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This is part of the Harvest Moon Ball essay series. To see all the Harvest Moon Ball essays, please visit Swungover’s HMB page.
Integration & Dancing
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation was unconstitutional in public schools. From the south across the mid-west, the nation was about to get a little closer to equality. Though the New York-based NAACP and their famous Harlem-resident lawyer Thurgood Marshall were behind the case, and proud of their victory, Marshall knew there was no such thing as a complete win. He felt the court’s order that school integration take place at, “all due deliberate speed,” meant, “as slowly as possible.”
While America’s schools were integrating, however, Harlem seemed to be segregating itself. We need to explore why.
On April 13th, the following picture of Ethel Waters dancing with Leon James appeared in the Daily News:
The article was called “Harlem Has Come A Long Way From Its Flaming Youth.” Here is story’s opening paragraph, which will give you the gist of the rest:
If you want to read the rest, you can find page 1 HERE and the page 2 HERE.
In our 1946 HMB article (still in production) we will discuss how the post war years brought about another stage of decline in tourism and nightlife to the neighborhood (which was already declining from the clubs moving downtown, as discussed in our 1938 essay). By 1949, the Black American New York Age declared, “nobody comes to Harlem anymore.”
Hopefully after all we have discussed in these essays, readers will spot immediately the story above hardly makes room for the nuanced reality. Suffice it to say, the Harlems of the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression were full of plenty of respectable people doing respectable things, with many Black Americans thriving despite the high rents, bad living conditions, and police brutality all thanks to systematic American discrimination and society-wide racism.
However, the article’s existence itself does seem to reflect some important changes that had been happening in Harlem during the last decade.
First off, the underlying and most important problem was that, for the last four decades, fundamentally nothing had changed — by which we mean, red-lining and other discriminatory and exploitive real estate practices still kept the buildings decaying and the rents high, Harlem schools and hospitals were still underfunded (Harlem Hospital was called “The Morgue” by locals), Black folks were still kept out of manager-level positions and higher in businesses, and the police still ran rampant with brutality and corruption. That had a growing, cumulative effect on the neighborhood over the now 50 years since the turn of the century, and would continue to impact the neighborhood heavily throughout its history up to today.
After World War II, though, new fuel was added to the fire.
A high-density neighborhood with great unemployment and little upward mobility was the perfect place for a heroin epidemic, which swept across Harlem as the popular new drug. Addicts could get relief from the harsh reality of their lives and dealers could make the money they were not allowed to make fairly. The problems, of course, were many. Aside from heroin ruining the lives of the addicts and the souls of the dealers, many of the addicts committed crimes to pay for their habits, and many of the dealers committed crimes as part of the chess game of drug dealing. Crime ran rampant in post-war Harlem.
(It’s important to note heroin also floodedthe jazz community. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker were just a few of the many users, and Charlie’s heavy use especially inspired many younger musicians, searching for the keys to unlock cool, to become addicted. Generations of jazz were affected, and many lives, like Charlie’s, cut short.)
When confronted with the choice of their local neighborhood gang or the scholar’s life, Harlem youth weren’t given many good reasons to stay in school. For decades, teachers in other parts of Manhattan had been reassigned to Harlem as punishment for underperforming, and the city had been illegally basing school boundaries on race. When Harlemites sued the city for this, and won, they were awarded the ability to transfer their children to different schools. What was wonderful for individual families made things worse for the neighborhood schools, as the many transfers that resulted lead to an even greater imbalance in school quality. (By the way, this happened in 1958, four years after Brown vs Board of Education.)
The crumbling houses and tenements of Harlem continued to get worse, and they weren’t helped by the well-intentioned but badly-executed housing projects that went up around Harlem during this time. The problems were many. A glaring one was that the projects, meant to alleviate the overcrowded neighborhood, only had housing for 2/3 the amount of people they displaced. Furthermore these “projects,” as they were called, took the place of many a stoop, backyard, garden, and playground, the very heart of Harlem community life and culture. Unfortunately for us lovers of Harlem jazz and nightlife history, the huge buildings also took the place of other treasures: the Cotton Club, and, in the next few years, the Savoy Ballroom. One can sympathize with a saying of the time: “Urban renewal means Negro removal.”
