History of the African American Community of North Minneapolis >>>>> Part Two: Emergence of the North Minneapolis African American Community

History of the African American Community of North Minneapolis

Part Two:  Emergence of the North Minneapolis African American Community


Minneapolis became one of the minor destination points for those taking part in that phenomenon known as the “Great Migration,”  the movement of some 300,000 to 1,000,000 African Americans who left the South for better opportunities during the years encompassing World War I (1914-1918;  American participation, 1917-1918).  The war created economic demands and labor needs that slowed the flow of European immigrants and opened up unprecedented opportunities for African Americans in major cities.  Those opportunities were genuinely great in destinations such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh;  they proved to be much less so in Minneapolis.  Nevertheless, the city’s African American population increased from 2,592 to 3,927 between 1910 and 1920, a 51.5% increase as compared to just 7.3% for St. Paul (the African American population of which grew from 3,144 to just 3,376 during the same period).

From the 1880s forward the residential weight of African Americans in Minneapolis shifted across the river from St. Anthony into the rapidly growing commercial area that came to constitute downtown.  During the 1920s the weight shifted again, from the downtown area to the Seven Corners area, and to the Near North Side.  By 1930, these areas contained 2,100 (50.2%) of the city’s 4,176 African American residents.  Another concentration of African American population took shape in South Minneapolis along 4^th and 5^th Avenues between East 35^th and 41^st streets.  Of these areas, the smaller Southside African American community contained more middle class families, people who ran their own small businesses or had attained professional certification of some sort.  The Northside also had a good number of lower middle class African American families, and most all families had middle class aspirations;  but many families kept their dignity and tried to forge a better life from initially impoverished conditions.  Some family heads found work on the railroads or in meatpacking plants, but most unions were closed to African American participation;  accordingly, those African Americans who found employment generally became nonunionized redcaps, porters, janitors, waiters, cooks, maids, and barbers.

The African American community of North Minneapolis was from the 1920s through the 1940s concentrated between Plymouth and Glenwood Avenues.  The area around Glenwood Avenue held a significant number of Finnish families, while the area around 6^th Avenue (today’s Olson Highway) contained families bearing a considerable mix of ethnicities:  German, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian and, especially, Jewish.  In time, the earlier arrived German Jewish families tended to move their own residences westward toward Penn Avenue  and northwestward toward Plymouth Avenue, while still maintaining property and serving as landlords to the less economically successful Jews who had been in the community for many years, the more recently arrived Russian Jews, and other ethnic groups on the Northside.  The major area of African American residence on the Northside was just north of 6^th Avenue, on streets branching eastward and westward from Lyndale Avenue North.

 
Sixth Avenue looms large in the consciousness of those African Americans old enough to remember “The Avenue” in its heyday.  The first African American-owned store to open on the Avenue was “Miller’s Plantorium,” which featured a drycleaning operation and a haberdashery.  Soon the first African American-owned grocery store on 6^th Avenue was opened by William Allen and his son Albert.  Starting three-fourths of a block east of Lyndale Avenue, businesses owned by African Americans, Germans, Jews, and a smattering of other ethnicities stretched westward for seven blocks along 6^th Avenue.  There were twelve restaurants and delicatessans:  Morman’s Barbecue, Monarch Barbecue, Shell’s Barbecue, Price and Smedler Fried Chicken, Tanner’s Chile Parlor, Barney’s Lunch Counter, Brochin’s Kosher Meat and Sandwiches, Graham’s Hot Barbecue Links, Foster’s Sweet Shop, Canton Chinese Restaurant, Law’s Seafood, and Malcoff’s Kosher Meat Sandwiches.  There were three pool halls:  Charley Banks, Oliver & Boyd, and Al Hector’s.  At the west end of this vital commercial area stood the Liberty Theater, where in the 1920s an adult could see a silent movie for 25 cents, children for a dime.  The theater had a stage on which an amateur show was held once a month.  Every week the Liberty would hold a raffle, with the winner coming away with a turkey and the runner-up getting a goose or a duck.

Sixth Avenue also featured a lively nightlife and became a gathering place for African Americans from all over St. Paul and Minneapolis.  There were four nightclubs in the 1920s:  the Kongo, the Delisa, the Blue Lantern, and the Sunset Club.  Nine bands and combos performed at these clubs and other Minneapolis venues.  These popular groups included the namesake groups of Grant Moore, Eli Rice, Rook Gangza, Ray Dyset, Leon Lewis, Clarence Johnson, the Pettifords, the Scottie Williams Combo, and Mr. Black’s Band.  Certain members of these groups also played at the Elks Hall on the third floor of the Kistler building at 6^th and Lyndale, where dances were given three nights a week and every holiday, virtually always filling to capacity.  As Clarence Miller, designer of a priceless map with commentary on the 1920s heyday of the Avenue writes, “In the summer months (before air conditioning), they would always raise the windows to cool and air out the place (deodorizers were not invented then, talcum powder was the thing) and if the wind was blowing towards downtown you could hear the wailing of the trumpets and trombones as you came across the 7^th Street Bridge.”

By the 1920s several predominately African American churches had been established on the Northside, including three that would have enduring significance:  Zion Missionary Baptist, Wayman’s African Methodist Episcopal, and Border Methodist;  the former two congregations remain active on the Northside, while the latter has merged with Hennepin Methodist in downtown Minneapolis.  During the 1920s and 1930s it was said that Sunday was not Sunday if one did not stroll down the avenue in the afternoon or in the evening.  At such times people walked four and five abreast on either side of 6^th Avenue from Lyndale to Bryant, thinning out somewhat by the time Emerson loomedSo 6^th Avenue was the home to places of African American business, worship, and social interaction. 


It was also home to an underworld, controlled at the top by Jewish mobsters such as Kid Cann (Isadore Blumenfeld), who offered gambling, prostitution, and booze (the latter of which was illegal during the Prohibition era, 1919-1933).  Ten or fifteen prostitutes generally walked the Avenue at night;  numerous after hour spots could be found where one could buy moonshine at all times of the night and a man or woman for an hour.  Reefer seeds and Bull Durham cigarettes were free inducements to this trade.  There were also numbers runners selling “policy,” an illegal form of lottery.  Given the high unemployment rate for African Americans, stemming from severe job discrimination, as many as 40% of adult wage earners either earned or supplemented their income from one or more of the illegal activities found on the Avenue.  Many of these people lived otherwise upstanding lives, attended church, lived amicably with their neighbors, and caused little or no trouble.  They found acceptance among those who held strictly to legal professions, because there was an understanding that in a city where discrimination was rife, one did what one had to do to feed, clothe, and house one’s family.