CHRISTOPHER G. WYE
Merchants of Tomorrow: The
Other Side of the "Don't
Spend Your Money Where You
Can't Work" Movement
For the most part the racial ideologies
expressed by black leaders
during the nineteen thirties can be
classified on a rough continuum
from the traditionally conservative and
accommodationist Urban
League, through the more activist and
protest-oriented NAACP, the
labor movement and the rise of
industrial unionism, and finally the
Socialist and Communist parties. One
significant ideological manifes-
tation, however, has not been
extensively discussed in terms of its
position in the spectrum of black
thought. This aspect of black
thought was reflected in a series of
urban-based campaigns whose
essential theme was summed up in the
catchy slogan, "Don't Spend
Your Money Where You Can't Work."1
These campaigns appeared largely in the
urban North where they
were confined to a handful of major
cities, including Boston, New
York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington,
D.C. Although they were
never brought together in a single
organizational framework, they
were similar in many respects from city
to city. They were frequently
Christopher G. Wye is Director, Office
of Program Analysis and Evaluation, Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Development.
1. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton,
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in
a Northern City, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), II: 733-34; Abram L. Harris, Tie
Negro as
Capitalist: A Study of Banking and
Business Among American Negroes (New
York,
1936), 180-84; Gunnar Myrdal, An
American Dilemma, 2 vols. (New York, 1944), I:
313-14; Roi Ottley, New World
A-Coming: Inside Black America (Reprint, New York,
1969), 113-22; Claude McKay, Harlem:
Negro Metropolis (Reprint, New York, 1968).
181-262; Roi Ottley and William J.
Weatherby, eds., The Negro in New York: An In-
formal Social History (New York. 1969), 282; Selection from Ralph J. Bunche,
"The
Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, and
Activities of Negro Betterment Organizations" (Un-
published memorandum prepared for the
Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the Negro in
America, 1940), in August Meier, Elliott
Rudwick, and Francis L. Broderick, eds.,
Black Protest Thought in the
Twentieth Century, 2nd ed., (New York,
1971), 122-32.
Merchants of Tomorrow 41 |
|
led and supported by young, bright middle-class blacks who were in the early stages of their careers. Their protest activities were char- acterized by the use of economic boycotts and picket lines by black consumers against ghetto-based businesses. Their goal was to force the employment of black workers in stores supported by black con- sumers.2 From one perspective the "Don't Spend Your Money Where You Can't Work" campaign can be seen as representing a more assertive mode of protest than that of either the Urban League or the NAACP. Its emphasis on economic issues-issues which both the NAACP and the Urban League were slow to address in these years-and the use of direct action tactics, tactics which both the NAACP and Urban League found objectionable, clearly reflected a new and more forceful response to black issues. From another perspective, however,
2. Ibid. |
42 OHIO HISTORY
the boycott campaign was an expression
of a black capitalist ethic
with accommodationist undertones.3
Some of the movement's leaders saw the
effort to obtain jobs as
only a first step toward the long-range
goal of training future black
businessmen. The idea was to get young
blacks into clerical positions
in ghetto-based stores so that they
could learn the trade, move up
the management ranks, and ultimately
either assume major leader-
ship positions in ghetto-based white
enterprises or establish inde-
pendent black ventures of their own. To
this extent, the ideology of
the movement had a distinctly
accommodationist element, an ele-
ment deeply rooted in the convervative self-help,
racial solidarity,
group pride cluster of values
articulated by Booker T. Washington
years earlier.
This is, of course, not to deny the
obvious, dramatic, and impor-
tant function of the movement as a
protest technique for widening
black employment opportunities.
Securing employment rather than
establishing businesses had to be an
immediate practical concern.
Nor is it to overlook the possibility
that the movement can be seen as
including strains of both
accommodationist and protest thought.
Clearly the accommodationist position,
as represented largely by the
Urban League, would not support direct
action techniques such as
the boycott and picket line. In fact,
few members of the period's
most widely supported protest
organization, the NAACP, would sup-
port such confrontational techniques,
at least not until the passage of
time had made such techniques more
acceptable. The ideology of
the campaign was, therefore, clearly
more aggressive than those rep-
resented by both the Urban League and
the NAACP. But in its long-
range goal-the establishment of an
access route for the development
of black businesses-the movement was as
old and conservative as
the self-help accommodation advocated
by Booker T. Washington in
the late-nineteenth century.
This aspect of the movement was
particularly well-developed in
Cleveland where the history of the
campaign offers an opportunity to
explore its extent and meaning in
considerable depth. The boycott
movement got off to a shaky start in
Cleveland. Throughout most of
the early thirties, at least six newly
formed organizations vied unsuc-
cessfully for leadership of the protest
campaign. For a brief period of
several months in early 1932, the
Economic Race Development Socie-
ty (ERDS), whose membership was drawn
almost entirely from the
3. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick have
noted this tension in the boycott cam-
paigns. See Meier and Broderick, Protest
Thought, 122.
Merchants of Tomorrow 43
ranks of Messiah Baptist Church, gained
considerable influence; but
the ERDS lost its momentum later in the
year when its leader suf-
fered a fatal stroke. It was not until
1935 that the Cleveland branch of
the movement emerged as a definite
organizational entity with a
single recognized leader. In that year
the Future Outlook League
(FOL), established by a thirty-two year
old shipping clerk named
John 0. Holly, began to assume a central
role.4
The League owed much of its success to
several factors. First of all,
Holly combined a charismatic presence
with considerable organiza-
tional ability. Unlike most of his
predecessors, who usually had ei-
ther one or the other quality, Holly
could both excite the passions of
the black masses and channel their
discontent into an effective pro-
test organization. Also important in
explaining the League's rise to
prominence was the remarkable
cohesiveness of its leadership core.
While similar campaigns in Chicago and
New York eventually fell
prey to factionalism and disintegrated
into a number of warring splin-
ter groups, the Cleveland movement
actually gained in stability
through to the early forties when the
availability of jobs in war in-
dustries sapped interest in its program.5
Nevertheless, the FOL probably would not
have progressed be-
yond the initial stage of obtaining a
few jobs in small neighborhood
stores without the strong support it
received from the Call and Post, a
militant black newspaper edited by
William O. Walker, which some-
what fortuitously was revived in 1934
following a period of decline.
Prior to the resurgence of the Call
and Post, earlier boycott cam-
paigns were handicapped by a lack of
publicity, since the Cleveland
black community was served by only one
black newspaper, Harry C.
Smith's Gazette, a conservative
journal which had essentially ig-
nored the movement. In Walker, Holly
found an ally who believed
strongly in the boycott
strategy-particularly its business applications
-and who, as a consequence, not only
opened up the columns of his
newspaper to the fledgling organization
but also frequently repre-
sented the League in negotiations with
white merchants, functioning
as a mediator when deliberations became
deadlocked.6
4. Cleveland Gazette, March 28,
1931; April 25, 1931; July 1, 1931; November 21,
1931; January 22, 1933; September 15, 1934;
Cleveland Call and Post, September 1,
1934.
5. Charles H. Loeb, The Future is
Yours: The History of the Future Outlook League,
1935-1946 (Cleveland, 1947), 15-18, 22-24; Cleveland Call and
Post, May 5, 1938; Ken-
neth Zinz, "The Future Outlook
League of Cleveland: A Negro Protest Organization"
(Unpublished M. A. thesis, Kent State
University, 1973), 1-3.
