I am obsessed with looking at old newspapers to see what they reported. As a historical romance author, I love learning and taking a trip back in time. The Baltimore Afro-American is one of my favorite newspapers and always has interesting headlines and articles. Like our news sources of today, many of the stories are of tragedy and trauma with lots of racism and misogyny. However, there are also stories of hope, silliness and social life. Listed below are some of the more interesting things I found in the April 9, 1938 version of the black newspaper.
On the first page, it's all about a boxing event that happened in Chicago. The Heavyweight Joe Louis beat Harry (Swing Man) Thomas in the fifth round. It looks like Joe Louis took home $16,659 dollars for wining and Harry Thomas took home $5,206! Right next to the fight article is a short blurb about how forty members of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority got sick because they ate shrimp salad at at party!!
This is a closer look at the article about the fight, the Deltas who got ill and the new University president announced at Lincoln University! Shout out to Kansas City and Dr. Scruggs who was the supervisor of colored school in the KCK area.
The US Supreme Court made it legal to picket stores that refuse to hire colored workers.
This was so sad when I read this. An eleven year old girl gave birth to her 27 year olf husbands baby. She told the marriage license people that she was sixteen years old when she got married. I'm so curious how all of this happened. Was her mother okay with her getting married or did she sneak off to do it? How old was her mother, especially on the day she got married? I wonder what came of the woman and how the eleven year old fared with a new baby.
Finally, there was an article detailing the black persons who worked on the New York City Police Force. The headline says there were 119 policement, but the first line of the article says the NYPD had 128 colored persons, including 5 women! The highest paid colored person was an inspector who made a salary of $4,400 a year!! They had motorcycles and rode horses, and if I was to ever read a law enforcement romance novel, these are the people I want to read about. I find the pictures so interesting and some of the officers look more white than black. I wonder if it's because of the picture or if they had to use the photos they had. I could spend hours learning more.
Anyhow, I hope you've enjoyed this back in time with me! Until next time,
Marissa
Comments