Broadway in 1906 after 224 performances, is staged in Los Angeles. Sadly, leading lady Alice Treat Hunt will die of pneumonia June 8, 1908, in her apartment on 9th Street near Figueroa. Below, a couple of lynchings in Alabama and Mississippi. John Burr was lynched by 30 men for killing the 12-year-old son of a planter and Walter Clayton was lynched by 75 men for raping a woman while he was being held in a lumber company stockade on a manslaughter charge, The Times said. As late as 1938, The Times editorialized against a federal anti-lynching law, saying it wasn't needed. Quote of the Day: "He was quickly hanged from a tree and several shots were fired to hasten his death." --The Times, on the lynching of John Burr
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Above, Aunt Lucy Chiviss. If you look closely, you'll notice this page says "Wednesday" and "Sunday" and the caption type is pied. Someone was certainly having a bad day. Below, the story of Lucy Chiviss. Yes, I know slave narratives can be problematic and the WPA project on former slaves is a subject unto itself. Still, this a vivid story. The type is barely legible, unfortunately, but the story is compelling. Her description of being sold in the slave market is worth the struggle it takes pick out the words. If I get time I'll keyboard it into the blog. The Times said she lived at 14th and Clayborne, but I'm having trouble locating Clayborne and I'm wondering if it was an error.
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Above, the circus is coming to town--apparently. I can't find any further mentions of "Towle's Circus." Below, Rep. J. Thomas Heflin hates African Americans and he hates drinking, so you can imagine how he feels about African Americans who drink liquor.
Heflin, accompanied by Rep. Edwin Ellerbe of South Carolina, was taking a streetcar to church, where Heflin was to deliver a temperance lecture. According to The Times, two African Americans boarded and one of them, Thomas (or Lewis) Lundy, was about to take a drink of whiskey when Heflin told him to stop. A congressman from Alabama, Heflin had introduced a measure to add Jim Crow cars to the Washington, D.C., streetcar system and he had received permission to carry a gun because of the resulting death threats.
Heflin threw Lundy off the streetcar after a fight and many passengers also got off the car during the brawl, The Times says, including Thomas McCreary and his wife. Lundy got up from the pavement and reached for his pocket, so Heflin fired his .38 at him through a streetcar window, missing Lundy and hitting McCreary in the leg, The Times says. Heflin fired again and struck Lundy in the head at least once, the paper says.
McCreary was taken to the hospital in a carriage because he refused to ride in an ambulance with an African American. Heflin was indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, but The Times never reported on the outcome of the case or whether Lundy and McCreary survived.
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Above, integration in the Los Angeles City Fire Department is not going well ... Below, the Coast Guard inspects ships in California's ports on the theory that 50 men with suitcases could smuggle a terrorist weapon into the country (Gosh, doesn't that sound familiar?) ... And the heiress who accused two officers of making "unwanted advances" after stopping her for DUI is found not guilty.
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As noted elsewhere, I usually don't republish editorials because they are often outdated and are frequently embarrassing. This one is an especially good example. The Times takes the position that the nation doesn't need a federal anti-lynching law. Speaking of editorials, here's a front-page diatribe against union leader Dave Beck ... A witness says Capt. Earle Kynette was near Harry Raymond's garage before the bombing that nearly killed him ... Racing at Santa Anita ... And Neville Chamberlain says that Britain must act without delay to "make friends" with Mussolini and Hitler lest it be drawn into another Great War. On the jump, San Quentin selects a pig to be the first victim of its new gas chamber, the new method of execution that will replace hanging.
Quote of the day: "The time is coming when Britain must make a stand and I pray to God that, because of our unwise past, we will not be left to make that stand alone." Winston Churchill
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Read on »
The Metropolitan Transit Authority takes its first steps toward "a speedy mass transit system." Will it build a monorail from the Valley to downtown Los Angeles? Reporter Ray Herbert is going to look at the implications for bus and streetcar passengers (yes, we still had them in 1958) and find out "just when Los Angeles can expect a fast, more efficient transit system." As the Daily Mirror keeps pointing out, congested streets in Los Angeles are a 100-year-old problem. Stay tuned...
