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BARBARA BURSTIN and LAURENCE GLASCO recall the harmony of black and Jewish communities in the Hill District
Revisiting the history and harmony of black and Jewish communities in the Hill District.
In his new film “Jewish Memories of Pittsburgh’s Hill District,” Ken Love draws from the recollections of various Jews and the memories of the late Frank Bolden, a longtime reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier, to paint a picture of congeniality and togetherness of blacks and Jews on the Hill.
Was that the way it was? Given the corrosive atmosphere and divisive rhetoric today, it is hard to imagine such warm relations. And yet, that was the way it was in the early decades of the 20th century. The movement of Eastern European Jews to America beginning in the 1880s and the great migration of Southern blacks to the North beginning in 1917 meant that both groups often wound up living in the same neighborhood — in Pittsburgh’s case, this meant living on the Hill, close to Downtown and the railroad station.
Each group came to escape persecution and poverty. Blacks were fleeing from the South’s Jim Crow laws, lynchings and sharecropping system; Jews were similarly running from poverty, all manner of restrictions and the terrifying cycle of pogroms. America, particularly the North, was the land of better opportunities, if not for the migrants, at least for their children.
Even before the great migration, with the small African American community on the Hill called Hayti, there were exchanges, each group learning from the other. According to Bolden, “When Jews first came over, they ate a lot of starchy foods like bread. We showed them how to cook navy beans to make them last a whole week; we showed them which condiments and meats to use to help preserve stew. Jewish bakeries picked up some Negro recipes as well. It was not uncommon to go to a kosher bakery and find strawberry, sweet potato and pumpkin pies.” In turn, Bolden said, “Jews taught us business. They showed us how to not take more than you can sell and how to base your retail price on consumption and gain public relations.”
One Jewish Hill resident who grew up in the 1920s lived across the street from several black families. “I remember I used to watch them sit out with their grandmother and make their own ice cream with the grandchildren. The kids would come and play on the street.” She remembered how she would walk with a young African American boy who had moved in across the street. When her family moved to the East End, she remembered how her mother hated it, that “she missed those black women a lot who would pass by and say good evening to my mother and they’d chat a bit.”
Dr. Raymond Goldblum, who grew up on the Hill, recalled that “it was always a rather cordial relationship while we were growing up. We were friendly and we’d walk home from school together.” His brother ran a general practice in the front room of their house on Bedford Avenue, and many of his patients were black. August Wilson was one of those patients, and he would later cite Goldblum in his plays.
Finding harmony
In Mr. Love’s film, various old timers mentioned the harmony between blacks and Jews living on the Hill together. They could recall few, if any, unseemly incidents. In fact, most remember how the groups pushed each other forward.
Dr. Paul Caplan talked about the black patients at Montefiore Hospital, which at that time was Jewishrun. Indeed it was the first hospital in the city to admit black nurses for training and it was the first hospital to have a black physician on staff.
Gordon’s Shoes was one of the first stores to employ blacks on the Hill.
Abe Sissman, the most famous Jewish photographer on the Hill, taught Charlie “Teenie” Harris how to color his photos.
And when boxer Joe Louis defeated the German Max Schmeling in 1938, Jews and blacks rejoiced together.
Jews and blacks intermingled socially in the nightclubs on the Hill. “It was the one place people could come to where it didn’t matter what race or nationality or religion you were,” said Bolden. Clubs in the Downtown area were too expensive, so the Hill created its own scene.
There was the Harlem Casino, which was among the first to employ vocalist Billy Eckstine. Another popular spot was the Loendi Club on Fulton Street, where, according to the late Hy Richman, patrons talked more about class disparities than race relations.
The clubs were often able to secure top-tier talent. According to Bolden, “When Duke Ellington, Tony Dorsey and Benny Goodman came to town and were all done playing for the rich people Downtown, they would all come up to the Hill. They jammed together in one club or another, and Jews and Blacks had fun together.”
