29fifty male students: “Catalogue 1914–1915,” p. 47.
30“to train practical blacksmiths”: “Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1916–1917,” Alcorn A&M (Natchez, 1917), p. 30.
30one graduate annually: Ibid., pp. 74–75.
30“a comedown”: TG, 49.
31“had been hurt”: QH, 265.
31“escape safari”: ATB, 4.
31“very fair girls”: TG, 116.
31for her ability to translate: Gloria T. Williams-May, “Lucy Craft Laney—The Mother of the Children of the People: Educator, Reformer, Social Activist,” PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 1998, 44–48.
32“shocked by the sight”: TG, 115.
32a state that did not provide: James Anderson, lecture, Emory University, November 2009.
32“de goat done dead”: TG, p. 122.
32three thousand people were left homeless: “Fire Sweeps Through Augusta: Flames Cut Red Swath to the Boundary of the City; Put Loss at $8,000,000,” Atlanta Constitution, March 23, 1916: 1–2; Craig Britt, “Undaunted by Great Disaster, Citizens of Augusta Prepare for Building a Better City,” Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1916, 1, 5, 12.
33“Alcorn Ode”: Mrs. E. B. Himes, “Alcorn Ode,” Alcorn Centennial Yearbook, 1928, p. 28, Alcorn A&M College, Alcorn, Mississippi.
33“These were the moments”: TG, 70.
34“Forget our special grievances”: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Close Ranks,” The Crisis, July 1918, 111.
34dismissed for reading northern periodicals: TG, 67.
34Women were standing”: Ibid., 104.
35“high levels of expectation”: ATB, 4.
35“We were a small”: Ibid.
35the word “damn”: Ibid.; TG, 86.
35playing Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu”: TG, 94.
36“You mustn’t think of yourself as colored”: Ibid., 99; QH, 5.
36he apparently withdrew: Edward Harry Himes, Pine Bluff, Ark., Atlanta University Bulletin, series 2, no. 43, April 1921, p. 33; Edward Harry Himes, Pine Bluff, Ark., Atlanta University Bulletin, series 2, no. 47, April 1922, p. 33. None of the subsequent bulletins in the 1920s carry the name of Edward Himes as a student.
36a regular visitor to the school: Bobby Wade Saucier, “The Public Career of Theodore G. Bilbo,” PhD diss., Tulane University, 1971, 21; Stephen Cresswell, Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race: Mississippi After Reconstruction, 1877–1917 (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2006), 209–10. Between 1916 and 1920 when he was governor, Bilbo himself often needed a retreat; the sparring with his political rivals regularly became violent and he was assaulted and knocked unconscious by his constituents on more than one occasion between 1911 and 1920.
36Joseph Himes joked with him: The Bilbo Papers at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg offer nothing to verify Bilbo’s trips to Alcorn during his first term as populist governor of the state (1916–1920). According to Bilbo scholar Chester Morgan, Bilbo at least argued unsuccessfully for a higher appropriation for Alcorn during his second term as governor (1928–1932).
37“my father was born and raised”: QH, 22.
37“Mother kept chopping”: Joseph Himes, taped interview with Michel Fabre, November 15, 1985, MF, box 35.
37“a quarrelsome nature”: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff, Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Decree,” December 20, 1927, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
37the Greek and Roman myths: Michael J. Bandler, “Portrait of a Man Reading: Chester Himes, Author of The Quality of Hurt,” Washington Post, April 9, 1972, BW2.
38thirty-two people were dead: Joyce Bridges, “Looking Back,” Port Gibson Reveille, December 15, 1988; Joyce Bridges, “Looking Back,” Port Gibson Reveille, November 10, 1998.
384525 Garfield Avenue: St. Louis City Directory; Joseph Himes to Michel Fabre, March 7, 1986, MF, box 8, folder 26.
38wartime surge of blacks: Randy Finley, “Black Arkansans and World War One,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Autumn 1990): 250.
38Hundreds of African Americans: Grif Stockley and Jeannie M. Whayne, “Federal Troops and the Elaine Massacres,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2002): 272–83; Walter F. White, “ ‘Massacring Whites’ in Arkansas,” The Nation, December 6, 1919, 715–16.
39none of the graduates: Elizabeth Wheeler, “Isaac Fisher: The Frustrations of a Negro Educator at Branch Normal College, 1902–1911,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Spring 1982): 40.
