Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC: Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life by Paula C. Austin

Author:Paula C. Austin [Austin, Paula C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Discrimination, History, 19th Century, United States
ISBN: 9781479870684
Google: MkiODwAAQBAJ
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2019-12-10T17:41:42.889008+00:00

A large number of the lower class are idle and spend their time hanging about pool rooms, beer joints, and dives. Because of loose family ties and the number of unattached men and women in this class, sexual indulgence plays an important role in recreation. This is true of the youngsters as well as the adults since many come from broken homes and are without parental supervision.27

But many of the young people interviewed discussed participation in both sanctioned recreational activities and organizations, and participation in or adjacency to, or both, what Frazier called a “gang.” Often, this dual affiliation was acknowledged and even approved of by parents as a necessary outlet given the living conditions and the constraints of racial segregation that most poor black families endured.28 Frazier concluded the section above with an indictment of a particular youth group, saying “in a slum area of Washington, there was a club of young men which required a man be a ‘pimp’ in order to gain membership.” The “club” to which Frazier was referring was a Southwest association, the Society Gents Club.

In the summer of 1938, the Society’s Gents Club was led by Joseph Ward Jr. (seventeen), who was introduced in the previous section, and Hoyt Scott (sixteen) who were “president and vice president,” respectively, of what Hoyt called a “small bunch of boys.”29 Ward lived at Third Street near the corner of E in Southwest, around the corner from the Southwest Community House. Unlike Hoyt’s father, who worked as a construction “laborer,” Joseph’s father was a “messenger” with the Treasury Department and they owned the home in which they lived. Hoyt and Joseph were neighbors in Southwest, both categorized by Frazier as “lower class boys,” despite the Wards’ homeownership.30 According to Hoyt, he and Joseph, along with five other young people, including sixteen-year-old Norris Klinkscale, who as we know from James Gray’s interview was involved in other youth groups, had all “known [each other] nearly all [their lives],” and, in contrast to Frazier’s portrayal, had formed the group “primarily for social purposes.” That June, they had sponsored “a dance at the Community Center,” which had been “far from a financial success.” “Southwest girls and boys don’t appreciate a nice dance,” said Hoyt, who was a native Washingtonian, as were his parents. The club had charged “20 cents apiece or 35cents a couple,” and Hoyt believed that the community had been “spoiled” by “5 cent dances.” Thus, he lamented that “the crowd was small.” Still, though, Hoyt was pleased they had “kept the dance as nice as [they had] planned” despite the low turnout.31

The members of the Society Gents Club ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen, paid dues and met regularly, and “even dress[ed] very much alike.” They also “had an athletic program.” In the last season, Hoyt recalled, they had “played the Police Boys Club in basketball and lost to them 28–13.” They had won some of the games, but generally had had “a miserable showing.” Hoyt could not

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