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Weather makes the front page ... Another youngster is stricken with a rare disease (The Times apparently never followed up on this story) ... Fighting in the Mideast ... And a new weapon in the Cold War against the Soviets ...
Download the full page here: Download 1958_0211_cover.jpg
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It's Sunday in 1958, and The Times features a suburban tract home, designed with young (and growing) families in mind. There's no address for this house, so we don't where it was. Click here to download the page: Download 1958_0209_home.jpg
Fighting in the Middle East ... President Eisenhower's health is improving ... Bus service is expected to resume in Pasadena and Glendale once striking union members ratify their contract ... Investigators try to determine why an ICBM exploded shortly after being launched ... And Brigitte Bardot has a nervous breakdown.
Click here to download the full page: Download 1958_0209_cover.jpg
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Jan. 29, 1958
The Kingfish and I got a pretty fair raking over the coals a few days ago.
And, somehow, I'm not quite sure that we deserved it.
The man who did the raking is a colleague of mine--a local newspaper
columnist named Stanley Robertson. He writes for the Negro publication,
the Los Angeles Sentinel.
It's his written opinion that Kingfish and I were responsible this month for what he calls "television's darkest hour."
And, apparently, that we--in two 15-minute KTTV telecasts--set the Negro race back at least a hundred years.
According to Robertson, the actions of Tim Moore, the 70-year-old actor
who portrays Kingfish in the "Amos 'n' Andy" TV series, have been
"disgraceful" since he became involved in the roast-beef episode with
his in-laws three weeks ago.
And my television show, with Tim as my guest, was "the bitter end."
To quote part of Robertson's complaint:
"Egged on into carrying his buffoon role of Kingfish over into real
life by the publicity he has received, especially (on) the Coates
television show, Moore has given credence to the millions of people who
believe that 'Amos 'n' Andy' is a true portrayal of the way Negro life
exists in the U.S."
In the first place, I question whether Moore is trying to be an
off-stage Kingfish. Or whether the fictitious Kingfish hasn't become a
popular television personality because Tim Moore injected quite a bit
of his real-life self into the character.
More is just that. He's a character.
He's a comic, a polished showman and maybe--as Mr. Robertson contends--he's even a buffoon.
He's also a pretty wonderful, sincere man, and I very strongly resent Robertson's attack on him.
I do so, especially, when the attack is one which I consider nothing
more than an outburst of some highly supersensitive emotion.
Mr. Robertson's column says, in gist, that the comical happy Negro who
has become as much a part of American folklore as Paul Bunyan and
Johnny Appleseed should be buried and forgotten, so that today's Negro
will not be discredited by the memory.
Let people look at the Marian Anderson,s the Ralph Bunches, the Jackie Robinsons, Walter Whites and Paul R. Williamses.
But at all costs get rid of the prototypes which inspired minstrel acts of men like Jolson and Cantor.
Somehow, this logic doesn't hold up.
If we follow it a little further, I'm afraid we'll have to outlaw jokes
about Irish cops, mothers-in-law, thrifty Scotsmen, sleepy Mexicans,
oil-soaked Texans, and, of course, the rich humor of the Jewish dialect
story.
Every country, every race, every geographical section, even every
profession has certain traits which--either justly or otherwise--are
attributed to it.
It would be sad to contemplate that we should ever become a nation so
hypersensitive we can't poke light fun at ourselves now and then.
Apparently, this is what Mr. Robertson wants. I gather from his column that he doesn't even like the "Amos 'n' Andy" show.
About it, he comments:
"I know many people who have always disliked 'Amos 'n' Andy,' but who
watched it occasionally, who have sworn they'll never watch it again
after the 'Affair Pot Roast.'
