52 Niggers
Julius Eastman had a way of walking. He had a swagger, a way of
swinging hips. He rarely strolled or ran. Instead, skin tight jeans/
black leathers slung low on his waist, sucked down by the velocity of
his gait, he cruised and rolled. He played loose. He played cool. He
worked fast.
He scored Stay on It in one sitting. He wrote through the night, the
full next day, the next night. He wrote fast. He wrote moment, place. He
wrote sentiment and soul. He orchestrated the body: his body, body in
motion, body as it flexes to move a pen, form a fist, make mark, lift a
drink.
He rewrote the classical music canon. He inserted pop. He noted free
improvisation. He bucked the conventions. He fucked minimalism. He
reworked the rulebook: Cage’s anal atonal progressions, Glass’ linear
additive processes, Reich’s phasing and block additive methods. He
started the Post Minimalist revolution, New Music, Improvisation, call
it whatever you like.
He made the call. He beat them all to it: John Cage, Steve Reich,
Philip Glass. This was 1973. This was America. Glass was still only
glistening on the surface. Reich was outside the country, hauled up
somewhere in Africa, playing poacher, plundering Ghanaian polyrhythmic
beats. Cage was still stuck in his cage, his soundproof room, his
anechoic chamber. Cage was still tuning silence; tuning into his nervous
system in operation, low throb of his blood in circulation. Cage was
tuning: “Until we die there will be sounds.”
Who needs them? Eastman was already at the edge. While Cage could
only hear his body, Eastman’s music mapped those sounds: pulses
pounding, sweat producing, blood surging in veins. While Reich filched,
Eastman felched, digging his tongue deep, exposing himself, getting off
on his own shit. Fuck the division between private and public, feral
cruise and cocktail soirée. Fuck stuffy formalism of avant-garde
composition: “forms”, “malls”, “isms” and restrictions.
“He had radar that could detect bullshit.” He hated that shit. He
hated hip hyp-o-crazy: the lecture halls, the concert chamber; the sound
proofed rooms and white gallery cubes. Everything purged of colour.
Specifically: all the walls and the ceilings and the floors; white. More
white than white, the kind of white that repels. No smells, no noise,
no colour; no doubt and no dirt. No nothing. No eating, no drinking, no
pissing, no shitting, no sucking, no fucking.
He rebelled. He headed out. He hit the gay clubs, the crack houses,
disco dens. He listened up to the sound on the street. He saw the
violence. He saw the hate. He saw anger. It moved him. It ran him. It
called his shots. He stayed cool with it. He stayed justified. He
channelled the rage. He wrote it down. He stayed on It; He spread the
word. He said: “Find presented a work of art, in your name, full of
honour, integrity, and boundless courage.”
It was futile. They ignored him. They indulged him. They used him.
They strung him along. A black face looked good on record. 1974. The
Creative Associates on the bench of the Albright-Knox Gallery. Official
photograph. Used by permission. Front, l-r: Julius Eastman. His features
a blur, the white balance thrown out – shooting for white – just a
duffle coat and sneakers, just an outline, a black smudge, a dark mark,
stop gap framed by smiling white faces.
They used him to fill the gaps. Petr Kotik looked him up. He was
putting together a concert series. Big names: John Cage, Earle Brown,
and Christian Wolff, the original New York School. They wanted to
diversify. They were looking for someone to represent. Kotik wooed him.
Kotik went through the motions. Kotik invited him around. Uptown
apartment. Konik at the door. He said, “Come in. Straight through here.”
He pointed with his hand. He led the way. He said, “Grab a seat.”
Eastman sat. Eastman stared. Fancy pad: white walls, plants and lights,
stiff long-back chair. Konik poured drinks. Konik smiled. Konik paid lip
service. “What kind of music do you want to hear? You hungry?”
He said, “Big Break.” He said, “Big names: John Cage, Earle Brown,
Christian Wolff.” Eastman sat, stared. Eastman listened. Eastman timed
the pause. He felt the hate. He felt the anger. He started to say – No,
wait. Maybe? He took a breath. He challenged the rage. He counted notes.
He took the score. He said, “Sure Pete!” He sat. He smiled. He had this
craaazy idea.
