{"id":1685,"date":"2019-08-01T09:02:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1685"},"modified":"2019-08-01T09:02:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:02:01","slug":"dorothy-west-amateur-night-in-harlem-1938","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/23-the-great-depression\/dorothy-west-amateur-night-in-harlem-1938\/","title":{"rendered":"Dorothy West, \u201cAmateur Night in Harlem\u201d (1938)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amateur night at the Apollo Theater attracted\nnot only Harlem\u2019s African American population but a national radio audience. In\nthis account, written through the New Deal\u2019s Federal Writers\u2019 Project, Dorothy\nWest describes an amateur night at the theater in November 1938 and reflects on\nthe relationship between entertainment, race, and American life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 The crowd has come early, for it is amateur night.\nThe Apollo Theater is full to overflowing. Amateur night is an institution.\nEvery Wednesday, from eleven until midnight, the hopeful aspirants come to the\nmike, lift up their voices and sing, and retire to the wings for the roll call,\nwhen a fluttering piece of paper dangled above their heads comes to\nrest–determined by the volume of applause–to indicate to whom the prizes\nshall go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boxes are filled with sightseeing whites led in\ntow by swaggering blacks. The floor is chocolate liberally sprinkled with white\nsauce. But the balconies belong to the hardworking, holidaying Negroes, and the\njitterbug whites are intruders, and their surface excitement is silly compared\nto the earthy enjoyment of the Negroes. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Negro show would rather have the plaudits of an\nApollo audience than any other applause. For the Apollo is the hard, testing\nground of Negro show business, and approval there can make or break an act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is eleven now. The house lights go up. The audience\nis restless and expectant. Somebody has brought a whistle that sounds like a\nwailing baby. The cry fills the theater and everybody laughs. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emcee comes out of the wings. The audience knows\nhim. He is Negro to his toes, but even Hitler would classify him as Aryan at\nfirst glance. He begins a steady patter of jive. When the audience is ready and\nmellow, he calls the first amateur out of the wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 Willie sings \u201cI surrender Dear\u201d in a pure Georgia\naccent. \u201cI can\u2019 mak\u2019 mah way,\u201d he moans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience hears him out and claps kindly. \u2026 Vanessa\nappears. She is black and the powder makes her look purple. \u2026 Vanessa is an\nold-time \u201ccoon-shouter.\u201d She wails and moans deep blue notes. The audience give\nher their highest form of approval. They clap their hands in time with the\nmusic. She finishes to tumultuous applause \u2026 Ida comes out in a summer print to\nsing that beautiful lyric, \u201cI Let a Song Go Out of My Heart,\u201d in a nasal, off-key\nwhine. \u2026 Coretta steps to the mike. Her first note is so awful that the emcee\ngoes to the Tree of Hope and touches it for her. The audience lets her sing the\nfirst bar, then bursts into catcalls and derisive whistling. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A white man comes out of the wings, but nobody minds.\nThey have got accustomed to occasional white performers at the Apollo. There\nwas a dancing act in the regular stage show which received deserved applause.\nThe emcee announces the song, \u201cThat\u2019s Why \u2014\u2014\u201d he omits the next word \u201cWere Born.\u201d\nHe is a Negro emcee. He will not use the word \u201cdarky\u201d in announcing a song a\nwhite man is to sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The white man begins to sing, \u201cSomeone had to plough\nthe cotton, Someone had to plant the corn, Someone had to work while the white\nfolks played, That\u2019s why darkies were born.\u201d The Negroes hiss and boo. Instantly\nthe audience is partisan. The whites applaud vigorously. But the greater volume\nof hisses and boos drown out the applause. The singer halts. The emcee steps to\nthe house mike and raises his hand for quiet. He does not know what to say, and\nsays ineffectually that the song was written to be sung and urges that the singer\nbe allowed to continue. The man begins again, and on the instant is booed down.\nThe emcee does not know what to do. \u2026 The studio officials, the listening\naudience, largely white, has heard a Negro audience booing a white man. It is\nobvious that in his confusion the emcee has forgotten what the song connotes.\nThe Negroes are not booing the white man as such. They are booing him for his categorization\nof them. The song is not new. A few seasons ago they listened to it in silent resentment.\nNow they have learned to vocalize their bitterness. They cannot bear that a white\nman, as poor as themselves, should so separate himself from their common fate\nand sing paternally for a price of their predestined lot to serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the third time the man begins, and now all the fun\nthat has gone before is forgotten. There is resentment in every heart. The\nwhite man will not save the situation by leaving the stage, and the emcee steps\nagain to the house mike with an impassioned plea. The Negroes know this emcee.\nHe is as white as any white man. Now it is ironic that he should be so fair,\nfor the difference between him and the amateur is too undefined. The emcee spreads\nout his arms and begins, \u201cMy people \u2014\u2014.\u201d He says without explanation that \u201chis\npeople\u201d should be proud of the song. He begs \u201chis people\u201d to let the song be\nsung to show that they are ladies and gentlemen. He winds up with a last appeal\nto \u201chis people\u201d for fair-play. He looks for all the world like the plantation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

owner\u2019s yellow boy acting as buffer between the black\nand the big house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole house breaks into applause, and this time\nthe scattered hisses are drowned out. The amateur begins and ends in triumph.\nHe is the last contestant, and in the lineup immediately following, he is\noverwhelmingly voted first prize. More of the black man\u2019s blood money goes out\nof Harlem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show is over. The orchestra strikes up, \u201cI think\nyou\u2019re wonderful, I think you\u2019re grand.\u201d The audience files out. They are quiet\nand confused and sad. It is twelve on the dot. Six hours of sleep and then back\nto the Bronx or up and down an elevator shaft. Yessir, Mr. White Man, I work\nall day while you-all play. It\u2019s only fair. That\u2019s why darkies were born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source:\nDorothy West, \u201cAmateur Night in\nHarlem,\u201d Federal Writers\u2019 Project,\n1938. Available via the Library of Congress (https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/wpalh001719\/).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amateur night at the Apollo Theater attracted not only Harlem\u2019s African American population but a national radio audience. In this account, written through the New Deal\u2019s Federal Writers\u2019 Project, Dorothy West describes an amateur night at the theater in November 1938 and reflects on the relationship between entertainment, race, and American life. \u2026 The crowd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":814,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1685","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1685\/revisions\/1686"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}