HG grew up during the bleak days of The Great Depression. America was a very anti-Jewish place. Father Coughlin, “The Radio Priest”, spewed hatred on the airwaves to a large audience and his newspaper, “Social Justice”, was sold in front of Catholic churches and major thoroughfares in The Bronx. Banks and other financial institutions (as well as most corporate giants) did not hire Jews. Elite colleges and all USA medical schools had strict quotas regulating the admission of Jews. Most suburbs had restrictive covenants and many hotels, country clubs and resorts advertised “Restricted Clientele.” The Nazi German-American Bund was active in New York and New Jersey and filled Madison Square Garden for its swastika bedecked rallies. Labeled “Christ killer,’ young HG survived many violent encounters. (HG recalls Lenny Bruce’s 1950’s comment about the Christ killing charge: “No, it wasn’t me, It was my cousin, Milton.”). However, there were some bright icons in those days. FDR, of course. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (“The Little Flower”); Shirley Temple, the child star worshiped by HG (HG still has the blue pitcher sporting Shirley’s face that was HG’s hot cocoa glass. HG believed that little Lesley, HG/BSK’s daughter, was the reincarnation of the curly-topped Shirley); Canada’s Dionne Quintuplets (Louise Penny, the Canadian mystery writer, uses a fictionalized version of the Quints in her novel, “How The Light Gets In”). The brave Americans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought Franco’s Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. (Many years later, Sam W., a veteran of the Brigade, was a journalist colleague of HG’s. Sam had remained an ardent and outspoken Leftist, a dangerous position in those days dominated by Senator Joe McCarthy); Joe Louis, the great heavyweight boxing champion (and later a client of publicist HG). This post is being written on June 22, 2019, the 81st anniversary of Joe’s first-round kayo of Max Schmeling, a German, a Nazi and a favorite of Adolf Hitler. The fight at a filled Yankee Stadium lasted 134 seconds of the first round. If not stopped, Joe might have killed him. It was that brutal. Like all of New York, nine-year-old HG listened on the radio. It was more than a fight. It was Democracy vs. Nazism. A Black Champion vs. Racism. Celebrations were madly joyous, especially in Harlem. The fight also ended the Depression as American industry began gearing up for World War Two. That war changed many things. But, racism and anti-semitism still thrive.
Terrible and lovely memories…My father talked about the joe lewis fight Also. An idol.. And loved boxing even into his 90s! Sadly even though I grew up in a really small Roosevelt town in Maryland I too experienced Frightening anti-Semitism. Hey sweetie pie
That last hey sweetie pie was for my dog!