The performance took place. 1975. The June in Buffalo Festival, SUNY
Buffalo. Now legendary. Now infamous. Kyle Gale told and retold the
story: “Chaotic at best! Eastman performed the segment of Cage’s
Songbooks that was merely the instruction, ‘Give a lecture.’ Never shy
about his gayness, Eastman lectured on sex, with a young man and woman
as volunteers. He undressed the young man onstage, and attempted to
undress the woman…”
He started with her top button. He worked fast. He worked
fastidiously. His hands jumped. He dripped sweat. Second button, third.
She wasn’t sure. She trembled. She shut her eyes. Fourth button. The
audience twittered. The audience buzzed. She looked up. She made eye
contact. Her eyes swam. She grabbed his hand. Everything froze. Time
hung back. She looked down. She broke free. The audiences erupted. The
audience roared. Someone stormed the stage. Someone hit the lights.
All hell broke loose. John Cage freaked. Cage raged. Was that meant
to be a joke? Who’s laughing? Am I laughing? He came down hard. He came
down spitting words, throwing authority. He said, “I’m tired of people
who think that they can do whatever they want with my music!” He
stormed. He banged the piano with his fist.
He said, “The freedom in my music does not mean the freedom to be
irresponsible!” He used his lecture’s voice. He couldn’t make the break.
For all his talk about crossing boundaries – noise/ music, life/ art –
he couldn’t take the leap. His “anti-art” was still the same old shit:
natural law devalued, social tradition minimized, rebellious gestures
only accepted if they stayed safely walled in, caged within the
tradition they sought to denied. Cage as cage.
Even his thinking on silence was caged, locked within the audible
order, a lecturer’s voice: something to learn, rather than lose yourself
in. Silence as ambient sound, nonintended sound. Silence as the sounds
of life. He said, “Until we die there will be sounds.” He said there
will only be silence in death. The implication was left hanging: we
can’t experience our own death so we can’t experience silence. Silence,
like death was the impossible crossing of a border. Audibility vs.
inaudibility, life vs. death: oppositions that can’t be overcome,
borders that can’t be crossed. And the hierarchy was clear: Life was
where it was at. Death was the undesirable, a dispensable deviation,
something to be silenced.
Cage said, “I have nothing to say and I am saying it.” Eastman had
something to say and he was unsaying it. Cage raged and lectured.
Eastman acted. He showed up the con of Cage’s “instructions”. He
de-con-structed. He gave voice to silence. He injected real life, lived
experiences, street politics into art. He created an unsound
politico-musical discourse, a line of flight that radically threatened
Cage’s abstract political discourse, the white language of the classical
avant-garde. He scared the shit out of Cage.
Cage reacted. Cage hit back. He said, “Irresponsible!” He rallied
support. Walter Zimmermann called it “rotten”. Peter Gena said, “Abuse!”
Petr Kotik called it “sabotage”. He said, “I should have guessed he was
unsuitable.” He said, “scandal.” Eastman was tagged: Crazy Nigger. The
reputation stuck. The blacklist built: Eastman the Evil Nigger, Eastman
the Savant Saboteur, Gay Guerrilla sooo-preme.
His guitarist brother Gerry said, “Give it up Julius. Play jazz. At
least a black man can make half a living playing jazz.” Fuck that shit,
man. He refused. He knew the score; their story is history: crazy
black gay mutherfucker, all danger and despair and downward trajectory.
Ismael Reed’s old “post-Mailer syndrome”, the “Wallflower Order”: “Jes
Grew, the Something or Other that led Charlie Parker to scale the
Everests of the Chord… manic in the artist who would rather do
glossolalia than be neat clean or lucid.”
He refused to be composed. He answered them with If You’re So Smart,
Why Aren’t You Rich? A 20-minute fuck you. Fuck you to your score. Your
over-determined definitions of what it means to be black. Pre-de-scribed
borders and hierarchies: beginning/end, classical/jazz, silence/sound,
hite/black, between order/ disorder, meaning and meaninglessness, life
and death.
He worked on unweaving the whiteness from within. He started at the
end, a funeral march, a single line, chromatic scales on slow ascent,
going going then BAM! Drawing it up, drawing it out, ripping it open, a
quickdraw halt, a slash, a silence, coma, full stop, semicolon connoting
rhythm of speech, interrupted thought. Then more scales, building
slowing, coalescing, multiplying the metre into a seething swarm, a
glowing brass mass where desire equals death, where death, and the
approach to human death, is no longer an end but a beginning.
