The National Managers’ Protective Association is an organization to encourage the progress and promote the welfare of all connected with the Negro stage. Three of its chief duties are; first, to see that Negro players be encouraged in every way to entersperse their acts with clean, worth while offerings in songs and new material; secondly, to agree to such arrangements that the booking exchange, will give acts contracts that will be played as given, eliminating lay-offs, with shortest possible jumps, and salary in keeping, and thirdly, to arbitrate all complaints of managers, actors or agents, and see that a just settlement is given the parties, each case to be decided upon its merits. The officers of this organ are as follows: President C. H. Turpin, of the Booker T. Washington Theatre, St. Louis, Mo., Vice-President, E. B. Dudley, of the Dudley Theatre, Detroit, Mich., and Secretary-Treasurer, T. S. Finley of the Lyceum Theatre, Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Theatre Owners’ Booking Association by its own name implies what its chief duties are, and it is only necessary to say that the rapidly increasing numbers of theatre managers who are joining this association in order to be assured of regular and best plays being booked for their houses, vividly shows the necessity and value of such an organ. Its President is Milton Starr, Nashville, Tenn., Vice-President, C. H. Turpin, St. Louis, Mo., Secretary, W. S. Scales, Winston-Salem, N. C., and Treasurer-Manager, S. E. Reevin, Chattanooga, Tenn.
A most recent organization along these lines is known as The Actors’ Legion with headquarters at Cincinnati, Ohio. Its membership is to be composed of actors and actresses.., and one of its chief duties is to see that matters of importance to performers will be speedily and properly adjusted. The writer was not able to get a list of the names belonging to the officers of this body.
Tony Langston, born in Detroit, Michigan, (fortunately several years after Noah’s Flood and a few years before Volstead’s Drought) and today living in Chicago never very far from nor out of sight of “Dear Old State Street”, is without question the most popular Colored theatrical writer not only in America but throughout the world. He writes the widest variety of subjects of any present-day penman in that line and is read by more than one million people each and every week. Nine years ago he entered the establishment of the Chicago Defender by way of its back door and on a salary less than the devil (printer’s) himself receives. To-day, he (Tony, not the devil) walks in and out the front doors of this firm as the highest paid writer in the history of Colored journalism.
When he first took hold of the dramatic sheet of this paper and held it up before the sun (son—excuse the pun), he could see just about as much matter on it as is seen in the hole (whole) of a doughnut. Since then he has been constantly thumping and pounding on Colored theatrical Boards with such hard and well-aimed blows (not with hammers and nails, but with ability, hard work, tact, cheerfulness, sympathy, friendliness and a “Million Dollar Smile”) that to-day the dramatic construction of the Chicago Defender averages over thirty thousand dollars yearly in advertising.
Aside from being Advertising Manager of the above mentioned journal, which is popularly known as the “World’s Greatest Weekly”, this all-round journalist, who is fondly called the “Old Roll Top Desk Man,” holds similar positions in connection with the Avenue, Grand, States, Phoenix, Lincoln, Atlas, Monogram, Owl and Pickford Theatres. He is also President of the Langston Slide and Advertising Company.
“REAL WHITE” FRIENDS
Hopefulness and Gratefulness.
Through all his trials upon this land,
Some white folks take the Negro’s stand;
And this has kept his hopes alive
For higher things to ever strive
So as to show his worth and thanks
To those who share their brains and banks.
—Harrison.
FROM the year 1619 when Negroes were first brought from Africa to the American Colonies, Colored people had from the very first a few of the truest kind of friends among a certain class of broad-minded, clean hearted and Christian white people. This group of people never was in favor of slavery but they could not stop it because their numbers were so much smaller than those who wanted and did have slaves. But white friends of those shackled human beings rapidly increased in numbers until 1861 when they felt that at last they were not only evenly matched but also had the sentiment of the rest of the world with them against the Southern white enemies of the Negro in freedom. Even during the darkest days of slavery there were white men and women in both the North and South, who after having slaves given to them by their parents, became so heavy of heart and worried in mind because of their parts in such soul damming sins and crimes that they would not longer keep their Colored people as slaves but set them free. Then again on account of some valuable deeds or services they had performed, many slaves were made free outright or were allowed to work their freedom out on easy terms. Some owners, while they were not quite Christianized or civilized enough to free their slaves, were in several ways quite kind to them and sometimes secretly (for the laws of the land forbid owners educating their slaves) taught them to read and write in somewhat the same amusing and pitying manner that tender-hearted boys and girls of today are kind to their pet birds and rabbits and teach them several smart tricks but yet will not open the cage doors and turn them loose.
Thus in the above ways there were during the whole period of slavery in the colonies a certain number of Negroes who had secured their freedom as well as good educations in many instances. This explains how it is possible for the writer to truthfully mention within these pages historical facts relative to certain Colored people becoming noted teachers, preachers, doctors, newspaper editors, etc., long before the Civil War and the freedom of all Negroes in America.