"And Mr. Coates must realize, too, that the interviews with the Kingfish have possibly done him more harm than good.
"An elderly Negro woman, obviously a domestic, riding on the
Crenshaw-Hollywood bus the other day, summed up the Coates' programs:
"Who does Paul Coates think he's kidding?"
I'm not kidding anybody.
But may be if I were a little more hypersensitive, I could build up a
fair-sized neurosis about prototypes like the stupid American tourist,
the henpecked husband and the provincial transplanted New Yorker.
Not to forget the cliche newspaperman who always needs a drink.
And at this point, I'm ready.
An attorney for two LAPD officers charges that Assembly Speaker William Moseley Jones is exploiting the state vice inquiry to bolster his campaign for attorney general ... Diplomatic repercussions over a sentry slapping a U.S. envoy in Nanking ... More on King Zog of Albania ... Killings in Massachusetts mental institutions ... On the jump, one of Dist. Atty. Buron Fitts' aides is threatened in the Harry Raymond bombing ... And in Washington, Southern senators successfully derail an anti-lynching law.
Read on »
More than 200 African Americans gather at First Methodist Church to protest the vandalism of a house on East 33rd Street that was rented to a black family (above, the original Jan. 16, 1908, story) ... A man on crutches is hit by a streetcar at 9th and Main ... An actor tells police two robbers beat him when he claimed he didn't have any money ... Pianist Josef Hofmann is staying at the Hotel Alexandria ... A man is arrested at 1st near Main on charges of carrying a .45.
Jan. 17, 1958
The Daily Mirror salutes insurance salesman Harold Alonzo Franklin, who on Jan. 4, 1964, became the first African American to register at Auburn University in 108 years. Franklin was seeking a master's degree in history. (Bonus fact: Henry Harris was signed as Auburn's first African American athlete March 14, 1968). As far as I can determine from Google, Auburn no longer celebrates Robert E. Lee's birthday. Update: In fact, according to Auburn's academic calendar, the school celebrates Martin Luther King Day instead.
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Nov. 11, 1957
Los Angeles
Thomas J. Tophia and James Wallace were
arguing outside a bar when Tophia drew a gun and hit Wallace over the
head with it. The gun fired, sending a bullet through the open door of
a church across the street at 1722 E. 102nd. The bullet pierced a
partition and struck Lela (a.k.a. Lula) M. Glenn, 1542 W. 48th St., in the head, killing her instantly. Tophia, 1667 E. 114th St., was convicted of manslaughter.
This seems like a perfectly straightforward story in The Times.
But it's not.
First of all, our friend Mr. Tophia lived a block and a half from the
Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts. The shooting
occurred--well, wait, where exactly did the shooting occur?
Google maps is most unhelpful in locating 1722 E. 102nd St. In fact,
the address doesn't exist today. A trip to the Daily Mirror's 1946
Thomas Bros. Guide shows the street was once there, so we'll have to
assume something happened to that neighborhood. Without a field trip,
it's a bit unclear as to what. But we can tell the shooting occurred a
few blocks west of the Jordan Downs housing project.
The online Los Angeles city directory from 1956 tells us that the bar in question was apparently Paul's Place, 1723 E. 102nd St. At least that part of the story seems correct.
However, the directory is most unhelpful in identifying the church at 1722 E. 102nd, as is The Times.
Let's look at the street:
1716 E. 102nd is a couple of apartments.
1720 E. 102nd is Watts Auto for Hire and Taxi Co.
1720 1/2 E. 102nd is Campbell Garrett Plumbing.
1722 E. 102nd is the reported site of shooting.
1750 E. 102nd is the South L.A. Mortuary.
Maybe you're starting to think: Taxi company... plumbing company...
church... mortuary... Wait a minute. Shouldn't there be some sort of
zoning regulation prohibiting a bar across the street from a church?
You'd think. I don't happen to have a copy of the city of Los Angeles
zoning regulations for 1957, so this is not a question I can answer at
the moment.