6. Loeb, Future is Yours, 33-34;
John O. Holly to William O. Walker, September 12,
44 OHIO HISTORY
Stability, the support of the Call
and Post, and able leadership
brought the League notable success in
its campaign for jobs. Al-
though the organization's claim that
between 1935 and 1939 it se-
cured 1,200 jobs is undoubtedly
inflated,7 it is almost certain that it
obtained at least 500 positions, since
this was the dues-paying mem-
bership of its Employee Association, a
unit consisting of all the people
who had been placed in jobs.8 The
FOL conducted a number of
successful campaigns to secure jobs for
blacks. Through these cam-
paigns the League obtained positions for
blacks as clerks in small gro-
ceries, pharmacies, hard good stores,
large five-and-ten-cent stores,
and food chains, beginning in 1935; as
ushers and ticket takers in
theatres in 1936; as drivers on milk
trucks in 1937; as bakers at the
National Biscuit Company in 1942; and as
clerks at the downtown
Ohio Bell Telephone Office in 1943.9
Yet, while the League was vigorous and
successful in its efforts to
widen employment opportunities, it
consistently declared that its pri-
mary purpose was to encourage the
development of black business.10
Its first objective, stated its
constitution, was "To establish, build
and preserve all legitimate community
businesses." The attempt to
"create employment for
Negroes" was listed second.11 This position
was affirmed several months after the
constitution was drawn up
when, in response to questions from
reporters, Holly insisted that one
of the League's goals was "to
defend Negro business from unfair
competition."12 After the FOL had
achieved its first victory-ob-
taining jobs from local
five-and-ten-cent-stores-Holly urged blacks
to "first patronize your own group
and second patronize the business
that will give you employment."13
As late as 1941, League Officials
urged blacks "if necessary, to go
out of their way to spend their
1935, Future Outlook League MSS, Western
Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland,
Ohio.
7. Cleveland Call and Post, April
8, 1939.
8. John O. Holly, Interview, May 16,
1972.
9. Zinz, "Future Outlook
League," 150-52; Loeb, Future is Yours, passim.
10. Other scholars and writers have
noted the implications of the "Don't Spend
Your Money Where You Can't Work"
movement for black business, although none of
them has systematically explored this
facet of the campaign. See Drake and Cayton,
Black Metropolis, II: 733-34; Harris, Negro as Capitalist, 177-82;
Ottley, New World,
119-20; McKay, Harlem, 210;
Ottley and Weatherby, Negro in New York, 282; John H.
Bracey, Jr., August Meier, and Elliott
Rudwick, eds., Black Nationalism in America
(New York, 1970), 371; and Bunche,
"Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, and Activities,"
124.
11. Loeb, Future is Yours, 23-24.
12. Cleveland Call and Post, May
4, 1935.
13. Ibid., November 29, 1935.
Merchants of Tomorrow 45
money first with the Negro if
possible."14 Moreover, ten years after
the FOL was formed, Charles H. Loeb,
the managing editor of the
Call and Post and a man who, like Walker, worked closely with
the League, wrote: "The years have
broadened this initial statement
of objectives ... but it should be noted
that the League's first
objective was to strengthen the
backbone of existing Negro
enterprises." 15
The League's business emphasis appears
to have been a natural ex-
tension of the philosophies and careers
of its leadership core, all of
whom evidenced a strong entrepreneurial
bent. Harvey J. Johnson,
the League's legal counsel and the only
member to have a college de-
gree, was born in Griffin, Georgia, in
1901. As a young man Johnson
revealed an enterprising nature, first
by establishing a bait business
which catered to white sport fishermen
and later by building up a
successful car-washing venture. After
putting himself through Knox-
ville College, Johnson came to
Cleveland in the mid-twenties. When
he joined the FOL in 1935, he had just
graduated from Western Re-
serve University Law School and was
struggling to build up a private
law practice.16
Julius C. Wright, the League's financial
secretary and frequent
negotiator in discussions with white
businessmen, was born in
Haynesville, Alabama, in 1900. As a
youngster he attended Tuskegee
Institute, where he acquired a strong
commitment to the economic
self-help philosophy of the school popularized
by its founder, Book-
er T. Washington. "Real
independence," wrote Wright on one occa-
sion, "entails the necessity for
financial independence which in turn
means that the race must own industries
as well as labor." He felt
that until blacks owned the means of
production, they could "never
make a secure place for themselves in
the American scheme of
life."17
The head of the important Employee
Association, Robert Warren,
was one of the League's most aggressive
promoters of black business.
Warren was born in Ocla, Florida,
probably sometime between 1900
and 1910. He came to Cleveland during
the World War I migration
when large numbers of southern blacks
came north in search of war-
related jobs. Just before joining the
League, Warren had been asso-
ciated with M. Milton Lewis, who also
became a member of the FOL
14. The Voice, March 15, 1941.
15. Loeb, Future is Yours, 23-24.
16. Zinz, "Future Outlook
League," 143; Harvey J. Johnson, Interview, March 29,
1972.
17. Zinz, "Future Outlook
League," 7, 29, 143.
46 OHIO HISTORY
leadership core, in a laundry concern,
the Douglass Laundry. Incor-
porated in early 1934 with capital of
5,000 dollars, the company em-
ployed fourteen persons before the year
was out. By 1935, however,
competition from white laundries
involving a white-instigated price
war forced the company out of business.18
Shelton Baines, who served on the
League's Executive Committee,
was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1908.
Baines completed high
school through the eleventh grade at
which time he and his father
left Memphis, traveling to Colorado,
Kansas, and New York before
eventually arriving in Cleveland in
1929. He worked with his father as
a painter and decorator for a short
time until the business dried up
with the onset of the Depression.
Baines felt that the only hope for
blacks was to support their own
economic development, "to build up
Negro business, to give Negroes a place
to train."19
Holly himself was born in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, in 1903. During
World War I his family migrated
northward to Roanoke, Virginia,
where young Holly completed his high
school education. In 1923 the
family moved to Detroit, where John O.
Holly, Sr., started a hauling
business while his son took a job
finishing gas tanks at the Packard
Motor Company. For the next two years
Holly traveled from one place
to another, finally coming to Cleveland
in 1927. After a brief stint as a
porter at a downtown department store,
he secured a job as a ship-
ping clerk at the Federal Sanitation
Company. In 1933, finding him-
self with a wife and two small children
to support and feeling that his
career was at a standstill, Holly began
to attend lectures, join civic or-
ganizations, and to "listen
seriously to all sorts of proposals aiming to
improve the economic status of Negro
people."20
Like others who later joined him in
organizing the FOL, Holly
came to the conclusion that the black
community needed to develop
a larger business establishment. The
main obstacles to this goal, he
felt, were the domination of the ghetto
market by white businessmen
who took black dollars while offering
the black community no jobs,
training, or capital in return, and the
related tendency of many blacks
to shun black concerns for those
operated by whites, feeling that the
white man's goods and services were
superior.21 "He reasoned,"
wrote Charles H. Loeb in his history of
the League,
18. Ibid., 142; Cleveland Call
and Post, December 29, 1934; M. Milton Lewis, Inter-
view, May 26, 1972.
19. Zinz, "Future Outlook
League," 144; Shelton Baines, Interview, March 29, 1972.
20. Loeb, Future is Yours, 15-18;
Cleveland Call and Post, August 10, 1940.
21. John O. Holly, Interview, December
24, 1971.
Merchants of Tomorrow 47
that if the Central Area [ the local
euphemism for the black community] had
been white, there would be store owners,
manufacturers, bankers, profes-
sionals, clerks, salesmen, and
promotions and incomes would be higher
since people would be allowed to get
employment in places where they
traded. The millions of consumer dollars
would remain in the community in
the form of profits and wages.22
What was needed, Holly reasoned, was a
strategy which would,
first, compel white-owned stores in
black neighborhoods to employ
blacks, thus providing jobs for those
who needed them, training for
blacks who wished to become
entrepreneurs, and consumer pur-
chasing power for the support of black
enterprises, and, second, edu-
cate black consumers to patronize
businesses operated by members
of their own race. Always, in his mind,
the twin strands of opening up
jobs and developing black business were
linked. "What good would
it do," he argued, "to demand
jobs to keep money in our own neigh-
borhoods and then send it out through
another source." Black dol-
lars should support black business.23
Almost certainly influenced by the
"Don't Spend Your Money
Where You Can't Work" campaigns
launched earlier in Chicago,
New York, and Cleveland itself (though
he maintains to this day that
the idea was original with him), Holly
viewed the boycott strategy,
with its race-conscious emphasis on
harnessing the power of the
black dollar, as a vehicle well adapted
to overcoming the twin prob-
lems of opening jobs and establishing
black businesses.24 In a re-
vealing letter written less than a year
after the FOL was formed, Holly
seemed to sum up the essence of what he
was trying to do. "We are,"
he said,
teaching Negroes (even children) to
trade with Negroes first and second
with those who are employing Negroes.