Will Darling, another interview subject in Mr. Love’s film, discussed club fixture William “Big Brownie” Brown. “Nobody fooled with him,” said Darling. “He worked as a bouncer at all the clubs.” When Brown died, his pallbearers consisted of a group of Jews, including Will and Jacob
Darling, along with William“Woogie” Harris. Later, when the Martin Luther King riots hit the Hill, Oliver “Olie” Mason stood guard with a rifle in front of Darling’s Hill Pharmacy to prevent it from being burned down.
The story of August Wilson also captures some of the diversity and racial harmony of the Hill. When August’s mother, Daisy, came to Pittsburgh, the family resided on Logan Street, known as “Little Jew Town” due to its many Jewishowned groceries and sidewalk merchants.
Daisy later moved to Bedford, where August was born in 1945 in a neighborhood that was half African American while the other half was made up of Jews, Italians and Syrians. The immediate neighbors of the Wilsons were Lou and Bella Siger, a Jewish couple who ran Bella’s Market, a mom-andpop-grocery story. Bella happily let the Wilson girls, Freda and Linda Jean, work behind the counter of her market.
Working together
Blacks and Jews were often able to collaborate in the political world as well. For instance, in the 1930s, blacks backed David Olblum for city council. Just a few years later, Jews returned the support by backing Homer S. Brown, the first black politician in the state Legislature, as well as other black politicians like Paul Jones and K. Leroy Irvis. Many years later, Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff worked with city Councilman Jake Milliones to develop the Crawford Square housing development on the Hill. Blacks and Jews proved to be a powerful coalition.
These bonds went deep. During his first year of law school, Mr. Irvis, the first African American speaker of the Pennsylvania House, was hard-pressed for money. When fellow student Murray Love (no relation to Ken Love) drove him home on a cold winter afternoon, there were no lights on in his apartment even though his wife was home. The reason, Irvis admitted, was because they couldn’t pay the bill. Love told his father of his friend’s plight, his father called the Hebrew Free Loan Association and Irvis secured a loan for $200. Irvis paid the loan back with interest even though no interest had been charged.
Jewish community resources were often made available to black residents. While blacks could not become members of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement on the Hill, they could use its facilities, which in a segregated city was a big deal. The visiting nurse program of the IKS reached out to blacks in the neighborhood as well as to Jews. Frank Bolden insisted that if it weren’t for the IKS, the black community would have been wiped out by a tuberculosis epidemic.
But there were other interactions as well. Young black boys and girls participated at the Settlement House’s various activities including sports. There was an interracial drama group known as “The Curtaineers.” There were also dancing, sewing, art and music classes. Patricia Prattis Jennings, who would go on to become the first black to play with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, took piano lessons with Anna B. Perlow at the IKS. Bolden also remembered that in the 1940s, black and Jewish women would gather at the IKS to knit pillow cases and blankets for the Passavant Hospital, the first Protestant hospital in the U.S.
Diverging paths
But the complexion of the Hill was changing. By the 1950s, the majority of the Jews had departed for other city neighborhoods, such as Squirrel Hill. The IKS building on Centre Avenue was leased to the newly incorporated Anna B. Heldman Community Center for only $1 a year in 1956.
All this is not to say that there weren’t occasional difficulties in the relationship between blacks and Jews. Each group was not immune to prevailing prejudices and stereotypes about each other. But blacks and Jews lived together in friendship and mutual support.
As virulent ideologies rear their ugly head yet again, with violence and the threat of violence taking hold here in Pittsburgh, that historic partnership should be revitalized. Pittsburgh showed the way in the past, and it could and should show the way again. Barbara Burstin (burstin@pitt.edu) and Laurence Glasco (lag1@pitt.edu) teach history at the University of Pittsburgh, including a course titled “Blacks and Jews in American History.” Ms. Burstin is the author of “Sophie, the Incomparable Mayor, Masloff,” a biography of Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff. Mr. Glasco is the author of a forthcoming book on August Wilson. Ken Love’s film “Jewish Memories of Pittsburgh’s Hill District” will have its world premiere on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the Regent Square Theater at 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.threeriversfestival.com/films.