But let's keep digging and look at the street directory for 1960.
Paul's Place has become Bob's Place.
What's this?!
The Watts Auto for Hire and Taxi Co. has been replaced by Mount Calvary Assembly Apostolic Faith. I'm starting to wonder if this was a storefront church, which might explain my question about zoning.
The 1700 block appears in the 1963 city directory, but the 1964 and 1965 city
directories show a gap between the 1500 and 2000 blocks of East 102nd
Street. I know what you're thinking. But the Watts riots were in August
1965 and the city directory dates from April 1964.
The unidentified reporter who turned out this three-paragraph brief
seems to have been an incurious sort--and it makes a grimly amusing
story for a woman in church to be an unintended victim of a bar fight.
The name of the church must have seemed irrelevant.
Unfortunately, getting more answers would involve a trip to the library
to check the other papers (especially the California Eagle and the Los
Angeles Sentinel) and that's beyond the call for this small item (as
I've said before, there are so many stories and only one Larry
Harnisch).
But sometimes, you just have to wonder. At least I do.
According to California death records, Thomas J. Tophia died Jan. 19, 1981, at the age of 63.
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Nov. 7, 1957
Los Angeles
Here's a story that white Los Angeles will never see: An NAACP boycott
against Anheuser-Busch because it refused to hire African American
truck drivers, plant workers and office staff.
According to the California Eagle, a weekly serving the local African
American community, the NAACP was calling on 350,000 blacks in Los
Angeles to stop drinking Budweiser until the company ended its biased
hiring practices. African American owners of liquor stores and bars
were also urged to stop serving the beer.
The story noted that although blacks constituted 8.5% of the local
population, they accounted for 18% of the beer sold in Los Angeles. The
businesses taking part in the boycott represented about 2,000 cases of
Budweiser a month, the Eagle said.
The boycott was called after the Urban League failed to attain equality
in hiring despite years of efforts, the story said. The NAACP's labor
and industry committee had tried to confer with a West Coast
representative of the brewer, but was also unsuccessful.
According to William Pollard of the labor and industry committee, "It
is ridiculous that in their entire Los Angeles operations only two
Negroes are employed by Budweiser," the Eagle said.
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Oct. 22, 1957
Los Angeles
And here's where storytelling trumped skepticism.
Recall the death of Theodore Roosevelt Beckham, who killed Juvenile Officer Robert R. Christensen at 1524 Ingraham St. during
an attempted arrest. The first news accounts said officers killed
Beckham, who was trying to escape. Now, the papers say that according
to the inquest, Beckham shot himself.
Accidentally.
In the heart.
To recap news accounts: Christensen suspected Beckham (note that he was African American, although the papers didn't say so) of being a
peeping Tom. Wearing civilian clothes and using his personal
vehicle, Christensen stopped in the neighborhood on his way to work. Acting alone,
Christensen detained Beckham and put him in the car without using
handcuffs, which were found on the front seat. As Christensen was
getting into his vehicle, Beckham grabbed the officer's .38 Colt
Detective Special and shot him. Beckham ran away, then came back and
shot Christensen three more times.
About five hours later, police found Beckham's car at 99th and Grape
streets and began searching for him. According to The Times, Beckham
ran out of the house at 2049 E. 99th St. The Times account said
Officers J.O. Worden and K.E. Gourley shot him when he failed to halt.
"We hollered at him to stop, Worden said, "but he kept
running," according to The Times.
Now the autopsy, however, finds that Beckham had been shot once with
Christensen's Colt (photo of a Colt Detective Special, second series, at right, from gunbroker.com). According to The Times, Beckham "apparently
attempted to pull the snub-nosed revolver from his waistband. The
hammer caught in his shirt and he was shot."
Noting that police were 40 to 50 feet away, The Times said: "The
autopsy revealed that the bullet went through his heart from a range
close enough to leave powder burns on the wound."