The men and women who are being
placed in the various stores of today
will take the place of the white man and
be the merchants of tomorrow [emphasis
added], with the experience ac-
quired under the white man's
instructions.25
In short, the League's short-range goal
was to obtain jobs but its
long-range objective was to develop
black-owned or operated enter-
prises.
M. Milton Lewis, who as head of the
FOL's Investigation Bureau
22. Loeb, Future is Yours, 19.
23. The Voice, March 15, 1941.
24. John O. Holly, Interviews, December
24, 1971; May 16, 1972.
25. John O. Holly to H. G. Emerson,
February 12, 1936, Future Outlook League
MSS.
48 OHIO HISTORY
which selected boycott targets was
second only to Holly among the
League's top leadership, was the most
articulate spokesman for the
business ethnic. Born on a small farm
in Haynesville, Alabama, in
1898, Lewis might never have escaped
the poverty of a rural southern
farm had it not been for a chance visit
from a representative of Tuske-
gee Institute who convinced his father
that his son should go to
school and learn a trade. Although he
did not attend Tuskegee,
Lewis did complete a course of
instruction at Calhoun Carord Indus-
trial and Normal School in Haynesville,
an institution whose program
was an elaboration of the self-help
economic philosophy expounded
by Booker T. Washington. From his
experience at Calhoun, Lewis
developed a life-long commitment to the
great Tuskegeean, whom he
once described as "my idol."26
After graduating from Calhoun in 1919,
Lewis headed north in
search of a career in business, first
stopping at Cincinnati and Detroit
before settling in Cleveland. In the
years before he joined the Future
Outlook League, Lewis acquired a
firsthand knowledge of the diffi-
culties facing black entrepreneurs. As
a salesman with the Hope-Aid
Company, a local black insurance firm,
he did fairly well for several
years. But as the country moved toward
the Depression and custom-
ers began to default on their premiums,
the company was forced into
a merger with the Crusaders of the
World, another local black insur-
ance company. Eventually this firm too
closed its doors. Lewis then
secured a position with Atlanta Life,
which opened a new Cleveland
office in the early thirties, but found
that he could not make a decent
living on only a trickle of
commissions. In 1934 he joined Warren in
the ill-fated Douglass Laundry.27
If Holly was the League's orator and
leader, Lewis was its publicist
and theoretician. Through speeches to
the organization's member-
ship and, later, the columns of the
League's own journal, he urged
blacks to launch out on their own,
arguing that "we must own and
operate businesses and pay rent to
ourselves. You owe it to yourself,"
he wrote, echoing the philosophy of
hard work, self-help, and thrift
advocated by Washington, "to go
out through hard work, dependa-
bility, honest effort, and make
something of yourself." He felt it was
better to "start out at the little
end of the horn and come out the big
end as Booker T. Washington did."28
Lewis also urged blacks to be more race
conscious, particularly in
26. M. Milton Lewis, Interviews,
December 24, 1971; May 26, 1972.
27. Ibid.
28. The Voice, November 12, 1940;
April 13, 1940.
Merchants of Tomorrow 49
patronizing their own businesses.
"Self preservation," he wrote, "is
the first law of nature."
Therefore, blacks should trade with blacks
first. Strongly critical of black
housewives who shunned black clerks
and proprietors because "they
wanted Mr. Heinz to wait on them,"
Lewis felt they should be more careful
with their dollars. "The
women of our group," he said,
"must take the right stand regarding
Negro business .... Women, a great
responsibility rests on your
shoulders. Stick to your men and they
will stick to you."29
Like Holly, Lewis saw the program of the
FOL as a means of over-
coming some of the limitations of black
business development. He
saw the organization's emphasis on
husbanding black dollars as de-
veloping race consciousness and pride
among black consumers. He
viewed the League's job placement effort
as a means of introducing
young blacks to business training.
"We were concerned," he remem-
bered years later, "about the
ultimate inspiration that they would get
to operate their own business and be
able to use their own experi-
ence with the white firm for their
own." We thought they could
learn to "make connections with
larger furnishing groups ... to learn
how to buy." Being able to buy, he
felt, was the "biggest job in
business, because if you can't buy
right, you lose money."30
William 0. Walker, whose support was a
major factor in the
League's success, was perhaps the
strongest advocate of black busi-
ness in the Cleveland community. Born in
Selma, Alabama, in 1896,
Walker's commitment to black business
was deeply rooted in his
family background. His father,
Alexander, was one of the city's
oldest businessmen, operating a
successful restaurant for many
years.31 At his father's death in 1939,
Walker recalled his strong in-
fluence on the thinking of his children.
"He reared and educated
his children and maintained his
family," the young publisher wrote,
on the patronage of his own people. No
man ever had a greater interest in the
promotion of Negro business than my
father. When as a boy I was sent to a
grocery store I went to one owned by
Negroes. When there was illness in the
family, a Negro physician attended us.
The first money I ever deposited in a
bank, I at his suggestion, deposited in
a Negro bank. Thus I acquired my
faith in business from the actual
practice of it in my home."32
It never occurred to Walker to seek any
career other than that of a
businessman.
29. Ibid., March
29, 1941.
30. M. Milton Lewis, Interview, December
24, 1971.
31. Cleveland Call and Post, January
19, 1939; March 14, 1971.
32. Ibid., January 26, 1939.
50 OHIO HISTORY
After graduating from high school,
Walker entered Wilberforce
University, where he graduated from the
Department of Business
two years later. By 1918 he had
completed a course of instruction at
the Oberlin Business College,
supporting himself along the way with
a job as a pullman porter. Thereafter,
Walker acquired considerable
experience in the newspaper field: as
city editor of the Pittsburgh
Courier in 1919, city editor of the Norfolk Journal and
Guide in 1920,
and managing editor of the Washington
Tribune from 1921 to 1930.
Leaving the Tribune after the
death of one of its owners resulted in in-
tense factional bickering among the
rest, he accepted a position with
the Fair Department Store, a
white-owned venture which he served
successively as advertising manager,
assistant manager, and branch
store manager.
Anxious to return to journalism,
however, Walker accepted an offer
to go to Cleveland and revive the Call
and Post, which had gone un-
der in the early Depression days. With
his extensive background in
the publishing field, the new editor
not only put the paper back on
its feet but also revolutionized black
journalism in Cleveland. Where-
as Harry C. Smith's Gazette was
a conservatively-edited personal
journal which devoted itself mainly to
local politics, Walker saw to it
that the Call and Post was
characterized by sensational headlines,
numerous pictures, human interest features,
a full page of society
notes, and active support of civic and
racial movements.33
Billing itself as "Ohio's Fastest
Growing Weekly," the first issue of
the revived paper appeared on the
stands with a front-page picture
captioned "CUTS SWEETIE IN BREAST,"
and the beginning of a
series based on original interviews
with the Scottsboro Boys. By
1934 Walker had obtained a satisfactory
Dun and Bradstreet credit
rating and boosted circulation from
almost nothing to 4,000. By 1936
he had increased the paper's size from
four to twelve pages and
opened branch offices in Akron and
Toledo.34
From his very first editorial, Walker
espoused an aggressive version
of the self-help business philosophy of
Booker T. Washington. Re-
calling the debate between Washington
and W. E. B. DuBois, who
sometimes seemed to advocate college
education simply for the sake
of education, Walker wrote, "The
most pitiful derelicts washed up on
33. Ibid., March 14, 1971;
William O. Walker, Interviews, October 17, 1969; Septem-
ber 18, 1971. "Cleveland's Call and
Post," Crisis, XLV (December, 1938), 383; Cleve-
land Call and Post, March 14,
1970.
34. William O. Walker, Interview, May
15, 1972; N. W. Ayers and Sons, American
Newspaper Annual and Directory, 1934, 705; Cleveland Call and Post, June 6,
1934; July
18, 1935; October 8, 1936; March 14,
1974.
