“Is that a numbers book?” the woman asked, smiling, knowing the answer but asking the question anyway. On her face, you could see the memories. It was same look I had seen on countless others who had spied the H.P. Dream Book on our table at the 2012 Black History & Culture Showcase last weekend.
Practically everyone who stopped by remembered seeing the book in their homes. The cover on this one was green, some remembered a yellow cover, and others recalled a larger paperback guide. But the memories were all the same and deeply etched in their minds.
This book was published in 1980, a reprint of Prof. Uriah Konje’s (or G. Parris, his real name) book. The earliest one – a copy of which I found at auction two years ago – was first published in the 1920s.
The book was among the collection of African American memorabilia owned by Rebecca Brown, who had set up a table with me at the history showcase in Philadelphia. Most of the collectibles on the table belonged to her, and I offered up a few of my auction finds.
I was a little concerned that the turnout would be sparse because of the Easter holiday weekend, but was pleasantly surprised when a flow of people stopped by our table and were excited at what they saw. Some even wanted to buy items from Rebecca’s collection. We also had an engaged group of people in our two sessions on historical treasures in your home. Two of them shared their family heirlooms.
The showcase was a college of people, artifacts, artwork, and vendors selling books, clothes, President Obama T-shirts and more. Here’s a sampling:
Civil War re-enactors for the 3rd Infantry of the United States Colored Troops. On the re-enactors’ table were replicas of the gear worn by the 180,000 or so African American soldiers who took up the charge offered by Frederick Douglass and President Lincoln in the 1860s to fight for the Union. The re-enactors got the gear from a quartermaster in Gettysburg, one man told me.
“If it was real,” he noted, “it would be in a museum.”
Also on hand were some of the Montford Point Marines from the Philadelphia area. The group was named for the training facility built for black Marines near Camp LeJeune, NC, in the 1940s.
Dancing, colonial style. I stopped to watch as a man dressed in colonial garb taught a family how to do a dance that was popular during colonial times. I’d seen men and women do this quiet stroll of a dance in early movies.
Negro Leagues. One vendor had laid out several shirts and information about these black ball players, but the most talked-about item on his table was an old Firestone radio. Why was it there? Folks listened to the games on it, he said. The radio had a little age and wear on it but it was still nice. Across from the table was retired journalist Al Hunter, who in December self-published a book about Negro Leaguer Bill “Ready” Cash called “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Cash played for the Philadelphia Stars beginning in 1943. Unfortunately, he died about three months before the book was published.
Tuskegee Airmen. At least three of them were at the showcase, and they graciously signed Rebecca’s Airman GI Joe. A visitor to our table mentioned that he had all of the airmen in the series. A truck driver, he had picked them up in his travels and had become a collector of action figures. I also met a man who said he was a cousin of Airman Lt. Charles B. Hall, whom he had met once around 1945-1946. Hall was among the first wave of airmen to arrive in Italy in 1943 and is credited with being the first black airman to shoot down a German plane. Hall is apparently mentioned on the GI Joe box, which I didn’t realize as it sat before me for two days during the showcase.
Vintage and antique newspapers, magazines, books and recordings. Collector Paul Gibson of Sankofa Archives arranged an impressive display of 19th and 20th century ephemera documenting slave owners and slaves (so owners could receive some sort of compensation once slaves were freed and were no longer “property” – a great genealogical tool), slave advertisements, the Tulsa Riots of 1921, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision on school desegregation, the 1965 slaying of Malcolm X. There was also a display of Jet magazines from the 1960s.
Nicodemus book by Inez Hogan. I set up a display of the Nicodemus books as a way to show how black children were badly portrayed by others and beautiful photos of two black boys and a happy black baby to show how they actually were. Two visitors recalled their parents and grandparents complaining about the books and demanding that they be removed from classrooms. The books were written from 1932 to 1954.
The hit of our two days – the numbers book.
