{"id":14319,"date":"2020-07-21T13:43:47","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T17:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/?p=14319"},"modified":"2020-07-29T07:12:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T11:12:26","slug":"culture-war-at-19th-and-chestnut-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2020\/07\/culture-war-at-19th-and-chestnut-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture War at 19th & Chestnut Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

W hat\u2019s all this about the City of Brotherly Love? Philadelphia was a flat-out racist city a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raymond Pace Alexander, the first Black graduate of Penn\u2019s Wharton School in 1920 returned home with a law degree from Harvard three years later. He would later recall: \u201cExcepting only the restaurants in the John Wanamaker store and the Broad Street, Station, a Negro in 1923 could not be served in the restaurant or caf\u00e9 of any first-class hotels in Philadelphia, nor could he obtain food in any of the central city restaurants. \u2026 [The] only place he could obtain food in central Philadelphia was in the Automats, which were colorblind \u2026 restaurants away from the central section and those in the suburban area were even worse. Their method of refusal sometimes took the form of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, the city\u2019s many movie theaters, ostensibly palaces for the people, were offenders. Theater managers deployed an array of tactics to keep Blacks from entering. When Marian Dawley and a few friends went to the movies at 59th and Market Streets, they were told \u201call tickets for colored people have been sold.\u201d When the new Aldine at 19th and Chestnut opened in 1921, its manager, with a pocketful of outdated tickets and stubs, regularly switched them to turn away Black customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The brand new Aldine Theater. December 8, 1921. Southeast corner of 19th and Chestnut Streets (PhillyHistory.org) <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How would the city\u2019s Black community deal with this? Two options were acceptance and building theaters for Black audiences. The Dunbar Theatre, which opened in 1920 at Broad and Lombard, would be \u201cowned and controlled by citizens of color.\u201d  A third alternative? Use the law to challenge, if not change, Philadelphia\u2019s racist ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1924, Alexander was ready to face the challenge. He had already garnered experience\u2014and some success\u2014in civil rights litigation. During the summer of 1921, between his first and second years of law school, Alexander brought his very first civil rights suit against New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden for denying him use of their swimming pool. At Harvard, where residence in dormitories was made compulsory for first year students, Alexander took on their contradictory rule prohibiting occupancy by Black students. His essay \u201cVoices From Harvard\u2019s Own Negroes\u201d argued for change, drew praise from professor Felix Frankfurter (a future Supreme Court Justice) and contributed to the reversal of Harvard\u2019s exclusion policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back home in Philadelphia, the newly-minted lawyer took what he learned in the dormitory victory to shape civil rights work that would last for decades, according to Kenneth Mack. Pennsylvania\u2019s 1887 Equal Rights law \u201clacked \u201cteeth,\u201d Alexander would later admit, but provided enough traction \u201cto file suits against discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where would Alexander launch his campaign? By repeatedly refusing tickets purchased by Black citizens and denying them passage through the damask-brocaded, marble-encrusted, crystal-laden lobby of the Aldine, Center City Philadelphia\u2019s \u201cmost brilliantly lit\u201d movie house, manager Charles Starkosh provided Alexander with exactly what was needed. And with the screening of Cecil B. DeMille’s “mighty dramatic spectacle,” The Ten Commandments<\/em>, the case had the potential to be both iconic and ironic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Aldine’s choice to exclude Black theatergoers sparked perhaps the most sustained set of conflicts over public accommodations in the city\u201d during the 1920s, writes Mack. After an initial loss in court, Alexander came forward with additional plaintiffs and the court \u201ccondemned the Aldine’s actions, prompting a settlement.\u201d Theater management \u201cissued a public apology and promised to end its discriminatory policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aldine Theater marquee and signage for The Singing Fool, starring Al Jolson, October 2, 1928. Southeast corner of 19th and Chestnut Street (PhillyHistory.org)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Alexander\u2019s civil rights cases and his boycotts, combined with the Black vote, would help guide the passage of a new Pennsylvania Equal Rights Law in 1935, which, according to Alexander, would<\/em> have \u201csome nasty, sharp\u2013edged teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1900 Chestnut Street, law offices of Raymond Pace Alexander, built for Alexander in 1935 by Frank E. Hahn. (University Archives – Penn Archives Digital Collection)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Still, Philadelphia\u2019s prevailing culture remained steeped in systemic racism. In October 1928, three years after Alexander\u2019s victory, the Aldine screened The Singing Fool<\/em> featuring Al Jolson, the \u201cshameful poster boy\u201d of blackface (as he would be called). For the film\u2019s entire run, giant portraits of Jolson\u2014in blackface\u2014loomed over the intersection of 19th and Chestnut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jolson\u2019s ephemeral image, of course, would soon be taken down. And by 1935, the same year as Pennsylvania\u2019s new Equal Rights Law, Alexander\u2019s practice had become successful enough to acquire land and commission a brand new, three-story building<\/a> \u201cin the heart of the almost exclusively white Center City of Philadelphia.\u201d The location: right across 19th<\/sup> Street from the Aldine. There, with his wife\/partner, lawyer\/economist Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander<\/a> and others in the firm, Alexander would do much more to advance the cause of civil rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raymond Pace Alexander had made sure to have the last word in the battle for the soul of 19th<\/sup> and Chestnut Streets. This time it would be set in stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Sources: David A. Canton, Raymond Pace Alexander: A New Negro Lawyer Fights for Civil Rights in Philadelphia<\/em>, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013); Ted Gioia, “A Megastar Long Buried Under a Layer Of Blackface.” The New York Times<\/em>, October 22, 2000; Kenneth W. Mack, \u201cRethinking Civil Rights Lawyering and Politics in the Era Before Brown,\u201d The Yale Law Journal; <\/em>New Haven Vol. 115, no. 2, (Nov 2005); Bradley Maule, \u201cPaced For Growth At 1900 Chestnut<\/a>,\u201d Hidden City<\/em>, May 8, 2014; Colin A. Palmer, editor. \u201cRaymond Pace Alexander,\u201d Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History<\/em>,. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006); \u201cAll Seats For Colored People Are Sold Out,\u201d Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, March 8, 1919; Philadelphia to Soon Have a New Colored Play House, Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, November 8, 1919; \u201cTheatre Employee Accused of \u201cSwitching\u201d Tickets to Colored Patrons,\u201d Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, March 29, 1924;Aldine Theatre Case Settled in Manager’s Favor, Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, March 2, 1925; Aldine Theatre Opens, Inquirer<\/em>, November 12, 1921; \u201cThe Singing Fool\u201d Begins at Aldine,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, October 2, 1928.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W hat\u2019s all this about the City of Brotherly Love? Philadelphia was a flat-out racist city a century ago. Raymond Pace Alexander, the first Black graduate of Penn\u2019s Wharton School in 1920 returned home with a law degree from Harvard three years later. He would later recall: \u201cExcepting only the restaurants in the John Wanamaker […]<\/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":[86],"class_list":["post-14319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-civil-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14319","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=14319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}