Unfortunately, neither The Times nor the Mirror examined how this could
occur. The Times, in fact, merely stressed the ironic justice of
Beckham being slain with the murdered officer's gun.
There's only one problem.
According to the Mirror's first story, Beckham was wearing green overalls.
No waistband.
I do believe that Theodore Roosevelt Beckham was shot in the heart. I
do believe the gun was fired close enough to leave powder burns. I may
even believe that he was shot with Christensen's gun.
The rest of the story as told in the papers? I'm sorry, I don't buy it.
For the sake of argument, let's say he changed out of his overalls. The
Colt Detective Special is a double-action revolver and snagging the
hammer on a
shirt should have had no effect, certainly not in the uncocked
position, and shouldn't have made the gun fire even in the cocked
position
unless Beckham had his finger on the trigger. It cannot be as simple as the papers made it sound.
Above, a Mirror photo of the late Theodore Roosevelt Beckham. I
apologize for the poor reproduction. It's the only one I have found
so far.
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Oct. 12, 1957
Yes, this really happened.
Oct. 5, 1957
Louisiana
The story of Alton Clifton Poret presents unusually frustrating
challenges for the diligent researcher. Identified in a 1954 Times
story as "a former Los Angeles Negro," Poret and Edgar Labat were
sentenced to die in Louisiana's electric chair for the Nov. 12, 1950,
rape of a white New Orleans telephone operator.
Not that The Times ever said anything so indelicately precise. Indeed,
the paper never ran a word about the original trial and in later
stories merely referred to "a criminal assault charge" or a "criminal
attack of a white woman."
If it weren't for the efforts of a Westside meat dealer and bail
bondsman, The Times would have written almost nothing about the case.
The advocate was Nelson N. Soll, and he began raising money for Poret's
defense after reading a Louisiana newspaper article.
"I thought Poret's story was phony at first," Soll said in a Sept. 14,
1957, story. "Then I checked it out. I've spent four years on this
case. I have collected affidavits that prove beyond the shadow of a
doubt that Poret is innocent--that he was not even anywhere near the
scene of the crime. But he is a black man and he is sentenced to die
and only a miracle of the Lord can keep him from being strapped into
that electric chair at one minute past minute next Friday. We are
praying for that miracle."
For his troubles, Soll had a cross burned on the front lawn of his home at 1523 Crest Drive,
The Times said. Rabbi Abraham I. Maron of Congregation Mogen David
and the Rev. Leroy M. Kopp of the United Fundamentalist Church led the
local religious campaign calling for Poret to be spared.
Eventually, the Hollywood Committee for Alton Clifton Poret's Defense was formed, headed by Adolphe Menjou.
(I guess I'll have to rethink my opinion of Menjou, which was pretty
low after he praised the Japanese evacuation of Los Angeles during
World War II. To paraphrase, he said he hoped to never see another
Japanese face).
After a long and complex legal battle (the men contended that whites
were systematically excluded from juries) Poret and Labat were released
from prison in 1969, having pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated
assault. At that time, they held the record for being on America's
death row. Of their 16 years, two months and two days in prison, 14
years had been on death row.
According to the Social Security Death Index, a man named Edgar M.
Labat died in 1998 in Mississippi. Poret disappeared from the pages of
history after being convicted of attempted rape in Rochester, N.Y., in
1971.
He wrote this poem in prison:
Living at the river's edge,
Never knowing when they'll drive that final wedge.
Will the wheel of justice ever look my way?
And when it does, what will it have to say?
Nelson N. Soll died in 1994 at the age of 84. His activism did not end
with Poret. He raised money for the defense of a boyhood friend, Jack
Ruby, despite many death threats.
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Sept. 27, 1957
Los Angeles
Sept. 23, 1957
Page 1 of the Mirror:
Sept. 23, 1957
Little Rock, Ark.
In case you are wondering, The Times did not run these pictures. They appeared in the Mirror.