Merchants of Tomorrow 51
the shores of charity by the ocean of
the Depression are those young
men and women who have the most degrees
from our colleges."
Walker felt that unless education could
"make a better clerk in a
store, a better insurance collector, a
better salesman, we are just
burying our talents in the ground."
The black who wielded real
power in a community, he continued, was
not the "fellow who holds
some appointed political job or whose
employment is at the mercy of
the other race. The independent man or
woman is the one who oper-
ates his or her own business."35
In Walker's view, Washington's program
had only one flaw-"he
did not carry his industrial education
far enough." Washington's
emphasis on the mechanical trades and
agricultural education was
too limited. Had he also offered courses
in business administration,
the importance of joining trade
associations, and competent research
departments to assist young graduates in
finding openings for employ-
ment or sites for businesses, "we
would not have so many unem-
ployed in the building trades and
manufacturing industries, nor
would we have so many college graduates
hustling grips at every train
station or making beds on Pullman
cars."36
Through the columns of his paper, Walker
maintained a constant
propaganda barrage in favor of black
capitalism. He urged blacks to
patronize blacks as a means of providing
jobs and encouraging race
enterprises. When in the middle and
late thirties the Cleveland
black business community showed some
signs of revival, Walker took
it as a "fine tribute to the
propaganda that has been spreading dur-
ing the last few years."
"Nothing thrills me more," he wrote, "than
to walk into a well-stocked store owned
by blacks and to be greeted
by courteous clerks. I am conscious of
the fact that here is the begin-
ning of something that will do more to
help us solve all of our prob-
lems than all the editorials, sermons,
speeches, and good theories
combined."37
The League's leadership core implemented
its business emphasis
in a variety of ways. Whenever it was
possible, the League tried to fill
jobs opened up by its picket lines with
young men who were interest-
ed in acquiring the necessary experience
to establish their own busi-
nesses. This was less true in the early
stages of the campaign when for
strategic reasons it was considered
necessary to choose black place-
35. Ibid., May 14, 1936.
36. Ibid., April 1, 1937; William
O. Walker, Interviews, October 17, 1969; September
18, 1971.
37. Cleveland Call and Post, May
14, 1936.
52 OHIO HISTORY
ments who were acceptable to white
employers. But once the move-
ment got underway, it became an
"essential part" of the League's
program to place in employment
individuals who were "potential
merchants."38 Although
interviews with former League leaders
failed to reveal an estimate of the
number of individuals selected on
this basis more reliable than
"quite a few" or "lots of them,"39 the
number was probably relatively small,
particularly because many,
perhaps as many as half, of those
placed by the organization were
women. Yet, it is significant that the
League even made this kind of
effort.
Once they were selected for employment,
fresh placements were in-
ducted into the League's Employees Association
which, among oth-
er things, served as an indoctrination
and training agency. All FOL
jobholders were required to attend the
regular Wednesday evening
meetings of the Association. Here Holly
counseled his followers on
the virtues of "honesty,
punctuality, neatness, and courtesy," and
encouraged them to "assimilate as
rapidly as possible all knowledge
of their occupations." Obedience
to these guidelines, it was sug-
gested, would prepare the FOL-sponsored
trainee for "eventual entry
into his own business."
"Study the job to which you are assigned,"
counseled the League's president,
"until you have mastered it well
enough to launch a career of your own.
When you have displayed
ability to handle a business, there are
those in the black community
who will risk their reluctant capital
to set you up in business."40
The Wednesday evening meetings also
functioned as promotional
forums. Some evenings were devoted to
particular kinds of busi-
nesses, such as groceries or insurance
companies, "to acquaint the
Negro with his own people in
business." Any black businessman
who took out a membership in the League
was brought to the atten-
tion of the Association members who
were urged to patronize his
concern, while entrepreneurs who
addressed the meetings for train-
ing purposes rarely failed to close
without an appeal for patronage. At
the beginning of each of its job
campaigns the League called to the
attention of its followers the blacks
operating in that particular field.
For example, at a meeting in 1940, when
the organization decided to
38. Loeb, Future is Yours, 35-36.
39. M. Milton Lewis, Interview, May 26,
1972; John O. Holly, Interview, May 16,
1972; Shelton Baines, Interview, March
29, 1972; Charles H. Loeb, Interview, May 15,
1972.
40. Cleveland Eagle, July 13,
1935; Cleveland Call and Post, January 16, 1936; John
O. Holly, Interview, May 16, 1936; M.
Milton Lewis. Interview, May 26, 1972; Loeb, Fu-
ture is Yours, 35-36.
Merchants of Tomorrow 53
fight for jobs in white cleaning
establishments, it was pointed out
from the platform that the C. H. Cant
Valenteria and the East Side
Cleaners were important black
enterprises and should be patronized
along with any white concern which
agreed to hire blacks. Also, any
FOL member who launched his own
enterprise was assured of the
League's support.41
The League's leaders even went so far as
to establish their own
business venture when in 1937 they
founded the Voice, a four-page
biweekly journal which sold for five
cents a copy and one dollar for a
year's subscription.42 Upon
first reflection it might be assumed that
the new journal was more a broadside
than a business, since civic
and protest organizations frequently
establish such organs to further
their causes. But in this case the
League had no need for a second
newspaper outlet because the Call and
Post already gave its program
extensive coverage. From the time of its
first boycott victory, FOL
news was featured on the Call and
Post's front pages, announcements
and detailed reports concerning its
weekly Wednesday evening meet-
ings were a regular feature, and Walker
frequently wrote or directed
editorials in support of the League's
campaigns.43
The Voice's format, however,
suggests that it was much more than
an organizational journal, that it was
in fact a sincere attempt to estab-
lish a viable commercial newspaper.
Although stories on League ac-
tivities were included in its coverage,
they were often less prominent-
ly featured and less detailed than those
articles covering the same
events in the Call and Post. Considering
that none of the League's of-
fice s had a journalistic background,
the Voice was well-edited;
moreover, it stressed straight news
reporting rather than sensational-
ism: "I am glad to see one Negro
newspaper," wrote one of its read-
ers, "that refuses to play up
murders and other sordid aspects of
urban life."44 News
coverage ranged from stories on local business,
politics, and social and church notes
to articles on national news per-
taining to blacks. Even its editorial
page revealed no myopic focus on
the boycott movement.45 The
new journal contained a husky amount
of advertising. Undoubtedly profiting
from white employers having
already been intimidated by the FOL's
boycott movement, the
Voice was able to attract substantial advertising from
ghetto-based
41. Cleveland Call and Post, May
25, 1935; May 21, 1936; The Voice, January 2,
1939; March 2, 1940.
42. Ibid., January 22, 1938.
43. Cleveland Call and Post, May
13, 1935; May 30, 1935; June 13, 1935.
44. The Voice, April 15, 1938.
45. Ibid.
54 OHIO HISTORY
white stores which, coupled with
business obtained from the few
black enterprises who used its columns,
enabled the journal to fill
twenty-five to fifty percent of its
space with lucrative advertise-
ments.46
Although the Voice may have been
a sincere business effort, it was
not a wise one. By 1937 the Call and
Post, under Walker's editorship,
was far and away the leading black
journal in Cleveland. By at-
tempting to project a bona fide news
format, the four-page Voice in-
vited comparison with the twenty-page Call
and Post, a comparison
from which it was bound to suffer, given
the Call and Post's greater
resources and more complete coverage.
Its large percentage of adver-
tising gave it an initial boost, but to
be successful it also had to devel-
op substantial circulation, which it
apparently did not do. After three
years of publication, the Voice folded
in 1939, as the League itself en-
tered a period of decline.47
Despite its strong business emphasis and
the backing it received
from some businessmen, the FOL attracted
almost no support from
the most substantial entrepreneurs of
the black community. In fact,
with the conspicuous exception of
Walker, the leading black business
and professional men were virtually
unanimous in their criticism of
the League. Men such as Alonzo G.