He kept his own score. He rocked up for rehearsals dressed like a
jazz cat, a disco queen. All black leather and chains and dripping
desire and fuck yous. He pitched high or drunk. He hung loose, he jived,
whisky slung low in left hand, a tight fist. Then he hit the piano and
everything changed. Time changed. Time redacted. Space erased. Knuckles
became fluid, joints broken down, fingertips riding hard and wide;
trembling then going taut.
The contradiction was too much. They wrote him out. They wrote him
off. They accused him of silencing himself. “He could have had it so
good if only he hadn’t had the personality problems.” He lost his post
at SUNY-Buffalo. They called him in. The office. Two chairs. One desk.
The books lining the walls like ghosts from another epoch. The Professor
shuffled papers. His button down shirt perfect white, white on white.
He cleared throat. He glanced up. He said, “Take a seat”. He
cited, “Neglect of administrative duties.” Eastman didn’t stay for the
rest. He walked. He took the stairs. He said, Paperwork? Fucking
paperwork? He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Outside it was warm.
Thirty degrees at noon. Campus was crammed. Students between lectures,
taking lunch. They jostled him. They pushed past.
He kept walking. He followed the sound on the street. Downtown, 1980,
music pumped from open windows and revved motors, fragments and
samples, notes and the repetitions. Richard Pryor’s world of “junkies
and winos, pool hustlers and prostitutes, women and family” all
screaming to be heard.
He wrote hard and fast. He scored Evil Nigger, Gay Guerrilla, Crazy
Nigger in close succession. He tore into classical tropes and
constructs. He deconstructed. He found rhythm. Street politics embedded
in the beat, the repeated piano riffs, the propulsive badbadDUMbadaDUM
brass blasts. Cool cadence balanced rhythmic flow, as in poetry, as in
the measured beat of movement, as in dancing, as in the rising and
falling of music, of the inflections of a voice, modulations and
progressions of chords, moving, moving through a point beyond sight,
sound, vision, being.
He played the preacher man, rocking out on a counting-in chant,
“one-two-three-four”. He played the poet. He re-dubbed Lee Perry’s “I am
the Upsetter. I am what I am, and I am he that I am”. He wrote The Holy
Presence of Joan of Arc. He said, “This one is to those who think they
can destroy liberators by acts of treachery, malice and murder.” He
rapped Richard Pryor’s Supernigger. He was unstoppable.
He played The Kitchen. He hit the stage alongside Merdith Monk and
Peter Gordon. He hooked up with Arthur Russell. He toured Europe. He
filled houses. He flew off. He came back. He put out feelers to record.
He was ready to get it down. To get it out. Reich’s Music for 18
Musicians was going massive. Glass’ Metamorphosis was everywhere. He
contacted cats he knew via the circuit. He said, “What’ve you got
going?” He waited. He made more calls. He chain smoked and watched TV.
He slept through whole days. He woke. He drunk whisky. He slept. He
watched TV. Old Pryor skits on NBC. “White. Black. Coloured. Redneck.
Jungle bunny. Honky! Spade! Honky honky! Nigger! Dead honky. Dead
nigger.”
He played the college circuit just to keep going. North Western 1980.
Members of the faculty took offence. The African American fraternity
didn’t like the nigger shit. It was like Édouard Glissant never existed.
Like Ismael Reed, Richard Pryor, hip-hop never happened. No word on the
street. He had to explain. From the beginning. “Recontextualization?
You know the whole ‘re-appropriation’, ‘recannibalisation’ thing?”
He took to the mic. He said: “There are three pieces on the
programme. The first is called Evil Nigger and the second is called Gay
Guerrilla and the third is called Crazy Nigger.” He spoke smooth. He
flowed easy. He mirrored Pryor’s buzz in making obscenities sing. He
paused after each title. He let it hang. He waited for it: the reaction,
breath suspended, waiting for a ripple, a laugh, some kind of
recognition of the humour at play. Nothing. Fuck. His audience was
silent. Not even a twitter, a nervous giggle. He held the pause a second
longer – Jesus, even he felt like laughing – but no, nothing. Just
silence, just Eastman, just his nerves’ systematic operation, his
blood’s endless circulation.
He tried again. His voice wavered. His voice woofered. It bounced
high and wide. FUCK – Overfeed. Overamp. From the start. He said,
“Nigger is that person or thing that attains to a basicness or a
fundamentalness, and eschews that which is superficial, or, could we
say, elegant.” He said, “There are 99 names of Allah.” He paused. He
said, “There are 52 niggers.” But still it wouldn’t go away. The
whiteness always returned, whiteness woven into the fabric of Culture,
whiteness locking everything else out. Silent. White faces stared back.