39Himes family boarded downtown: “Pine Bluff, Arkansas,” Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1908, Pine Bluff Public Library; “Lillie Grotia,” 1920 U.S. Census, Arkansas, Jefferson County, Pine Bluff, Ward 2.
40Himes boys were placed: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal School, Branch of the University of Arkansas, pp. 46–47.
41“gone to Memphis”: QH, 9.
41“sentimentality and hypocrisy”: H. W. Boynton, “Book Reviews: Yellow Is Black,” The Independent, May 13, 1922, 108.
41By 1923 she had provided: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” p. 15.
42“ate that stuff up!”: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
42“acquaint the student with the facts”: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” p. 17.
42“a number of textbooks”: QH, 10.
42“a thrilling and eye-opening experience”: ATB, 5.
42“I could read blueprints”: QH, 74–75.
43“A delicate and dangerous”: Ibid., 11.
43“naughty”: Ibid.
43Joseph maintained that Chester: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
44“Penelope and I was Ulysses”: TG, 155.
45city of nearly 800,000: Joseph Heathcott, “Black Archipelago: Politics and Social Life in the Jim Crow City,” Journal of Social Life and History (Spring 2005): 707.
45eventually settling on Belle Glade Avenue: Joseph S. Himes and Estelle B. Himes indenture to Abraham and Bettie Davis, December 24, 1923, St. Louis Deed Book, microfilm, St. Louis City Hall, p. 380, St. Louis, Missouri.
45fifty people dead: Robert Asher, “Documents of the East St. Louis Riot,” Journal of Illinois Historical Society (Autumn 1972): 327.
45“He was a pathetic figure”: TG, 159.
46For a full year he specialized: CH, transcript, Charles Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 1925.
46“hated” Sumner: TG, 160.
3. BANQUETS AND COCAINE BALLS
49Joseph Sr. and Chester came first: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff v. Joseph S. Himes Defendant, November 16, 1927, “Petition for Alimony and Equitable Relief,” Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
50By 1930, Seventy-Ninth Street: Todd Michney, “Changing Neighborhoods: Race and Upward Mobility in Southeast Cleveland, 1930–1980,” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2004, 93.
51also a friend of Mary: Henry Lee Moon to Mary McLeod Bethune, November 5, 1937, HLM, box 1, folder 2.
51“My father’s people”: QH, 16.
52“ ‘You don’t like black people’ ”: TG, 155–56.
52“infantilized”: Joseph Himes, taped interview with Michel Fabre, November 15, 1985, MF, box 35.
52Chester began his scholastic year: CH, transcript, Charles Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 1925. The record was mailed on March 2, 1925.
53“anxious to prove”: Chester B. Himes, “Spring Day of 1925 in Cleveland,” Cleveland News, December 5, 1945, Chester Himes Clipping File, Cleveland Public Library, Ohio.
54kept a 90 average: “Brooks Friebolin Leads Honor Roll,” Blue and Gold, October 29, 1925, 3, Cleveland Public Library.
54On October 8, 1925: Joseph S. and Estelle B. Himes, CUY, Deeds Book, V. 3330 p. 74.
54“the nicest house”: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
54the shouts of “colored boy”: Henry Lee Moon, “Encounter with the C.P.,” p. 4, MHLM, box 14, folder “Memoirs.”
55had written “86”: QH, 17.
55along with dozens of other members: “College Is Goal of Majorit
y of Students,” Blue and Gold, January 22, 1926, 1, Cleveland Public Library.
55“Our people need more doctors”: Henry Lee Moon, “The Closed Door,” MHLM, box 14, folder “Memoirs.”
56“No matter what your aim”: TG, 200.
56“ruined” after a season: Moon, “The Closed Door.”
56“to an old fat ugly whore”: QH, 18.
57“spattering open”: Ibid., 20.
58“incontinent vanity”: TG, 236.
58“will you please-please-please shut up!”: Ibid., 243.
61“a brief survey”: Ohio State University Catalogue, 1926, p. 102.
61“permanently excused”: CH, transcript, Ohio State University, CHP-T, box 40, folder 6.