Sept. 8-12, 1957
Los Angeles
Let's suppose you are the mayor
of the nation's third-largest city. Let's further suppose that your
wife has received several letters complaining about rampant crime in a
heavily minority neighborhood. You might turn the complaints over to
the Police Department.
Then again, you might not.
Because
if you're Mayor Norris Poulson, you won't bother with the LAPD. You'll
hire a couple of private investigators to look into the situation on
South Central Avenue, which, according to Albertha J. Callahan, is
"full of bookies by day and at night it's full of women on the street."
Nor did Police Commission President Michael Kohn contact anyone
at the LAPD about the allegations. Instead, Kohn disguised himself in
work clothes and drove down to Central Avenue in an old car.
"The situation was appalling," Kohn told the Mirror. "At Vernon Avenue and Avalon Boulevard I found groups of four or five girls on each corner waving at cars."
"Groups
of four or five women cruised in cars and waved at men. Others stood on
corners and when traffic stops for a red light, they 'come out to your
car and knock on the windows,' " Kohn said, according to The Times.
By
now, you're probably wondering why Poulson didn't contact Chief William
H. Parker and say something like, "Oh, by the way, Bill, old chum, how
exactly are things down in the 'hood?"
The answer: Poulson
figured the police either couldn't do the job or were on the take. He
had complained to the department before, he said, "but we were always
told there was nothing to it. They would tell us the persons making the
complaints were troublemakers or that their reports were exaggerated.
The police were paying no attention to these complaints."
He told the Mirror: "We have been making inquiries through usual
channels about vice conditions and getting the usual replies that
everything was hunky-dory. I took it upon myself to look into the
situation."
Poulson said his inquiry showed that: "Flagrant vice
conditions exist in this area.
Prostitution, gambling, bookmaking and illicit traffic in narcotics are
allowed to flourish without apparent restraint. A condition of this
sort indicates either that vice is operating with protection or
reflects inadequate law enforcement in the area."
If you know anything at all about Parker (or even if you don't),
you can imagine his reaction to being ambushed at a hearing, especially
because Poulson didn't make his charges in person, but had Kohn read a
letter while he was out of town.
Parker heatedly denied
charges that the department was corrupt. Instead, he blamed a lack of
officers, the higher cost of patrolling Newton Division (now known as
"Shootin' Newton"), an increase in criminals who had been chased out of
skid row by urban renewal, lax courts that freed suspects on low bail
and recent judicial decisions that hampered the police by granting
rights to suspects.
"You can't put people in jail without evidence any more," Parker said.
"We're going to have evidence to justify arrests and I'm not going to
violate anyone's civil rights and I don't want it done by anyone in the
department."
"We know who a lot of these people are, but we can't arrest them just
for walking down the street," said acting Newton Division commander Lt.
Walter Baker. "Not until they commit some overt act can we nab them.
What's more, we think we've been doing a pretty good job as it is."
The criminals were clever, Parker said: "We have a wolf pack situation
where a number of prostitutes work together. If one doesn't recognize
one of our vice officers, one of the others will."
And there were more of them: Arrests for prostitution in Newton
Division were up 24% from 1956 and gambling arrests increased 34.7%.
Why? The demolition of skid row, police said. In the previous two
years, nearly 500 buildings were destroyed, The Times said.
Police also complained that the jails had revolving doors when it came
to vice arrests. Police Commission member Emmett McGaughey cited the
case of a prostitute who had been arrested six times in a year, but
only fined $200 ($1,433.06 USD 2006).
In response, Parker assigned Deputy Chief Richard Simon to examine the
problem, along with Police Inspector James Lawrence (an obsolete rank
that was between captain and deputy chief).
The LAPD sent more motorcycle officers and police cars to the area and
assigned photographers to document the situation, the
papers said.
And what about the residents? The Times didn't look into the local
reaction to the vice crackdown, but the Mirror did, interviewing
several African American leaders.
