Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York

by Mary White Ovington

After the Dahomey episode the success of the two men was continuous. "In 1902 and 1903," Walker said, "we had all New York and London doing the cake walk." In February, 1908, they appeared in "Bandanna Land," at the Majestic Theatre, and remained there for six months. Only those colored men who have made a steady, uphill struggle for the chance to play good comedy, know how important such recognition was for the Negro. "Bandanna Land" was probably the most popular light opera in New York that winter next to "The Merry Widow." The singing, especially that of the male chorus, was often beautiful. Mrs. Walker's dancing and charming acting were delightful, the chorus girls were above the average in beauty and musical expression, and the two men who made the piece were spontaneously, irresistibly funny; added to this, unlike its successful rival, "Bandanna Land" was without a vulgar scene or word.

This was the last time the two men played together. Walker became seriously ill, and died in January, 1911. After their company disbanded, Williams went back to the one-piece act of vaudeville, but as a star in a white troupe. His position as a permanent actor in the "Follies of 1910" marks a new departure for the colored comedian, a departure won by great talent combined with character and tact.

Since 1908 the Majestic has seen another colored company, Cole and Johnson's, presenting a half-Negro, half-Indian, musical comedy, the "Red Moon." These two men, for years in vaudeville, have written songs for Lillian Russell, Marie Cahill, Anna Held, and other popular musical comedy and vaudeville singers. They have played for six months continuously at the Palace Theatre, London. Accustomed to writing for white actors, their own plays are not so distinctively African as Williams and Walker's. Both Johnson and Cole are of the mulatto type, and neither blackens his face. Cole is one of the most amusing men in comedy in New York. He is tall and very thin, with a genius for finding lank and grotesque costumes that are delightfully incongruous with his grave face. The words of the musical comedies are his, the music, Johnson's. He, too, has become seriously ill, and his company has disbanded. In three years the colored stage has suffered serious loss, but we see forming new and successful companies whose reputation will soon be assured.

Comedy has always furnished a medium for criticism of the foibles of the times, and there are many sly digs at the white man in the colored play. Ernest Hogan, now deceased, better than any one else played the rural southern darky. In the "Oysterman" we saw him in contact with a white scamp who was intent upon getting his recently acquired money. He was urged to take stock in a land company, to buy where watermelons grew as thick as potatoes, and chickens were as common as sparrows. The audience hated the white man heartily and sided with the simple, kindly, black youth, sitting with his dog at his side, on his cabin steps. Behind boisterous laughter and raillery the writers of these comedies often gain the sympathy of their hearers for the black race.

In this attempt to show the occupational life of the Negro, we have found that race prejudice often proves a bar to complete success, to full manhood. Something of this is true with the actor as well as with the laborer and the business man. In securing entrance in vaudeville, color is at first an advantage. The "darky" to the white man is grotesquely amusing, and by rolling his eyes, showing a glistening smile, and wearing shoes that make a monstrosity of his feet, the Negro may create a laugh where the man with a white skin would be hooted off the stage. And since the laugh is so easily won, many colored actors become indolent and content themselves, year after year, with playing the part of buffoon. But with the ambition to rise in his profession comes the difficult struggle to induce the audience to see a new Negro in the black man of today. The public gives the colored man no opportunity as a tragedian, demanding that his comedy shall border always on the farcical. And what is demanded of the actor is also demanded of the musician. Writers of the scores of some of our musical comedies are musicians of superior training and ability, but rarely are they permitted full expression. Mr. Will Marion Cook, the composer of much of the music of "Bandanna Land," for a few moments gives a piece of exquisite orchestration. When the colored minister rises and exhorts his quarrelling friends to be at peace with one another, one hears a beautiful harmony. I am told that Mr. Cook declares that the next score he writes shall begin with ten minutes of serious music. If the audience doesn't like it, they can come in late, but for ten minutes he will do something worthy of his genius.

However light-hearted a people, and however worthy of praise the entertainment that brings a jolly, wholesome laugh, let us hope that in the near future the Negro will find a more complete expression for his musical and histrionic gifts. Some actor of commanding talent, whose claims cannot be ignored, may reveal the larger life of the race. The nineteenth century knew a great Negro actor, Ira Aldridge, a protégé and disciple of Edmund Kean. He played Othello to Kean's Iago, and in the forties toured Europe with his own company, receiving high honors in Berlin and St. Petersburg.[7] A dark-skinned African, of immense power, physically and emotionally, he made Desdemona cry out in real fear, and caused Bassanio instinctively to shrink as he demanded his pound of flesh. Today's actor must be more subtle in his attack, but it may be given to him to reveal the thoughts at the back of the black man's mind. The genius of Zangwill gave us the picture of the children of the Ghetto; perhaps from the theatre's seat the American will first understand the despised black race.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] On West 133d Street two former Hampton students have a prosperous little tailor and upholstering shop.

[2] Those interested in the Negro in business should look for an intensive study, shortly to be published, on the wage-earners and business enterprises among Negroes in New York. It is entitled "The Negro at Work in New York City," and has been made by George E. Haynes, under the direction of the Bureau of Social Research of the New York School of Philanthropy.

[3] Since going to press the new and very beautiful building of St. Philips' Episcopal Church, on W. 134th Street, has been opened. This is a fine example of English Gothic and its architects are two young colored men, one of whom was for years in the office of a white firm.