Wright, the owner of a chain of
six gasoline stations; M. C. Clark,
president of the city's largest black
insurance company; and J. Walker Wills,
the owner of the most suc-
cessful black funeral home in Cleveland,
would have nothing to do
with the League. Some were openly
suspicious of its motives. Why,
they asked, if the League's purpose was
to support black business,
did it encourage blacks to patronize
white stores in return for jobs?
They reasoned that if more blacks were
encouraged to patronize
black stores, these stores could replace
white establishments as a
source of employment. Other black
businesses felt that boycotts
against white stores located in the
ghetto could provoke retaliation
by white stores outside the black
community; they might fire their
black help, thereby further reducing
black purchasing power. Still
others felt, simply, that "those
fellows are going to start a lot of un-
necessary trouble."48
46. Ibid., January 22, 1938.
47. John 0. Holly, Interview, January
16, 1972.
48. Loeb, Future is Yours, 32-33;
William 0. Walker, Interview, September 18, 1971;
M. Milton Lewis, Interviews, December
26, 1971; May 26, 1972; John 0. Holly, Inter-
views, December 24, 1971; May 16, 1972;
Harvey J. Johnson, Interview, March 29,
1972; Clarence M. Smart, Interview, July
27, 1971.
Merchants of Tomorrow 55
But if the more successful businessmen
turned their backs on the
League, some of the smaller
entrepreneurs actively supported it. Al-
though it is impossible to estimate
exactly how many smaller busi-
nesses came within the League's orbit,
it can be said that a number
of businessmen and women worked closely
with the organization
and that they were almost uniformly
proprietors of small or newly es-
tablished concerns. There were, of
course, always some small busi-
nessmen who, like their most prominent
contemporaries, Shied away
from the League, but the fact remains
that those entrepreneurs who
did support the League tended to be
proprietors of small concerns.
This was clearly evident at the League's
Wednesday evening meet-
ings, where businessmen who attended to
promote their products or
to lecture on business techniques were
usually small grocers, beauti-
cians, and cleaners.49
The League, in what was to become the
most distinctive aspect of
its activity in behalf of black
capitalism, returned the support of small
businessmen by providing assistance to
those who appealed to it for
help. Evidence of the range of support
provided by the League
could be found in numerous cases. In
1937 the FOL came to the aid
of a number of black grocers who were
being subjected to a cam-
paign of intimidation and violence by
white merchants who wanted
them to close their stores on Sundays:
the League threatened to boy-
cott any white businessman who attempted
to coerce a black enter-
prise. When, in 1939, a number of white
landlords began to raise out-
rageously the rents of black retailers
in order to pressure them into
moving so that their space could be
rented to white businessmen
who could afford to pay more, the League
conducted a vigorous and
successful publicity campaign for rent
reductions. Two years later the
League functioned in a mediatory role in
negotiating a truce between
several independent black jukebox
companies and a large white com-
pany after the latter instituted a
campaign of violence aimed at forcing
the black operators out of business.
Also, in the same year the FOL
joined the Call and Post in a
community-wide effort to force federal
administrators in Washington to spare
the J. Walter Wills Funeral
Home, perhaps the best-known funeral
parlor in the Cleveland ghet-
to, whose property was about to be
preempted by the United States
Housing Authority for conversion to public
housing.
The League also lent its support to the
organization of black entre-
49. Ibid. Cleveland Call and Post, May 25, 1935; July 4,
1935; June 6, 1940; The
Voice, March 15, 1938; Edward A. Overstreet, Interview, May
22, 1973; Marnette Lee,
Interview, May 16, 1972; Nancy Stoveall,
Interview, June 2, 1972.
56 OHIO HISTORY
preneurs into affiliated trade
associations. This support was clearly
demonstrated in 1936 when black
beauticians felt themselves threat-
ened by outside interests. In March of
that year, a representative of a
chain of white beauty shops came to
Cleveland to start a similar
chain for black women. Rumors abounded
that a half million dollars
were to be invested in the venture, and
black beauticians speculated
that they would be reduced to serving as
chain managers for the cor-
poration. Subsequently, when the first
white shop was opened Mrs.
Lorena Williams, a black beautician
whose parlor was closest to the
chain outlet, appealed to the FOL for
help. League officials respond-
ed by calling for all the black
beauticians to meet at its headquarters
to discuss the situation. At the meeting
it became clear that the
beauticians were suffering from internal
problems as serious as the
threat of chain competition. During the
Depression a small army of
"sundowners," amateur hair
stylists who operated in their homes
after their regular working day, had
driven prices so low that estab-
lished beauty culturists could not earn
a decent living. To combat the
white threat and end
"sundowning," the FOL therefore organized
the seventy-five beauticians present at
the the meeting into the Fu-
ture Outlook League Beauticians'
Association as an affiliate organiza-
tion. A constitution provided that the
Association's purpose was to
unite all beauty shop owners in an
effort to secure state legislation for
the trade, to improve standards of
operation, and to campaign against
unlicensed beauticians.50
Following the organization of the
Beauticians' Association, the
League pressured the white chain-which
by this time had in-
vested several thousand dollars in its
first location-into closing its
shop by threatening it with a boycott.51
Although as far as can be
determined this was the only instance in
which the FOL actively in-
terceded for the beauty shop owners, the
Beauticians' Association,
which had been formed under its
guidance, went on to become an
effective instrument for the
standardization of the industry. In the
late thirties the Association lobbied
successfully for laws regulating
beauticians. At the same time, through
its affiliate status with the
50. John O. Holly, Interview, May 16,
1972; Frank Evans, Interview, January 24,
1972; Charles H. Loeb, Interview, May
15, 1972; Wendell I. Stewart, Interview, May
22, 1972; "Press Release,"
December 1939, National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, Branch Files, Library
of Congress. Cleveland Call and Post, No-
vember 4, 1937; June 7, 1941; July 19,
1941; September 6, 1941; Loeb, Future is Yours,
78-80, 86-87.
51. Loeb, Future is Yours, 42-43;
Cleveland Call and Post, June 18, 1936; June 20,
1936; July 2, 1936; Cleveland Eagle, June
19, 1936; John O. Holly, Interviews, May 15,
1972; May 16, 1972; Charles H. Loeb,
Interview, May 15, 1972.
Merchants of Tomorrow 57
FOL, the Association was able to
brandish the threat of boycotts
and pickets, thus enabling it to achieve
some measure of success in
policing prices and wages.52
In 1938 the League actually placed
pickets in the streets in defense
of a black enterprise-Robert Shauter's
Ethical Pharmacy. Robert
Shauter was a remarkable businessman.
After spending years work-
ing for a white druggist from whom he
learned the trade, Shauter
opened his first pharmacy, Shauter's
Drug Store, in 1936. The phar-
macy's former owner, a white druggist,
had done only a "feeble"
business. Druggists in general
considered it a bad business location,
and no one expected that Shauter would
make a profit. But what
had formerly been a drab and
unsuccessful business blossomed un-
der Shauter's management into one of the
most successful pharma-
cies in the city. Subordinating all of
his other interests to developing
this business, Shauter seriously
endangered his health. But he was
so successful his exploits were hailed
as "magic."53
When Shauter opened his second store,
the Ethical Pharmacy, he
faced immediate opposition from worried
white merchants aware of
his earlier successful venture. Almost
immediately, white competitors
began to harass him by complaining to
city inspectors about building
code violations and circulating
disparaging rumors. Some of their op-
position was probably due to his
success; in 1936 when he had
opened his first store, most other
pharmacies in the city were barely
making ends meet, while Shauter's store
boomed despite having a
bad business location. But what appeared
to bother them more was
that, with his second store, Shauter was
venturing into a new territo-
ry for a black druggist. Previously,
most black drugstores, including
Shauter's own first venture, made most
of their money from soda
fountain and lunch counter business
rather than from prescriptions.
But with his second store Shauter
proposed to enter the prescription
field on a large scale: The new pharmacy
was nicknamed the "Doc-
tor's Drug Store" because it sold
only pharmaceuticals. Shauter had
thoroughly canvassed the black community
and had secured com-
mitments from almost every doctor,
dentist, and nurse to send their
patients to him for prescriptions.54
Having witnessed Shauter's successful
first store, the white owners
52. Loeb, Future is Yours, 42-43;
Charles H. Loeb, Interview, May 15, 1972; John 0.
