{"id":10175,"date":"2016-04-20T00:05:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T04:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=10175"},"modified":"2016-05-01T23:17:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T03:17:25","slug":"a-tale-of-intolerance-in-grays-ferry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2016\/04\/a-tale-of-intolerance-in-grays-ferry\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Intolerance in Grays Ferry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ellsworth<\/a>
Ellsworth Street, south side, 2900-38, east to west, December 6, 1965 – Nearly 50 years after Adella Bond moved in. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adella Bond figured the 2900 block of Ellsworth Street would be a safe place to live.<\/p>\n

She figured wrong.<\/p>\n

Described as a “short, young woman of light brown color, with a quiet but emphatic manner,\u201d Bond worked by day as probation officer in Municipal Courts. As an African-American, she knew that racial tensions played out poorly in some neighborhoods. She knew of the incidents in early July, 1918, when local \u201cruffians\u201d welcomed a new family to the 2500 block of Pine Street with racial epithets before burning their furniture in the street. No, Adella Bond wouldn’t be looking at any houses near Fitler Square.<\/p>\n

About a mile to the southwest, an African-American real estate agent was showing 2936 Ellsworth Street, a two story brick rowhouse near the end of a block wedged between the Henry Bower Chemical factory and the United States Arsenal. Bond \u201csupposed colored people were welcome\u201d there, and heard another woman of color, a Mrs. Giddings, had previously occupied the very same residence.<\/p>\n

Bond wasn\u2019t<\/em> told that real estate managers were systematically terminating the $11-per-month leases held by working class Irish-Americans and offering rents of $14 or even $16-per-month to incoming working-class African Americans.<\/p>\n

And if the new renters wanted to buy, all the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a perfect right to dispose of our properties if we wanted to,\u201d said real estate agent A.D. Morgan. \u201cThese white tenants have been trying to \u2018run this block\u2019 for some time… We have had trouble with them for two years. They were always behind in their rent. \u2026 We got tired of dealing with these people. Yes, I employed a negro agent and sought to dispose of the eight houses I owned down there. We almost \u2018begged\u2019 the white tenants to buy the properties. They would not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got a chance to sell the house to Mrs. Bond we did so. We have sold six of the houses. Yes, all to colored people. We have two more houses on the market. I would like to see them go to colored tenants for they are far better tenants than the element which is there now. \u2026 they\u2019ll have to get out as soon as their leases are up. And when they are all gone and the colored people take their places, there will be no more trouble there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there would <\/em>be trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second time I went down that street, I was stoned,\u201d Bond later said. \u201cIf I had known that there was any objection to colored people in the block I wouldn\u2019t have taken the house\u2026 It was only after I had bought the house that I knew of any objection. But since I could not get my money back, what else was I to do except to live there?\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday July 24th, the movers arrived with Bond\u2019s furniture. She answered her door brandishing a gun. The day went smoothly.<\/p>\n

On Friday, as Bond later told it, \u201c\u2026about 100 white men and boys gathered in front of my house. I heard them talk about having guns, and I saw the guns and cartridges. At last a man came along with a baby in his arms. He handed the baby to a woman, took a rock and threw it. The rock went through my parlor window. I didn\u2019t know what the mob would do next, and I fired my revolver from my upper window to call the police. A policeman came, but he wouldn\u2019t try to cope with that mob alone, so he turned it into a riot call.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rock thrower, Joseph Kelly, 23, who lived a few blocks away on Carpenter near Twenty-third, had been shot in the leg. Both he and his brother, William, would be held without bail, pending investigation. Police arrested Bond for “inciting to riot.”<\/p>\n

\u201cLONE WOMAN HOLDS A MOB OF 500 WHITE BRUTES AT BAY,\u201d read the page-one headline in The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>. \u201cThe plucky little probation officer\u2026 shot to kill in defense of her honor and home\u2026\u201d ran the caption below a full-length photograph of Bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you blame citizens of color for mobilizing at 29th and Ellsworth Sts. To protect one of their own…?” wrote G. Grant Williams, The Tribune\u2019s<\/em> editor.<\/p>\n

Bond’s attorney, G. Edward Dickerson, considered the irony of this and other incidents, just as American soldiers were being shipped abroad to fight for freedom. \u201cHow can a colored man go to France with a clear conscience?\u201d he asked. \u201cHow can he willingly give his life for a country that will not protect his family during his absence?\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to move back home for a week, Adella Bond worried about the same thing\u2014and more. In her absence, as police were supposedly guarding her house, “white hoodlums” broke in, “robbed her of…valuables and…demolished her furniture.”<\/p>\n

[Sources include:\u00a0\u201cDixie methods in Philadelphia,\u201d\u00a0The Philadelphia Tribune,<\/em> July 6, 1918; \u201cMan Shot in Race Riot Over Negro Resident,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, July 28, 1918; \u201cMrs. Bond Determined to Occupy Her House,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer,<\/em> July 31, 1918; \u201cLone Woman Holds a Mob of 500 White Brutes at Bay: Adella Bond Shoots Into Mob Attempting Violence,\u201d The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, August 3, 1918; \u201cThe So-Called Race Riot,\u201d The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, August 3, 1918; “White Policeman Clubs a Race Riot Victim on Hospital Cot,”\u00a0The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, August 10, 1918.]<\/span><\/p>\n

More on the Riot of 1918 here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adella Bond figured the 2900 block of Ellsworth Street would be a safe place to live. She figured wrong. Described as a “short, young woman of light brown color, with a quiet but emphatic manner,\u201d Bond worked by day as probation officer in Municipal Courts. As an African-American, she knew that racial tensions played out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}