Blank, unmoved: they could see only one.
One more drink. One more pill. It was getting tight. 1982. Nothing
coming. The walls closed in. Cash was low. The apartment cost. The clubs
cost. The drink cost. He got headaches. He drank himself to sleep. He
swallowed whisky shooters. He popped uppers. He shot poppers. A downhill
slide. Cornell University turned him down. “He was just too damn
outrageous.”
A failed application to the Paris Conservatoire. The letter came in
the post. One white envelope, black type. He said, “Damn them damn them
damn them.” He tore it up. He let it drop. He headed out to score. He
head east, the lower Eastside. Further out, the windows all covered
meshed-over glass burglar proof stuff; homeboys on the sidewalks rhyming
beefs, little men with big shirts and the chicks in tight skirts.
He kept going. He walked. He didn’t give a shit. He felt zero. He
felt zip. He felt ate up. His skin buzzed. He took a left. He crunched
glass underfoot. He took a right. Low door. Dark interior. Match boxes
and glass pipes. Cracker jacks on low stools. White smoke that hung in
low clouds. He took a seat. He took the hit. He sucked deep. He held it
in. He let go. He felt it hit. His mouth closed. His head dropped
black. His eyes rolled. And white appeared. Absolute white. White beyond
all whiteness.
White of the coming of white. White without compromise, through
exclusion, through total eradication of non-white. Insane, enraged
white, screaming with whiteness. Fanatical, furious, riddling the
victim. Horrible electric white, implacable, murderous. White in bursts
of white. God of “white.” No, not a god, a howler monkey. The end of
white.
[Julius Eastman died in 1990.
Unjust Malaise, a 3 set CD of his compositions,
culled from university archives, was released by New World Records in
2005. This was Eastman’s first official release. No commercial
recordings of his work were made during his lifetime.]
![This was a common chant at numerous carnivals, fairs, and circuses across the United States throughout the late 19th century until the mid 1940s, as Americans took part in one of their favorite pastimes, "African Dodger."
The African Dodger, also known as "Hit the Nigger Baby" or "Hit the Coon" was as commonplace in local fairs, carnivals, and circuses as Ferris wheels and roller coasters are today. The purpose of the game was to hit the target with a ball-with one of your three throws-and win a prize. It sounds like a common carnival target game, but there was one unsettling part of the game, namely, the game's target was a real live human being, a "negro" human being. In St. Louis in 1913, it was reported that carnival organizers were "unable for hours today to secure an 'African Dodger' who would allow baseballs to be thrown at his cranium at the usual rate of three for 5 cents;" the reason was that future Hall of Fame fastball pitcher Walter Johnson was rumored to be at the fair ("Don't Want", 1913). The game was so popular nationwide that newspapers mentioned the African Dodger game along with trained animals, illusionists, penny arcades, merry-go-rounds and magic shows in the list of a carnival's attractions. Dodgers made headlines when they were seriously and horrifically injured-otherwise, they were nameless victims.
In 1904 in New York, the Meriden Daily Journal reported how a dodger was smashed in the nose by a professional baseball player. The Journal reported that Albert Johnson dodged "fifty or sixty cents" worth of balls thrown by "Cannon Ball" Gillen of the Clifton Athletic club. Finally Johnson "exposed his head and face a little farther than usual" and was caught by a curve ball that left him unconscious. The article, which was written as a play-by-play commentary on the incident, concluded with the report that it "will probably be necessary to amputate the nose in order to save Johnson's life" ("Hit African", 1904).
But this was not the only report of serious injuries to the dodger. There were numerous reports of such incidents; for example, at the Sheraden Methodist Protestant Church street fair in Pittsburgh, John Jones "failed to dodge" and was hit "squarely in the eye" ("Ball Hits", 1916). In Ohio, Grady Williams was struck in the eye by a stone by someone who "stood to one side and threw a stone at the negro" ("Threw Stone", 1915).
In Connecticut, Walter Smith was hit "with such force that several of the dodger's teeth were knocked out, and the ball was locked so securely within the negro's mouth that it had to be cut to pieces before it could be removed" ("His Mouth", 1908).