Holly, Interview, May 16, 1972.
53. Cleveland Call and Post, November
11, 1937; November 25, 1937; February 10,
1938; November 16, 1940; Marnette Lee,
Interview, May 16, 1972.
54. Cleveland Call and Post, April
9, 1936; September 24, 1936; June 24, 1937; May
12, 1938; John O. Holly, Interview,
January 16, 1972; May 16, 1972.
58 OHIO HISTORY
were in no mood to see history repeat
itself. Soon after he opened the
second enterprise, they pressured the
Northern Ohio Drug Associa-
tion into refusing to sell the black
druggist any supplies. Shauter then
appealed to the FOL, which, as it had
in the past, responded by
threatening the white druggists with a
boycott unless they ceased
their intimidation. But this time a
threat was not sufficient, and the
FOL was forced into more direct action.
The League organized a
boycott which featured the placement of
pickets in front of every
white-owned drug store in the Cleveland
ghetto. Before the first day
of the boycott ended, Shauter was
receiving his usual supplies.55
Later, in the early World War II years,
the dynamic Shauter went on
to open a third store, this time
purchasing the best corner location in
the black community. Thus he became the
first black Clevelander to
establish a drugstore chain.56
In late 1940 the League came to the aid
of black ice and coal deal-
ers. In August of that year the
American Federation of Labor's (AFL)
Ice Mens' Local 422, which had all but
completed its organization of
the city's ice and coal dealers,
attempted to force all members of the
Independent Ice and Coal Dealers
Association-some sixty black
businessmen-to join its union. The
black dealers were a varied lot,
including a large number of pushcart
peddlers, a small group of men
who had horse-drawn wagons, and a tiny
number who operated real
business concerns with small truck
fleets. Most of them could not af-
ford the twenty-five dollar initiation
fee demanded by the union,
and all of them resented the union's
stipulation that black members
must confine their sales to black
neighborhoods. As a result, they re-
fused to join Local 422.57
The white union leaders reacted by taking
immediate steps to cut off ice and coal
supplies to the black inde-
pendents. The black dealers obtained
their ice and coal from two
sources: the City Ice and Fuel Company
and the Cleveland Home
Brewing Company. The Ice Men's Local
cut off supplies at the former
by threatening to stop making
deliveries and at the latter by persuad-
ing the Brewery Drivers' Union to take
the same position. Unable to
purchase supplies and living a
hand-to-mouth existence which even
the deprivation of one day's income
could seriously disrupt, the
black independents sought the help of
the FOL.58
55. Cleveland Call and Post,July 2,
1938; July 14, 1938; September 28, 1939; John O.
Holly, Interview, January 16, 1972.
56. John O. Holly, Interview, January
16, 1972.
57. Cleveland Call and Post, March
20, 1943, December 23, 1944.
58. Loeb, Future is Yours, 70-71;
Cleveland Call and Post, August 18, 1940; Frank
Evans, Interview, January 24, 1972; John
O. Holly, Interview, January 16, 1972.
Merchants of Tomorrow 59 |
|
As had by now become customary, the League offered affiliate status to the Independent Association, although it should be noted that in this instance the FOL was dealing with an already- established entity. The League then countered the union's supply cut-off by placing pickets in front of the entrances to both companies, daring the union men to pull into their processing stations. Numerous fights broke out between the pickets and union members, and trucks that crashed the picket lines were often found later smashed or over- turned in the streets.59 The following day AFL leaders, apparently worried about their public image and perhaps surprised or intimidated by FOL because they had just launched a city-wide drive to bring blacks into their unions, hastily called a conference with the FOL at which it was agreed that the black independents would be allowed to get their supplies while the dispute was being resolved. Several days later a
59. Ibid. |
60 OHIO HISTORY
more elaborate conference was called
which included the city's most
prominent members of the local AFL
union council and black civic
leaders, as well as the Ice Mens' Local
and FOL. After an initial
deadlock, in which Local 422 insisted
that any black allowed to stay
outside the union deprived a white
member of a job and the FOL in-
sisted that it could not accept union
membership for its clients on the
basis of a restricted status, an
agreement was worked out. All black
dealers who operated one-man businesses
and did not own a truck
were exempted from joining the union,
while those who conducted
more elaborate concerns with one or
more trucks had to become
members. Black dealers were not to be
limited to serving only ghetto
customers.60
The most bizarre and, at the same time,
revealing incident involv-
ing the FOL's attempt to support black
business was what became
known as the "Kritzer
Affair." In January of 1940 the League initi-
ated an attempt to open jobs for blacks
as bakers and drivers on
trucks delivering baked goods within
the ghetto by asking the
AFL's Bakery, Tea, Coffee, and Yeast
Drivers's Union to accept black
members. When the union refused, the
FOL presented its case to
the bakery owners themselves,
eventually concluding an agreement
with the Kritzer Bakery. According to
this understanding, Kritzer
was to employ several blacks as
delivery truck drivers and, some-
what later, as bakers.61
At the height of the League-Union
struggle, the Kritzer Bakery
sought to capitalize on the race
consciousness which the League's
campaign had developed within the black
community by bringing
out a new product called "Brown
Girl Bread." The FOL assisted in
the marketing of the bread by mounting
an intensive publicity cam-
paign based on the theme that blacks
should purchase the bread
baked by a company which was providing
blacks with jobs and
training them to become bakers. The
effort was so successful that
sales of the new product increased from
300 to 1,200 loaves a day,
and additional black deliverymen were
hired.62
In the end, however, the Kritzer affair
ended with a weird turn of
events. In the middle of June, just
when it appeared that the League
had successfully established its claim
to jobs for blacks as bakers
and deliverymen, the Kritzer Bakery
"vanished in the night." A
building that had housed a thriving
bakery one day stood as noth-
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.; Russell H. Davis,
Interview, January 21, 1972.
62. Loeb, Future is Yours, 66-67;
Cleveland Call and Post, January 18, 1940; Febru-
ary 26, 1940.
Merchants of Tomorrow 61
ing more than a gutted shell the next.
Overnight, Kritzer, his deliv-
ery trucks, and all his expensive baking
equipment simply disap-
peared. Although there was never any
conclusive evidence to
indicate why Kritzer left town, it was
widely rumored that he had
accepted a large sum of money from the
Driver's Union and had, at
the same time, accepted a lucrative
managerial position with a large
baking concern in another city.63
Disappointed over the failure of its
efforts to place blacks as bakers
and drivers but buoyed by the
marketability of the Brown Girl
Bread, League officials sought to
interest Leroy Crayton, a brilliantly
successful black sausage manufacturer,
in starting a black-owned
bakery.64 Crayton had started
a small grocery in the early days of
the Depression and had gone on from
there to establish a highly
successful sausage-manufacturing company
in 1936. Within a year he
blanketed the Cleveland area with his
product, and by the late
thirties he was making deliveries
statewide.65 Impressed with the
success of the race-oriented marketing
campaign mounted by Kritzer
and the League, Crayton obtained the
rights to the Brown Girl
trademark, installed the necessary
baking equipment, bought three
delivery trucks, initiated a
black-oriented advertising strategy
around the now familiar theme
"Demand the loaf made by brown
hands, delivered by brown boys, with the
smiling brown girl on
every loaf," and launched the
Crayton Bakery, the first black-owned
bakery in the city.66
From the Crayton Bakery's inception,
however, the extreme com-
petitiveness of the bread industry and
the continued antagonism of
the Drivers' Union created a number of
serious problems. Black gro-
cers and community institutions would
not purchase the bread be-
cause they could get other brands a
penny or two cheaper, while
white merchants were not enthusiastic
because the black company
lacked a national reputation. Those
white merchants who did stock
Brown Girl Bread often hid it behind
other merchandise and re-
fused to allow their black clerks to
promote it. Truck drivers, mem-
bers of the Driver's Union, for some of
the larger companies were dis-
covered purchasing quantities of the
bread and either holding it for
several days or punching tiny holes in
the wrappers to make it stale
63. Loeb, Future is Yours, 67-68;
The Voice, March 2, 1940.
