The newspaper pages were tucked behind a seemingly unrelated art print of a stone church. I was a bit interested in the artwork but was more intrigued by the newspaper. I assumed that it contained an article about the artist Dorothy Kent.
I perused the New York Times pages and saw nothing pertaining to Kent. But what I did find was much more interesting: It was an article about the upcoming 1939 New York World’s Fair. The fair’s president, Grover Whalen, told 500 people at the New York Urban League’s annual meeting that blacks would not be discriminated against “’in any way’” by the fair’s organizers.
“Wherever we who are running the fair find that there are outstanding contributions made by your race I assure you that they will be recognized,” Whalen said in 1937, two years before the fair opened. “I know that you people do not want to be set apart from the rest of the world and I again promise you that the managers of the fair will give you your just representation.”
Whalen lied.
The fair opened on April 30, 1939, in Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York, on a converted ash-dump site. Inside the gates, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the opening speech, telling all who came to see “The World of Tomorrow” – as the fair was themed – that they would “receive the heartiest of welcomes.”
Outside the gates, 500 African Americans picketed to protest the lack of substantial employment of blacks at the fair. The protest was spearheaded by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and his Greater New York Coordinating Committee for Employment, which earlier had picketed the fair’s headquarters at the Empire State Building and sought a court order to block the opening. Powell was pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and would go on to become a member of the U.S. House.
His group was not the only one that demonstrated against the fair’s discriminatory practices. The National Urban League, the NAACP, the Negro Youth Association, local ministers and others also spoke out. The NAACP passed a resolution decrying the hiring of blacks as only “maids and porters.”
“In an exposition that purports to indicate the trend toward the world of tomorrow, this association believes that among the first considerations should have been a recognition of the unfairness of discrimination between peoples and the justice of opportunity for all on the basis of merit,” the resolution stated. “We condemn the restrictions on employment at the New York World’s Fair, 1939, based on race and color.”
Fair organizers denied the accusations, but only a handful of blacks seemed to have been hired, mostly as entertainers. Those with more meaningful roles included architect Walter L. Roberts, whom Black World magazine identified as being on the fair’s architectural staff; William Grant Still, who composed “Song of a City,” the background music for the Perisphere that he was commissioned to do, and Augusta Savage, commissioned to create a sculpture denoting the musical contributions of African Americans. She sculpted “The Harp,” which was inspired by James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” considered the Negro National Anthem. It was set up in the courtyard of the Contemporary Arts building. After the fair, the sculpture was demolished, reportedly the case for all of the art from the fair.
Others included actor/dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in “Hot Mikado” and black men posing as African natives in “Frank Buck’s Jungleland.” The works of some African American artists were also displayed at the fair.
Following the protests, 700 blacks were said to have been hired by the fair organizers.
African American culture was also given little face time in the fair exhibits. In what was called the American Commons, fair organizers opened up an area for exhibits and performances by racial and ethnic groups, including African Americans, Polish Americans and Italians. Each was given a week to highlight their cultures.
Negro Week ran from July 23–28, 1940, during the second year of the fair. With Germany’s invasion of Poland and the start of World War II in late 1939, the theme of the fair changed to “For Peace and Freedom.”
DuBois gave the opening speech for Negro Week, which featured exhibitions, concerts, singing and dancing, religious services and speeches. Performers included the Rose McClendon Players performing a sketch about the life of Booker T. Washington; the Karamu Dancers of Cleveland, OH; composer Eubie Blake; blues trumpeter/composer W.C. Handy, and jazz pianist James P. Johnson.
The National Committee that organized the event also produced a slide exhibit of rare books and famous people, as well as a Hall of Fame list of accomplished black Americans. DuBois, who helped organize an exhibition of black achievements at the 1900 Paris International Exposition, spoke of the contributions of blacks to American history.
The newspaper article at auction mentioned a number of speakers at the meeting, including Dr. Benjamin C. Robeson of Mother Zion Church, brother of renowned singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson. One of the key speakers was educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration, which was formed by Roosevelt to offer education and employment for people aged 16 to 25.
Bethune, a member of the president’s “Black Cabinet” and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, a leader in the NAACP and the Urban League, and founder of a college, urged the gathering to “‘keep their hands in the hand of God and work for the betterment of the Negro people throughout the country,” according to the article.