61successfully petitioned: Pamela Pritchard, “The Negro Experience at The Ohio State University in the First Sixty-Five Years 1873–1938 with Special Emphasis on Negroes in the College of Education,” PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1982, 62; Ohio State University Yearbook, 1926.
621389 Summit Street: Ohio State University Student Directory, 1926.
62“He dreaded the classes”: TG, 261.
62“colored people should not”: Pritchard, “The Negro Experience,” 78.
63“slightly hysterical”: TG, 264.
63“Light-complexioned blacks”: QH, 29.
64“You got an awful lot”: Ibid., 25.
65“leaped atop tables”: Ibid., 28.
65“I fixed your little red wagon”: Ibid., 30.
66“ill health and failing”: CH, transcript, Ohio State University.
66“one of those soft”: QH, 37.
67“small, dried up looking”: Ibid., 32.
67“soft-spoken, handsome”: Ibid.
67“that peculiar, almost virgin”: CH, Lonely Crusade (1947; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1993), 325.
68one hundred bootleggers: Rick Porello, The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia (New York: Barricade, 1995), 28.
69he featured in his first detective fiction: CH, A Rage in Harlem (1957 as For the Love of Imabelle; repr., New York: Vintage, 1991), 21.
69“ ‘Unchain ’em in the big corral’ ”: CH, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1986), 37.
69“a big-framed”: QH, 38.
69“But where he got”: CH, “Prison Mass,” CH-CSS, 162.
70proclaimed Joe a “genius”: Lester A. Walton, “Pupils Win Honor Despite Handicaps,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 12, 1927, 5.
70“hearty congratulations”: Ernest Wilkins to Joseph Himes, February 21, 1928, JSH, box 1, folder 2.
70on September 26, 1927: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, No. 16313, “Indictment for Forgery and Uttering a Forged Check,” Chester Hines, Court of Common Pleas, Franklin County, Ohio.
71“failed and willfully neglected”: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff v. Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Petition for Alimony and Equitable Relief,” Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
71summon Joseph to court: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff, Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Decree,” December 20, 1927, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
71On December 20, 1927: Joseph S. and Estelle B. Himes, CUY Deeds Book, V. 3330, p. 74.
71Chester changed his plea to guilty: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, No. 16313. CH provides a completely different chronology of events in his memoir The Quality of Hurt, which he wrote forty-three years later and without any of the legal records.
72“a congested area of vice”: TG, 276.
72hoped to take Jean to Detroit: QH, 39.
73She told him she thought”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 150.
74arrested them on October 9: “Two Held in Firearms Theft,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 6, 1928; Chester Himes, No. 35051, Criminal Record Department, Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland.
74“not likely to engage”: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, Case No. 16313, Court of Common Pleas, Franklin County, January 28, 1928, Columbus, Ohio.
74“over the vehement protests”: QH, 42.
76requiring an examination: State of Ohio v. Chester Himes, Case No. 35052, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, December 6, 1928, p. 327.
76McMahon sentenced: Chester Himes, Case No. 35051, December 19, 1928, Judge McMahon Presiding, Record of Convictions January Term 1926 to & September Term 1931 Cuyahoga County, p. 190. A dozen years later McMahon, no friend to African Americans, would uphold the foreclosure of a home purchased by a black couple attempting to integrate a white neighborhood—see “The Right to Own a Home,” Cleveland Call and Post, February 29, 1940, 6.
76bout for local headlines: “Robber Gets 20 Years: Youth Sent in Pen for Holdup in Heights,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 20, 1928, 2.
4. GRAY CITY OF EXILED MEN
77He entered the prison two days: “#59623 Himes, Chester,” Ohio Penitentiary Register of Prisoners, Ohio History Connection, microfilm 1536, pp. 111–12, Columbus, Ohio.
78forty-two hundred convicts: D. J. Bonzo, “Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary, June 1931,” Ohio State Historical Society, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 7; P. E. Thomas, “The Ohio Penitentiary,” State of Ohio Eighth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1930), 503.
78stood at the end of lines: “Ohio Penitentiary Fades into History,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 24, 1973, 4A.
79more than a quarter of: D. J. Bonzo, “Balance Sheet of Color of Men for Year Ending December 31, 1931”; “Annual Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary January 1, 1931, to December 31, 1931,” Ohio History Connection, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 50.
79forty-six-year-old Kentuckian: “Flo Wallace,” 1930 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, Columbus City, p. 228.