64. Cleveland Call and Post, August 17,
1972; August 24, 1940.
65. The Voice, June 13, 1940;
John 0. Holly, Interview, January 16. 1972; M. Milton
Lewis, Interview, May 26, 1972; Charles
H. Loeb, Interview, May 15, 1972; Nancy
Stoveall, Interview, June 2, 1972.
66. Cleveland Call and Post, December
2, 1937.
62 OHIO HISTORY
before delivering it to retail outlets.
But Crayton's most serious prob-
lem was more fundamental: he could not
find enough trained bakers
to keep the quality of the bread
consistent. On one occasion, for ex-
ample, an inexperienced worker on the
night shift forgot to add yeast
to the batter, resulting in the loaves
going out the next day in only
half-filled wrappers.67
In desperation Crayton and the League
cooperated in a futile cam-
paign to save the enterprise. Crayton
tried to improve the quality of
the bread by purchasing 10,000 dollars
worth of more advanced
equipment and by instituting more
stringent quality-control measures.
At the same time, he sought to increase
sales by offering a money-
back guarantee of satisfaction and by
enlisting the aid of the church-
es by including in each loaf a coupon
which was redeemable in cash
for church-building programs.
Simultaneously, the FOL urged its
membership to purchase Brown Girl Bread,
threatened a boycott of
all white stores that refused to
cooperate, wrote letters to the major
baking companies to protest the sabotage
being carried on by some
of their drivers, sent representatives
to tour the churches in support
of the product, and persuaded the
Progressive Business Alliance,
the foremost organization of business
and professional men in the
black community, to pass resolutions
condemning Negro institutions
that would not patronize the Crayton
Bakery.68
Despite these efforts, however, the
enterprise continued to stumble
over the problem of insufficiently
trained personnel. Although Cray-
ton did employ some competent bakers who
were used to train oth-
ers, the lure of higher wages in World
War II defense industries con-
stantly drained off new workers. The
result was that the quality of
the bread continued to vary, and the
black public refused to pur-
chase it.69 John Holly
himself revealed both the desperation of the
struggle and the debilitated state of
the Crayton Bakery when he
wrote:
If Crayton's Bakery is permitted to fail
it will be another 40 years before an-
other Negro will take that kind of
chance. If Negroes would not stop and
think that at one time Ward's, Bond's,
Honey Girl, and N.B.C., and all other
67. Loeb, Future is Yours, 69-70;
Cleveland Call and Post, July 13, 1940; July 18,
1941; Nancy Stoveall, Interview, June 2,
1972.
68. Cleveland Call and Post, September
27, 1940; The Voice, October 12, 1940;
Nancy Stoveall, Interview, June 2, 1972;
John O. Holly, Interview, May 16, 1972.
69. The Voice, March 29, 1941;
John O. Holly to National Biscuit Company, Decem-
ber 10, 1940, Future Outlook League MSS;
Cleveland Call and Post, February 1, 1940;
September 21, 1940; March 14, 1942; John
O. Holly, Interview, May 16, 1972; Nancy
Stoveall, Interview, June 2, 1972.
Merchants of Tomorrow 63
major baking companies were ... small,
crude, struggling enterprises ... It is
inconceivable that any business could be in a position
to compete with an-
other business that has been established a quarter of a
century and is worth
over a million dollars.70
Ironically, then, in the end the Crayton
Bakery failed because of the
very problems the League was trying to
overcome-the lack of
trained personnel and the unwillingness
of some blacks to buy black.
Beginning with an attempt to place
blacks as bakers and bakery
truck drivers with white concerns and
ending with an effort to estab-
lish a black-owned bakery, the
Kritzer-Crayton episode clearly
illustrates the connection which the
League saw between opening up
new jobs for blacks and developing the
black business community.
Had its interest been only to find jobs
for unemployed blacks, the
League probably would have followed the
Kritzer phase of the inci-
dent with an attempt to place blacks in
another white-owned bakery.
After all, job-finding had already
succeeded once as a tactic. But the
League chose a different route. Noting
the success of Kritzer's origi-
nal Brown Girl Bread, their
entrepreneurial inclination impelled them
to jump over the job-placement or
training phase of their strategy to
the immediate achievement of their
long-range goal-a black busi-
ness. Although this unfortunately proved
to be a tactical error, the
very attempt clearly demonstrated the
League's commitment to black
capitalism.
The Kritzer affair and its aftermath
proved to be the apex of the
League's business-oriented activity. As
the country moved toward
World War II and jobs became more
plentiful in local defense indus-
tries, the League's membership began to
drift away; and the organi-
zation itself, while continuing to
maintain a small office, ceased to take
an active part in community affairs.71
On an individual basis, howev-
er, the League's leaders persisted in
following an entrepreneurial im-
pulse. Almost to a man, the League's
inner core became independent
businessmen. In 1939 Milton Lewis opened
a concern named, appro-
priately, the Booker T. Washington
Laundry. The next year Charles
Warren started a dry goods store, Julius
Wright a meat market, and
Shelton Baines a restaurant. Harvey
Johnson was now making a com-
fortable living with a law practice
built up through the contacts he
had made as the League's legal counsel.
John O. Holly alone es-
chewed a business career, preferring
instead to use his prestige and
influence to launch a career in local
politics. But even he first made a
70. John O. Holly, Interview, May 16,
1972; Nancy Stoveall, Interview, June 2, 1972.
71. The Voice, October 12, 1940.
64 OHIO HISTORY
stab at his own enterprise: in 1936 the
League's president launched
the John 0. Holly Insecticide Company, a
firm which retailed a line
of insect sprays, detergents, and waxes.
The business was never
more than a sideline, however, and Holly
let it slowly die as his polit-
ical activities and work with the FOL
began to take more of his
time.72
As World War II defense and war
industries ushered in a return of
prosperity, the League's business
program left a lasting legacy to its
members: a handful of young men who had
won their jobs in the tur-
moil of picket lines and street
confrontations now became successful
capitalists. When interviewed specifically
on this point some thirty
years later, League leaders tended to
exaggerate their influence. John
Holly, for example, maintained that
"every Negro business in Cleve-
land today owes its existence in some
way to the FOL."73 Although
this is certainly an inflated claim, it
is possible to assemble a small list
of League placements who later used
their training to launch business
careers. Some, like Marshall Patton, who
as a "fair haired boy" was
placed in a Fisher Grocery Store, worked
their way up to become the
first black store managers in their
respective companies. Others used
their training to start independent
ventures: Paul Hamilton started a
radio shop; Robert Pinn a juke box
company; Robert Ray a sausage
manufacturing concern; Wendell Bishop a
shoe store; James Wilson a
haberdashery; James Pierpont a
delicatessen; and Sam Langford,
Oliver Lindsay, and Lester Brown grocery
stores. A few became real-
ly outstanding entrepreneurs. Edward
Overstreet, who started out on
the picket line, provides an example:
trained in a white grocery, he
later opened his own market in 1941, and
eventually was cited in Su-
permarket Merchandising, often called the bible of American food
retailers, as the owner of a "model
superette."74
The League left another legacy in the
form of a more unified black
business community. By the late thirties
and early forties, most of the
businessmen and professionals who had
once been critical of the
League now publicly declared their
support for it. The League's sta-
bility and success, its many
demonstrations of support of black busi-
72. Zinz, "Future Outlook
League," 124-25.
73. M. Milton Lewis, Interviews,
December 24, 1971; May 26, 1971; Charles M.
Smart, Interview, July 27, 1971;
Clarence L. Sharpe, Interview, July 6, 1972; Shelton
Baines, Interview, March 29, 1972;
Harvey J. Johnson, Interview, March 29, 1972;
John O. Holly, Interview, May 16, 1972;
The Voice, May 11, 1940; April 13, 1940;
Cleveland Call and Post, May 7,
1936; June 1, 1940.
