by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the Teens drew to a close and the First World War came to an end amid a global flu pandemic, postwar America went through an economic recession, a “Red Scare” involving crackdowns on actual or perceived left-wing individuals and organizations, and the “Red Summer” of 1919 when “race riots” erupted across the nation, including in Chicago, where almost 40 persons died and hundreds were injured in conflicts between African-Americans and whites in late July and early August after a white man threw stones at a Black swimmer who strayed into an area off the Lake Michigan shoreline that was considered off-limits and drowned.
Dr. Monroe A. Majors, who, during his 1888-1890 residence in Los Angeles, was the first Black doctor in the Angel City, as well as in California and west of the Rocky Mountains, was both practicing medicine and serving as associate editor of the Chicago Broad-Ax, an African-American newspaper in the Windy City. While the paper extensively covered and commented on the rioting, nothing could be located under his name concerning the crisis that consumed Chicago.
The year 1919 began with Majors writing in the paper on the topic of “Let Us Unite And Build For Future Generations,” exhorting Black Chicagoans to form a group to promote “racial welfare from every conceivable angle,” with politics hardly the most important of these. He called for speakers to discuss on any given topic “that is pulsating and vital to our very life” and for research into “the rich treasure of our history,” while others would advance business, law, literature and medicine.
A city the size of Chicago, he asserted, had plenty of eminent Black people to contribute to a movement but “all as individuals [are] working independently it seems, trying to do something big.” Majors urged that “we’ve got to eliminate the monkey wrench form [from] the running gear of our race mechanism” and get serious about improving the race so that “the other races take us seriously, instead of as a huge joke, easily the prey of the tricksters.” He simply concluded: “organization will prove to be our salvation.”
Just after the horrors of the riots, Majors issued a children’s book, First Steps and Nursery Rhymes with the Broad-Ax of 19 July informing its readers that the work was to be ready in several weeks and that it contained history, nursery rhymes and an accounting of African-American progress and it observed,
Up to the present time there has not been written a half dozen Colored Child books. We cannot hope to do much in moulding the character of grown ups, but the child can be greatly benefitted by the rich heritage of lessons extolled in such a book . . . [Majors] has spent a number of years in its production and the public can be assured that the safety and security of our children can be largely determined by the thousand rich truths it contains.
In November, the Chicago Defender, another Black newspaper, began running ads from The Famous Art Publishing Company, an African-American firm that offered “suitable holiday gifts” including images of famous Black men and women, a history of African-American soldiers during the late war and the “Colored Child Series” from Majors.
In July 1920, the author wrote to the Defender, asking why it hadn’t promoted First Steps and claiming “the book is proving to be a paying investment right off the start.” He added that he considered the paper a good place to advertise and reminded it of its promise to
tell a wicked world how your humble friend was struggling to save the children of the Race from utter ruin by teaching them some of the noblest things in life, and have them see and to understand that the color of a skin had nothing to do with being good or bad, and that if it was their ambition to shine in all of the human graces nothing could hinder them in so doing.
The next week, a glowing advertisement appeared in the paper asserting that the book, selling for a dollar, was “breaking all book records,” with a thousand sold the first week, while averring that “it is the true guide, for the colored child toward a happy destiny, and to the realization of the greatest duty.” Calling the work, “The Most Useful Book of our Age,” the piece stated that it “solves the problem of the race in the child mind” and “determines character, high moral vigor, and the honor of the race and colored home.”
In the aftermath of the riots, a state race commission was established and Majors addressed this in the 30 August edition of the Broad-Ax as he asserted that “the unsettled condition of the people just coming out of a great war has been the cause of much of the chaos that now exists.” He wrote that “the question of race prejudice has been an incubus” and noted that Black soldiers joined the American Expeditionary Force to fight for a cause in Europe and “for a country that lynches, burns and murders them” while “they carried the flag, and then brought it back with honor, but they met dishonor on their return.”
Majors continued that “a people long wronged by tyranny and oppression and borne brutal usage almost complaint will in the final analysis have an awakening if they possess a spirit and a conscience.” The end of the world war “put all the races on edge,” but also stirred the oppressed who would demand the rights they fought for in Europe. To acquire property and houses, combat prejudice, oppose segregation and Jim Crow, were issues to be brought before the Illinois commission, while the writer insisted,
The old time darkey is dead and sleeps his peaceful sleep in the grave. The new order of world Democracy tells the black soldier and the black citizen, that to be respected, he must respect himself, and to do that his house must be protected from the mob and the bomb. This high regard for self demands that he must die fighting a man’s fight, asking no quarter and giving none. Peaceable and just, not seeking trouble, nor giving other[s] trouble. Industrious, economic and a proud people, fearing no one but demanding what belongs to all people.
The 22 November edition of the Broad-Ax contained an essay “A Snapshot of Negro Progress” which marked the busy activity of Chicago’s Black South Side and he offered that “could this maelstrom of humanity be made into a race drama, or movie picture, it would present indeed a grand scene.” He detailed existing African-American businesses and real estate and viewing the workings of commerce, media, art and music and other elements “made us proud” while “it caused us to reflect deeply.”
Anticipating further progress for Black people, Majors looked for a noble and successful life, including the fact that “we must make our cash registers jingle,” on earth and “not to die just for the sake of going to heaven.” The essay ended with the admonition that,
The new Negro is at the helm. The store, the office and the shop, and trade, and making life sweet, and Sunday for church, the spiritual life and rest. But we must work, we must make, we must sell, and we must buy of our own business people. Then will come that joy of having only those who have can understand. Then will come to the race that respect and serious regard of sober humanity. People will know that we are no different in the far reaches of nobility even with a black complexion.
