Getting a glass of whiskey on the Barbary Coast had never been difficult. The gold rush meant, among other things, that libations would be plentiful in the towns and camps that sprung up throughout the new state of California. (1) But African American men, stepping into a bar during Reconstruction meant coming face to face with Jim Crow. By 1872, bar rooms and restaurants in the West's most populous city shunned African American patrons. In fact, many African Americans believed, according to San Francisco's black newspaper, The Pacific Appeal, that prejudice against color is now as bitter among proprietors of public as it was before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fifteenth Amendment. Colored men are liable to insult, by asking to be served with a meal, in almost any inferior restaurant in the city, quipped the editorial's author. California, of course, was not special in this regard. African Americans in every state in the nation faced Jim Crow restrictions in hotels, streetcars, bars, and cafes. But the state's reputation as a place free from the harshness of segregation and racialized violence made this treatment in public places noteworthy, and some, particularly insulting. In Washington, DC, in the previous summer, federal judges had ruled, in a lawsuit black Californians followed closely, that saloon keepers could no distinctions on account of color to whom they shall sell liquor. (2) If you could be served a drink in the nation's capitol, on the Mason-Dixon line, reasoned black men in California, surely they should be entitled to the same pleasure. Men and drink surfaced repeatedly in the pages of the state's black press during Reconstruction. In 1872 two African American men were scolded publicly disrupting a Republican meeting in San Francisco while intoxicated. Clearly, the Jim Crowed public facilities had not stopped black men from drinking. But pressure to exhibit the right kind of manhood, as befits new citizens, prompted the anonymous writer of the column about the drinking duo, To Be Regretted, to warn for the credit of the colored citizens at large, we hope that their friends will persuade them not to make themselves so ridiculous in a Republican meeting again. (3) The fact that these men were torchbearers of one of the city's Republican Club made the spectacle that much worse. Newly franchised and struggling to stake their claim in the state's Republican Party, some African American men worried that this type of behavior played into the hands of those who argued that black men were not fit to be citizens. Not at liberty to enjoy themselves in the city without being scrutinized, black men's leisure time, and how they spent it, spoke volumes about the limits of and possibilities a new kind of manhood. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the place of race in California's early popular culture. This essay examines spaces of public entertainment to ascertain what these sites tell us about black masculinity as it was shaped in the critical years after the Civil War, when African American men exercised new rights to the franchise. How have we understood blackness and masculinity in 19th century California? What does a study of theaters, parades, and celebrations reveal about manhood and citizenship? Studying race and masculinity in the U.S. West offers an opportunity to examine the varieties of masculine identities and stereotypes created in 19th century American culture. On the one hand, given the pervasive image of the black cowboy, one might assume that African American men exercised male privilege more freely in states and territories west of the Mississippi. Indeed, the possibilities to exhibit such manliness have been the source of celebration by 19th century black leaders and authors. Bragging about conditions in the Pacific Northwest during Reconstruction, black newspaper editor Horace Cayton, Sr., wrote, We are the new frontier and thousands of Negroes come to this part of the country and stand up like men and compete with their white brothers. …
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Jan 1, 2022
M.N Tikhomirova + 1
Open Access