In Hanover, PA, William White was assaulted by local baseball players who brought their own heavy balls and "hit the 'coon' nearly every time." The reporter described how "courageously" White took the punishment and wrote that the "negro was pretty well used-up." Only after this, do we find out that the injuries sustained by White were internal and "may prove fatal" (" 'Coon Hitting' ", 1908).
At an Elks Lodge Jubilee in Washington DC, just 17 miles from the White House, the "visiting Elks were royally entertained" as "'nigger babies' were hit with baseballs until they were unable to maintain their upright position..." ("Elks Jubilee", 1908).
There may be no better example of the pervasiveness and brutality of the African Dodger game in American society than an advertisement in the Providence News on September 11, 1924.
Wants African Dodger to Face Balls at Club Fair
Do you want to earn a few precious dollars on the evening of September 19 and 20?
If you do and if you are not at all particular as to what happens to your head why apply at Room 10 in the building at 144 Pine street. Ask for Charlie and tell him you "saw his ad in the paper". Charlie is looking for a lion-hearted and hard-headed young man who will act as an African dodger at the big carnival to be staged by the West Barrington Community Club. The reward? That is a little matter that you can adjust with Charlie. He will treat you fairly and will see that you reach the Rhode Island Hospital safely in the event that that [sic] one of the baseballs comes in contact with your head.
We beg your pardon for not detailing the duties of an African dodger. He just puts his head through a hole in a big piece of canvass and permits the aforesaid head to be used as a target by young men who toss baseballs.
One day last week an African dodger was killed in Elizabeth, N.J., and the week before a dodger was killed in Hackensack, but don't permit these deaths to influence you. ("Wants African Dodger", 1924).
The African Dodger game was widespread in American society, in every part of the country. If you could not make it to the fair, you could purchase for $.69 an African Dodger table game, which featured a caricatured black face poking through a canvas reading "Hit the Dodger! Knock Him Out! Every Time You Hit Sambo The Bell Rings" ("Bloomingdales", 1893).
African Dodger Game
But how could this all be? How could such a barbaric practice be such an integral part of a "civilized" society? How could Americans justify this practice? Were there any objections?
One response to objections to the brutality of the African dodger game was to summon authorities to provide "scientific" findings on the topic. A short article in The Wayne County Democrat cited "authorities on anthropology" who "state that the negro has a very heavy and massive cranium constituting a bony arch of great resisting power. One scientist refers to the 'common habit of negroes, of both sexes in butting like rams'[which]...indicates that a negro's head bones have defensive strength unknown in the Caucasian race." The newspaper assures its readers that the dodger doesn't mind. "He seems cheerful about it." The players of the game, the ones who throw the ball, are just men with a "man's desire to display his powers", particularly in front of "women friends." The article finally concludes that until there is evidence that shows "fractured skulls or brain contusions" or until the dodger takes issue himself, the game will continue. A final warning is provided to the dodger who may be considering a new line of work that "He might regret to lose a daily wage that comes with less effort than manual labor" ("The Black Dodger", 1913).
After all, what could be so bad about a game that was an "innocent" sport ("Large Crowd", 19"7) and a game that was "fun for the small boys and the grown-ups as well" ("Dodger", 1907)? A game played by Governors ("Preparing", 1912), famous ball players like Ty Cobb ("Bob Thayer", 1911) and Babe Ruth (Wagenheim, 1974, p. 35), what could be wrong with that?
When legislation was presented in 1915 to ban some forms of the game at Coney Island, the headline read: BAN ON "BONEHEAD" HITS. The proposed ban was framed as "depressing news" for those who may be unable to participate in the "soothing exercise of hitting with a baseball the head of an 'Ethiopian' as it protrudes from a hole in a canvas sheet." But don't just feel sorry for the players, understand that "many persons who have no more profitable use for their heads will join the army of the unemployed" if the bill is passed and Africans are no longer allowed to dodge ("Ban", 1915).
Hit the Nigger Baby
In 1911, some carnivals ushered in a new game for the "progressive era" called the African Dip, the precursor to the dunk tank. The game was "arranged that every time a baseball hits the target a colored man, seated upon a bar, is thrown into a large pool of water. It's said to be lots of fun..." ("It's Called", 1911). This new game didn't entirely replace the African Dodger. Versions of the original African Dodger were still found in the 1950s. Some carnivals and fairs decided to use targets that resembled African Americans instead of using real people. Promoters sold entire family doll racks that were used as targets at Amusement parks (A. J. Smith Mfg. Co., 1914). The development of Amusement parks in permanent locations increased the popularity of the African Dip game because it was hard to travel with the African Dip dunk tank. Riverview Amusement park in Chicago Illinois, was well known for their popular African Dip attraction, which was a staple there until the late 1950s.