74. John O. Holly, Interview, January
16, 1972; Shelton Baines, Interview, March 29,
1972.
Merchants of Tomorrow 65
ness, and, perhaps, the general
radicalization of black thought in the
thirties, combined to make the
"Don't Spend Your Money Where
You Can't Work" movement
increasingly respectable even in conser-
vative circles. For example, one
observer wrote: "The heightened
spirit of race consciousness and race
unity is proving a boon to Negro
business generally, dissipating the fear
that the continued employ-
ment of Negroes in white establishments
might work to the detri-
ment of Negroes in business for
themselves." Moreover, by 1940 the
League's weekly journal was reporting
"NEGRO BUSINESS BIG-
GEST DONORS IN FOL MEMBERSHIP
DRIVE," and by 1942
former antagonists of the caliber of
Alonzo Wright, M. C. Clark, and
J. Walter Wills-all scions of the
business establishment-were tak-
ing out life memberships at one hundred
dollars apiece.75
Yet, however real the League's
accomplishments, it is difficult to
assess its impact on the black business
community in anything but
modest terms. Although evidence has been
assembled here to
highlight a neglected facet of the
boycott movement, its major imme-
diate function was to obtain jobs.
Certainly, it was for this reason
more than any other that the movement
took hold among the masses
and attracted as many followers as it
did, not only in Cleveland but
all around the country. Nothing suggests
this more than the rapid
decline of the organization during the
war years when its members
fairly scrambled for the lucrative
positions in industry. Even had the
League been dedicated solely to finding
training slots for future black
businessmen, it is doubtful that its
impact could have been substan-
tial. Most of the jobs opened by the
League were clerical positions
providing very little managerial
experience. Furthermore, at least half
of the organization's placements were
women who would have been
unlikely to go into business for
themselves under any circumstances.
In the end, probably the League's
greatest contribution to black
business was simply the race
consciousness which its program engen-
dered.
Assessing the League's impact on the
business community is easier
than placing its ideology within the
continuum of black thought.
Some of the evidence suggests that the
movement's business empha-
sis was an outgrowth of the self-help
ideology promoted by Booker
T. Washington and elaborated on in practice
by the class of business-
75. Clarence M. Smart, Interview, July
27, 1971; Shelton Baines, Interview, March
29, 1972; John 0. Holly, Interview, May
16, 1972; Loeb, Future is Yours, 35-36; Ed-
ward A. Overstreet, Interview May 22,
1972; Cleveland Call and Post, October 25,
1941.
66 OHIO HISTORY
men who came to prominence in the late
twenties in many urban ghet-
toes. Certainly it would be going too
far to call the League's leaders
businessmen. None but Milton Lewis and
Charles Warren had ever
run a concern of their own, and their
entrepreneurial experience was
limited to the short-lived Douglass
Laundry. But all of them, in one
way or another, through educational
training, family background,
regional origin, or personal philosophy,
had acquired an interest in
establishing black businesses. Without
exception they had been
raised in the South of Booker T.
Washington, in the days when the
self-help philosophy was at its zenith.
All came north during World
War I and the years immediately
following, when Washington's dis-
ciples were laying the foundations for
separate black communities in
urban areas all over the country. Two,
Julius Wright and Milton Lew-
is, had attended schools which
elaborated the industrial education
view of the great Tuskeegean. Three,
Sheldon Baines, John Holly,
and William Walker, had fathers who had
established business con-
cerns of their own. And, to a man, they
reflected a belief in the need
for a viable black capitalism.76
Yet, if the boycott movement was related
to the self-help family, it
certainly was a prodigal son, for
Washington's accommodationism
would never have countenanced violence
and street demonstrations.
But it does seem possible that the
movement can be related to Wash-
ington's program as a variation in
desperation. It may be that the
boycott movement represented, in part,
the self-help ideal radical-
ized by Depression-generated
frustrations. In this connection it may
be relevant to note that some of the
League's founders were men who
had sought business careers in the late
twenties but had failed.
They were, like their more successful
contemporaries who arrived in
Cleveland earlier, recent arrivals from
the South in search of careers.
But there was a difference, for these
men had achieved no success.
At the outset of the Depression, they
were less businessmen than
men on the make with business on their
minds. Their protest empha-
sis, therefore, may have been an
outgrowth of their frustration. Using
a tool that allowed them to strike out
at the white businessmen
whose success mocked their own failure,
they employed the boycott
to encourage black economic independence
through the control of
black dollars, the exchange of black
dollars for jobs and training,
and ultimately, the development of black
businesses. Thus the boy-
76. John O. Holly, Interview, May 16,
1972; M. Milton Lewis, Interview, May 26,
1972; William O. Walker, Interview,
October 17, 1969; Loeb, Future is Yours, 68-69:
Cleveland Call and Post, March 28, 1940.
Merchants of Tomorrow 67
cott could have been viewed, in part, as
a means to make a balky sys-
tem work for men who had been spurned by
it.
That the more established businessmen
did not at first support
the League's aggressive version of the
self-help ideology might, per-
haps, be explained by status
differentials. Since their own busi-
nesses were suffering during the
Depression, it might be assumed
that the more successful entrepreneurs
would have supported a
movement that struck back at white
merchants who were raking
black dollars out of the ghetto market.
But these were men for whom
the system had worked. To be sure, they
were suffering a decline in
economic well-being, but many of them
had achieved elite status in
the community; to align themselves with
a movement of street radi-
cals would have endangered their
prestige. It is not surprising that
the established businessmen drifted
toward support of the League
in the late thirties and early forties,
for by then the black upper class
in general was moving in that direction.
It is, of course, possible that the
Future Outlook League was unique
in the amount of attention it gave to
the support of black business.
And, it is certainly true that the
League's quest for jobs was the
better-known and more widely-supported
aspect of its program. But
it is also possible that its activist
support of black business was a cry
of anguish from those young men
recently-arrived from the South
who, having been inspired by Booker T.
Washington's vision of eco-
nomic independence, were prevented by
the Depression from realiz-
ing their dream of being the
"merchants of tomorrow."
CHRISTOPHER G. WYE
Merchants of Tomorrow: The
Other Side of the "Don't
Spend Your Money Where You
Can't Work" Movement
For the most part the racial ideologies
expressed by black leaders
during the nineteen thirties can be
classified on a rough continuum
from the traditionally conservative and
accommodationist Urban
League, through the more activist and
protest-oriented NAACP, the
labor movement and the rise of
industrial unionism, and finally the
Socialist and Communist parties. One
significant ideological manifes-
tation, however, has not been
extensively discussed in terms of its
position in the spectrum of black
thought. This aspect of black
thought was reflected in a series of
urban-based campaigns whose
essential theme was summed up in the
catchy slogan, "Don't Spend
Your Money Where You Can't Work."1
These campaigns appeared largely in the
urban North where they
were confined to a handful of major
cities, including Boston, New
York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington,
D.C. Although they were
never brought together in a single
organizational framework, they
were similar in many respects from city
to city. They were frequently
Christopher G. Wye is Director, Office
of Program Analysis and Evaluation, Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Development.
1. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton,
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in
a Northern City, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), II: 733-34; Abram L. Harris, Tie
Negro as
Capitalist: A Study of Banking and
Business Among American Negroes (New
York,
1936), 180-84; Gunnar Myrdal, An
American Dilemma, 2 vols. (New York, 1944), I:
313-14; Roi Ottley, New World
A-Coming: Inside Black America (Reprint, New York,
1969), 113-22; Claude McKay, Harlem:
Negro Metropolis (Reprint, New York, 1968).
181-262; Roi Ottley and William J.
Weatherby, eds., The Negro in New York: An In-
formal Social History (New York. 1969), 282; Selection from Ralph J. Bunche,
"The
Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, and
Activities of Negro Betterment Organizations" (Un-
published memorandum prepared for the
Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the Negro in
America, 1940), in August Meier, Elliott
Rudwick, and Francis L. Broderick, eds.,
Black Protest Thought in the
Twentieth Century, 2nd ed., (New York,
1971), 122-32.