80Only about fifty: P. E. Thomas, “Education of Men Entering and Leaving the Institution,” State of Ohio Eighth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1930), 509.
80“He hadn’t ever had”: Chester Himes, “I Don’t Want to Die,” CH-CSS, 205.
80“Every one of them looked”: CFS, 4; CH to CVV, February 18, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1956.” CH described major portions of the novel Cast the First Stone as “more or less autobiographical.”
81“treacherous” lot: QH, 62.
81“free to roam the city”: David Myers and Elise Myers Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2009), 43.
81“half afraid that every big”: CFS, 110.
82Pat McDermott: “Bloody Crew Is Loosed on State,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 20, 1929, 1.
82on February 28, 1930: Myers and Myers, Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons, 55–57.
83“in these hands I hold”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 75.
83he claimed ignorance: “Chester Hines,” 1930 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, Columbus City, p. 228.
83“I didn’t get anything but”: CFS, 124.
84“loaded stick and the concrete”: QH, 69.
85he received a check: “Ohio Convict Rewarded,” New York Times, April 23, 1930, 3.
85the 166th Regiment: “Pen Ex-Warden’s Rites Tomorrow,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 7, 1952, 7. “Convict Charges Pen Dope Traffic,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 25, 1935, 8.
85“bitchery and abomination”: CFS, 167.
85“passive resistance” campaign: “Ohio Penitentiary 1930 Fire,” Columbus and Central Ohio Historian (November 1984): 17.
85On April 28: F. Raymond Daniell, “Ohio Prison Quiet, 300 Resume Work,” New York Times, May 2, 1930, 5.
86commandant of the 166th: “Machine Gun Kills Two Ohio Convicts,” New York Times, May 9, 1930, 15.
86“small rebellious army”: Thomas, “The Ohio Penitentiary,” 562.
87Negro inmates were the recognized: “Negroes Are Fire Heroes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 22, 1930, 1, 3.
88“grotesque fantasy”: CFS, 137.
88“no one tried to rape me”: QH, 61.
89Ohio legislature passed three laws: N. R. Howard, “Ohio Adopts Plan for Prison Reform,” New York Times, April 19, 1931, 57.
89“Under the provisions”: J. C. Woodard, “The Ohio Board of Parole,” State of Ohio Thirteenth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1935), 275.
89“take it easy”: “Local Items,” Ohio Penitentiary News, September 12, 1931, 2.
89September 17, 1931: “#59623 Himes, Chester” file.
90“having stared so long”: CFS, 178.
90“if I just had my life”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry, 219; QH, 60.
90In May 1932: Joseph Himes and Agnes Rowe, May 26, 1932, Marriage Record #A4776, CUY.
90Chicago Defender carry news: Alexander O. Taylor, “Ohio State News: Cleveland News,” Chicago Defender, June 25, 1932, 12.
91to work toward a master’s degree: “Blind Student to Return to Oberlin Studies Soon,” New York Amsterdam News, September 23, 1931, 3.
91“There is one rule”: “Writing,” Ohio Penitentiary News, July 5, 1930, 2.
91“ ‘I asked him was there’ ”: CFS, 106.
92“black murderer of great intelligence”: QH, 64.
92“ ‘I’m going to take you up’ ”: CFS, 138–39.
92The Maltese Falcon: Michael J. Bandler, “Portrait of a Man Reading: Chester Himes, Author of The Quality of Hurt,” Washington Post, April 9, 1972, BW2.
92“Most of the black convicts”: QH, 64.
93a “dark brown skin” man: CH, “His Last Day,” CH-CSS, 291, 303.
93“crying softly”: CH, “The Night’s for Crying,” Esquire, January 1937, 148.
931400 African American prisoners: Bonzo, “Balance Sheet of Color of Men for Year Ending December 31, 1931”; “Balance Sheet of Life Men for Year Ending December 31, 1935”; “Annual Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary January 1, 1935, to December 31, 1935,” Ohio History Connection, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 42.
94Merrill Chandler: The data in this paragraph on prisoner executions comes from an archives of photographed prisoners, “Photographs of Executed Prisoners,” State Properties, Ohio History Connection, box 3, folder Ohio Penitentiary.
Chester B. Himes Page 55