It may be hard to imagine a world where such barbaric games were accepted and played, and to understand why people would allow themselves to be targets. This is another example of the complexities of relationships during the Jim Crow era. The idea that African Americans were sub-humans was prevalent and widely accepted. Religious speakers, politicians, and scientists all agreed and "proved" that the African was a "less evolved" creature and therefore not subject to humane treatment. Almost everything in American society pointed to a hierarchical structure, whites on top and blacks at the bottom.
With everyday objects, forms of entertainment, advertising and public policies confirming this hierarchy, it is possible to see how whites came to believe they were superior and how some blacks could internalize these images, practices, attitudes and policies and come to see themselves as inferior and to accept the role of target. It's also difficult for many to see the negative impact of racist games when playing them is associated with fondness of yesteryear. One of the most popular attractions at zoos during this time was the "Negro Village" or "Human Zoo", but that's a topic for another day.
Franklin Hughes
Diversity & Inclusion / Jim Crow Museum
2012
References
Smith Mfg. Co. (1914, March 21). Amusement devices [Advertisement]. The Billboard, p. 76. Retrieved from
http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Billboard/Billboard%201914/Billboard%201914%20-%200873.pdf
Ball hits African Dodger. (1916, July 22). The Gazette Times, p. 1. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=J-ba04ztB30C&dat=19160722&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Ban on "bonehead" hits. (1915, February 10). The Washington Herald, p. 6. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045433/1915-02-10/ed-1/seq-6/
The black dodger. (1913, September 19). The Wayne County Democrat, p. 3. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=wXCFTzxW9NYC&dat=19130919&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Bloomingdale's (advertisement). (1893, December 14). The Evening World, p. 8. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1893-12-14/ed-4/seq-8/
Bob Thayer's sporting gossip. (1911, June 2). Washington Times, p. 15. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1911-06-02/ed-1/seq-15/
'Coon Hitting' peril. (1908, September 22). The Philadelphia Record, p. 4. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=QDEWnZBrHwAC&dat=19080922&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Dodger is an expert but sometimes he is hit. (1907, October 31). Richland Shield and Banner, p. 6. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=cInq4TRmCz8C&dat=19071031&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Don't want craniums pelted with balls by Walter Johnson. (1913, July 19). Omaha Daily Bee, p. 2. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1913-07-19/ed-1/seq-2/
Elks Jubilee ends. (1908, June 19). The Washington Herald, p. 14. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045433/1908-06-19/ed-1/seq-14/
His mouth full of ball. (1908, August 6). The Philadelphia Record, p. 1. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=QDEWnZBrHwAC&dat=19080806&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Hit African Dodger. (1904, August 17). The Meriden Daily Journal, p. 6. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=h-OLoDDdPfcC&dat=19040817&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
It's called the "African dip" and it's a new one out at Flemington. (1911, July 28). Trenton True American, p. 1.
Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=6g4f2aSzPAQC&dat=19110728&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Large crowd, ideal weather. (1907, September 19). Custer County Republican, p. 4. Retrieved from
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn94055463/1907-09-19/ed-1/seq-4/
Preparing for the fair. (1912, August 7). Red Bank Register, p. 1. Retrieved from
http://rbr.mtpl.org/data/rbr/1910-1919/1912/1912.08.07.pdf
Stegner, W. (1957). The Big Rock Candy Mountain. New York: Sagamore Press, Inc.
Threw stone at African Dodger; Hit him in eye. (1915, May 15). Youngstown Vindicator, p. 10. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=pqgf-8x9CmQC&dat=19150515&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Wagenheim, K. (1974). Babe Ruth: His life and legend. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Wants African Dodger to face balls at club fair. (1924, September 11). The Providence News, p. 19. Retrieved from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=Dnd9Dw9jpwAC&dat=19240911&printsec=frontpage&hl=en](https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10410966_529202733893220_4659004985478626735_n.jpg?oh=3dc4fd4fc5147e365b5a68081a78d5a6&oe=54CBD4EA)