Dr. J.A. Somerville, a dentist and former Police Commission member,
complained: "An investigation of any neighborhood, regardless of its
racial complexion, will disclose prostitution in some form. The trade
carries no racial label. To point out the Vernon and Central Avenue
districts as a vice area because colored people live there, without
naming other sections where similar conditions exist, seems biased to
me and designed to discredit Negroes."
The Rev. B.O. Byrd of New Hope Baptist Church, Central Avenue and 52nd
Street, said: "There is vice in almost every section of our city. In
some areas, however, they are financially able to cover it up better."
What did the California Eagle and the Los Angeles Sentinel say about
the LAPD's vice crackdown? Looks like a trip to the microfilm is in
order.
Stay tuned....
Email me
Yes, it really happened.
 Aug. 26, 1957
In a recent issue of Variety, columnist Dave Kaufman sends off his piece with an opening paragraph sure to be an eye-catcher. It concerns racial prejudice and the way some writers are unsuccessfully trying to peddle their written wares on same -- to big business.
This is what Kaufman reports: "Racial prejudice is too strong a subject for television... Rod Serling, one of TV's top scripters, wrote a teleplay for U.S. Steel... He was ordered to dilute it.
"This year he wrote a similar story but changed it so that instead of Negroes, the yarn would revolve about Mexicans.
"It was designed for 'Playhouse 90' and producer Martin Manulis was enthusiastic about it... Not so the sponsors, all but one of them rejecting it."
Kaufman went on to explain Serling's holy displeasure because the story wasn't accepted. Reportedly, Serling is supposed to have remarked that it was a story of "prejudice as it exists," that "he was tired of fighting this" and -- bless his crusading soul -- "that he would let someone else do the fighting."
Personally, I'll go on record in saying that "Playhouse 90" is very admirable TV fare, certainly one of my top choices.
Of Serling, there can be no middle ground for discussion. He and Paddy Chayefsky lead the race a mile ahead.
But -- and this is where big business showed a big sense of values -- racial prejudice, whether "diluted" from Negroes to Mexicans or to Jews, or to Manchurians or what have you (if it is generally rampant at all), is not the kind of commodity one bandies around with a price tag. And hoping for the big slice.
If U.S. Steel declined to buy Serling's tale of prejudice for national showings in the quiet of, in the intimacy of, the American home, I, for one, cannot blame them. No, not in the least.
National television, in my way of thinking, cannot and should not be placed in the same category as hardcover book production, paperbacks or cheap pulps.
P.S. "Serling," concludes Kaufman, "did get paid for the story that won't be seen." Here's a list of Serling's 10 scripts for "Playhouse 90," from the Serling archives at Ithaca College.
Read on »
The California Eagle, Aug. 22, 1957. The Times never reported the NAACP's lawsuit against the Police Department. Apparently the Los Angeles police chief giving sworn testimony about the department wasn't considered news.
Aug. 21-22, 1957
Los Angeles
Note the contrasting coverage as Kappa Alpha Psi, an African American fraternity, holds its national convention in Los Angeles.
Read on »
Another story not appearing in the Los Angeles Times.....
The California Eagle, Aug. 15, 1957
"Horror stories implying neglect and incompetence, especially by nursing personnel, are heard regularly."
"We all came with such high hopes. Can we provide high-quality healthcare in the ghetto? I'm not sure. It's very spotty so far."
"I have never seen so many sick people. We never catch up."
"We've got difficulties, but nothing we can't handle. We've come a long way."
Times staff writer Harry Nelson did a terrific job with this story. He captures the challenges, the hopes and the incredible frustrations of King/Drew. And this was 32 years before it lost federal funding. Take the time to read this story. It's worth the effort.
The Times, March 23, 1975.
Part 1
Part 2
Aug. 5, 1957
Los Angeles
In eight years (the headlin | |
t left, a nine-room home in an all-white neighborhood is heavily vandalized after being sold to an African American doctor and his family. 