Many Black folks living in Harlem, though, were already leaving. New subway lines and suburban trains made it possible for Harlemites to escape the high rents, dangerous streets, and struggling schools. From 1947 to 1952, Harlem lost almost a third of its Black residents, many of which were civil servants, teachers, and nurses, adding greatly to Harlem’s problems. And they weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the now easily-accessible affordable housing in the surrounding boroughs and New Jersey.
By 1955, iconic Harlemites Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Joe Louis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Malcolm X had all moved to Queens. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis, the Upper West Side. Even Duke Ellington had move out. Frankie Manning, the gigs for his Congaroos performance group drying up, would join them in a few years.
The famous photograph of musicians in Harlem, titled “A great day in Harlem,” from 1958, was more of a reunion than a picture of locals:
But, again, its important that we don’t paint Harlem with only one color, one brush. Even during these struggles, Harlem was thriving in other ways.
As you can imagine, Harlem’s increasing “decline” really ramped up the city’s — and thus the nation’s — Civil Rights movement, with two strong Harlem leaders, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Malcolm X, each advocating for different methods of bringing equality to Black Americans. Powell was a minister who became a congressperson, fighting for his ideals despite party lines while always prioritizing the Harlemites who asked for his help. In case that sounds like it’s too good to be true, Powell was voted for by 90% of Black Harlemites, who dubbed him “Mr. Civil Rights.” (Malcolm X, we discussed in our 1952 essay.) Both men would get the honor of having boulevards named after them in Harlem.
Meanwhile, Harlem’s City College and local basketball tournaments were changing the way the sport was played, showcasing a Black American presence that would come to dominate its history. In many ways, the modern NBA was born in Harlem at this time. Then, long before there was Serena and Venus Williams, there was Althea Gibson, a young Harlemite who learned tennis on courts and in clubs around the neighborhood. She would become the first Black American woman to win at Wimbledon, and the first Black American, period, to win a United States championship tournament.
And, of course, there was the Savoy Ballroom, where dancers like Sugar & George Sullivan, Ronnie Hayes, Lee Moates and others continued to dance the Lindy Hop and throw down at the Harvest Moon Ball, as we shall see.
Some famous Harlemites refused to leave. Langston Hughes, one of the great writers of the Harlem Renaissance, said he would rather live in a small room in Harlem than a mansion anywhere else. And he did just that.
Hughes was hoping for a new Harlem Renaissance to emerge. And surrounded by the exciting new BeBop, Latin Jazz, and Rhythm & Blues music, the acting of young stars like Eartha Kitt and Sydney Poitier coming from Harlem theaters, and the many painters, photographers, and other artists like photographer Gordon Parks continuing to keep Harlem on the map, perhaps one had.
Many of these artists would leave Harlem, too. But Harlem always had a strong bond among its children, and ex-Harlemites were a close-knit family. Rather than thinking the new Harlem Renaissance had abandoned Harlem, perhaps its more accurate to say that, artist by artist, it took Harlem to the world.
This story of 1950s Harlem at the beginning of the essay is basically a synopsis of a chapter of Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History by Jonathan Gill, a fantastic a guide to the hometown of Lindy Hop. A fascinating and thorough read.
Prelims
Savoy prelims were held Aug 27, 1954. There was no mention of the band in the articles we saw. They did, however, have several photos from the prelims:
Savoy finalists were Ruth “Sugar” Sullivan & George Sullivan, Grace Garcia & James Pugh, Ruth Hampton & Jerry Lawrence, Dale White & Ronald “Ronnie” Hayes, Charlotte Woodlyn & Willie James Posey, and Iva Tarver & Nick Mosley.
Finals
Here is our breakdown of the 1954 HMB newsreels:
HEAT A
Here a heat of non-Harlem dancers shows the style of dancing going on in the other neighborhoods in NYC. Already some of the dancing and fashion appears to be moving towards what people will equate to “Rock ‘n’ Roll” dancing. Note the difference between this style of dancing and that seen in the Harlem dancers below.