This was followed by a 17 April 1920 article in the paper under the heading of “Self-Preservation is Paramount” in which he observed that there were more than 150,000 African-Americans in the Windy City and this could make for a much stronger people. He lamented that “the racial instinct, or the spirit of race aggressiveness is seemingly at a low ebb, or may be we are using all our forces toward religious bigotry, hypocrisy and hurried preparations for death, hell, and the grave.”
Majors scored the church pastor “whose heart is bent on a big collection” rather than leading congregants “in all matters of enterprise which govern our well being on earth” and in securing social justice. He insisted that the goal should be inculcating “the strength to demand what we want, rather than having to stoop to fighting each other over crumbs.” Working together to operate large stores or big banks would go far to letting the powers that be know of the collective strength of Black Chicago, yet,
Ignorance is yet the curse, deeply marked in our blood and nature. Ignorance is yet the infamy that would invite our attention to mystery rather than to practical material things. Ignorance is the fiercest judgment to a suffering, needful people . . . They bomb our homes, and our wives are afraid to sleep at night, and the Negro is still going to church praising God, believing in a security which does not exist, and only can exist by him (the Negro) making himself a powerful determining factor by his own numerical strength.
“Don’t Be a Discredit to Your Race” was another pointed editorial offered by the physician/editor and appeared in the Broad-Ax of 18 September. He began by opining that “there are lots of really good fellows going to the devil, and a host of young women whose impulses to lead a righteous, pure life, are just a bit too fragile, too easily influenced away from the decent reaches of the good, the true and the beautiful.”
Majors acknowledged changing times (he was then 56 years old), but seemed to be speaking to younger Black people when he admonished, “the credit of our race is in your hands” to those who were more concerned about pleasure rather than progress. Understanding the real meaning of life, having a good name and helping those “of weak and fragile natures” were touted as “the best the human soul can strive for.” Avoiding temptation and fomenting self-preservation was crucial as he advised “the best of your human spirit must be used for the best interest of the rest of us.” Majors warned,
Be a credit to your race and learn to distinguish the rude, and crude from the simple and pure. Cast off unfit associations no matter how painful. You must sustain the good name of your parents, and your family life. Work, economize, avoid the vain and vulgar display, and turn from ugly extravagant notions that make one look like a fine fool. The gaudy glass of fashion only strikes the vulgar eye, the praise that is worth ambition is attended by the sense along and dignity of mind.
He cautioned readers to steer clear of men broadcasting bravado and who “will cunningly tell you his devil secret only to drag you down,” while women of extravagant dress, a “vapor of perfumery,” and “cursed with a careless grace, and beauty” was a seducer who “immodest and sloven[ly] may wreck a republic, start a war, or ruin a throne. Beware!”
In its 27 November edition, the Broad-Ax published Majors’ “Who Are You? What Have You Accomplished?” in which he asked African-Americans of long residence in Chicago what they could point to in all of their years in the city as far as signs of success, be this having streets named for them, employing a butler, or not taking opportunities when presented. He also addressed the impacts of the Great Migration when he averred that,
The migrant from the South has done a deal of good for those they found here belonging to their own race, and it ill-becomes the high brow to go with upturned lips, for had it not been the migrant from back home the Negro would have been in a helova [hell of a] fix when the riot broke out a year ago.
The new citizens of the North are buying property . . . They are setting a good example for the rest of us . . . The real citizen in all cases is the fellow that loves the home base, economizes, and studies the duties of civic life and lives it.
Yet, for all of his public utterances, pungent and cogent as they often were, and filled with advice and opinions of which few could fundamentally disagree, the Defender of 21 June 1919 reported that his marriage with Estelle Bonds, which occurred a decade before shortly after he divorced his first wife, Georgia, was annulled by a Chicago judge on the 6th.
The paper noted that Estelle Majors first filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion, but when she requested alimony for supporting their daughter, Margaret, “Dr. Majors submitted proof that the marriage took place within one year after he had obtained a divorce” from Georgia. When she learned this, Estelle was shaken and “was compelled then to ask for an annulment” instead.
The piece concluded that “it is recited in the decree that Mrs. Majors at the time of her marriage was an innocent party to a violation of the law,” this requiring the elapse of a year before a remarriage, “in what she believed at that time, in good faith, that Dr. Majors had been divorced for many years.” With the union officially annulled, Estelle then revered to her maiden name of Bonds and Margaret then took that surname, as well, and was known by that when she embarked on a remarkable career as a classical music composer and pianist.
When the 1920 federal census was taken at the start of that year, Majors was already married for a third time, to Jessie P. Morgan, who was more than a quarter-century younger, while the household included her father and five roomers. As the Roaring Twenties soon burst forth, we will see that, while Majors continued his work as a prominent doctor and widely-read journalist, his personal life would only become more troubled and increasingly at odds with much of what he wrote about in the Broad-Ax.
That takes us to part six, so be sure to check back in with us for the continuation of this remarkable story.
It’s striking that Dr. Majors blamed the Black riots of the early 1920s on veterans of the First World War, who had learned on the battlefields of Europe to fight back with force for their rights.
After some reflection, I began to see his point. From my own experience with mandatory military service after college, especially during my time stationed on the front lines, I know that when you carry a real weapon and face the enemy up close, the instinct is simple: strike first or risk being struck.