"Lid" a Joke as Pekin Shimmies Defiance of Law
LIQUOR, SIRENS, JAZZ, RACE RAINBOW RIOT IN CAFÉ
"Lawless liquor," sensuous "shimmy," solicitous sirens, wrangling waiters, all the tints of the racial rainbow, black and tan and white, dancing, drinking, singing, early Sunday morning at the Pekin café, 2700 South State Street....
"BLACK AND TAN AND WHITE"
The crowd began to arrive. In came a mighty black man with two white girls. A scarred white man entered with three girls, two young and painted, the other merely painted.
Two well dressed youths hopped up the stairs with two timid girls. Seven young men—they looked like back o' the Yards—came with two women, one heavy footed, the other laughing hysterically.
Two fur-coated "high yaller" girls romped up with a slender white man. An attorney gazed happily on the party through horn rimmed glasses. The waiters called, shouted, whistled when each party arrived—a full table meant big tips.
At one o'clock the place was crowded. Meanwhile a syncopating colored man had been vamping cotton field blues on the piano. A brown girl sang.... All the tables were filled at two o'clock, black men with white girls, white men with yellow girls, old, young, all filled with the abandon brought about by illicit whisky and liquor music.... The Pekin is again the Pekin of years ago. Only more so.
The reply of a Negro newspaper to the series of articles in the white press on these resorts expresses the reactions of Negroes to this view:
Black and Tans and Race Riots