HEAT B
This is really cool. This news reel captures what appears to be the beginning of this heat, with Sugar & George (in front) taking off like sprinters at the gunshot. I can’t recall any newsreel having captured this before. (Probably the only way it got into the film was because it was part of their super sped-up film schtick they annoyingly do every year during this era. We slow these back down for clarity, but can’t be exact in getting the actual speed. We’re pretty close in this one, though. For a look inside the process: They most likely got the speed up results by literally cutting out frames. That might have been one frame for every two, three, four, etc. So we first try to speed up or slow down the film by obvious fractions like 50% or 33%. If it looks really close to the other tempos, there’s a good chance we got it right, is our thinking. Anyway, with human editors, human dancers, human-set tempos, and various imperfect machines involved in the process, don’t take any of this as super-precise.)
Here’s a very clear image of Sugar & George dancing at breakneck speed, proving how different the tempos were for the Harlem dancers and the non-Harlem dancers shown in the previous heat. (This is common throughout the HMB. The Harlem dancers asked the band to play faster, where they were used to dancing and training, and had a big edge on the competition.)
DANCE-OFFs
This year there was a dance-off for both 3 & 4th place, and for 1st & 2nd. The newsreel captured a little of both, it appears. Here is some of the dance-off for 3rd & 4th:
At about 27 minutes in this interview, George Sullivan discusses his years in the HMB. One of the things he mentions is Sal Esposito beating him at the HMB, and being surprised White people could beat a Black Harlem Lindy Hopper. “But I got him the next year,” George said in the interview.
Followers of this essay series will probably recognize Sal’s name, he has been in many a ball and several of the newsreels. Behind Lucky Kargo, he is the second most-often mentioned in interviews when the 3rd generation elders are asked about White dancers they respected. “
But, in his interview, we suspect George was referring to this dance-off here. Lou & Velia Salamone won this battle between the two couples. Like Esposito, and countless other NY youth, they were another pair of Italian American Jitterbuggers who loved the dance. (More on that in our upcoming 1946 HMB article.) The next year, as George mentioned in his interview, Sugar & George beat them. But that’s a story for next time.
Finally, here is some of the dance-off for 1st & 2nd, where we get a good look at our winners for the first time in the footage:
Jerry Lawrence can definitely be seen some in the Spirit Moves. We are still looking to see if Ruth might be in the footage as well. Their well-executed combination of classic flash moves that ended in them rolling across the floor was likely a big excitement for audience and judges alike.
That roll-off would later become a regular move for Mama Lu Parks dancers and HMB competitors Gloria Thompson & Waco Dean.
Winners
Ruth Hampton & Jerry Lawrence took 1st, Iva Tarver & Nick Mosley took 2nd, and Sugar & George Sullivan got 4th. As we mentioned, 3rd went to Velia & Lou Salamone.
Aftermath
In its coverage of New Year’s parties for 1954, the Daily News stopped by the Savoy, where it snagged this picture:
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Sources & Thanks
As mentioned, the story of 1950s Harlem at the beginning of the essay was basically a synopsis of a chapter of Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History by Jonathan Gill, a fantastic a guide to the hometown of Lindy Hop. A fascinating and thorough read.
- HUGE THANKS to Sugar Sullivan and Gloria Thompson, 1950s Savoy dancers who later worked extensively with Mama Lu Parks. We have been interviewing (and paying them) for their knowledge and feedback on this footage and the dancers involved in them.
- Also huge thanks to Sonny Allen, Savoy Lindy Hopper and Harvest Moon Ball winner we have also been interviewing. Most of the donations for this project go *directly* to them and other original dancers I’m interviewing.
- Huge thanks to Crystal Johnson, 1972 HMB winner and Mama Lu Parks dancer for the program listings.
- Huge thanks to Forrest Outman who provided some of the Harvest Moon Ball footage from this time period.
- Except where otherwise stated, all newspaper articles, pictures, and information on the details of the 1949 Harvest Moon Ball were taken from editions of the New York Daily News.
- Thanks so much to Robert Crease, Cynthia Millman, and The Frankie Manning Foundation for republishing the fantastic Robert Crease bios which are a great wealth to these articles specifically and the history of the dance in particular that have helped shape these essays.
- Whenever we refer to either “Norma’s Book” or “Frankie’s Book,” we are speaking of their memoirs: Swinging at the Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer by Norma Miller and Evette Jensen, and Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop by Frankie Manning and Cynthia Millman.
- All spelling and grammar problems are mine alone; one man army!
Swungover* 
