Marvel Cooke: Interview #5

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Cooke: At first I found it difficult. People, at this point, would not realize that I might find difficulty working with blacks, but most of them did not want a woman on the staff. It was the fact that I was a woman, and they weren't accustomed to that. Most news staffs up to that time were all male. They felt that they had to cater to what kind of story I went out on. I had to prove that I was capable of going on any type of story, barring some violence that might occur, but I was capable of covering it.

Currie: Did your male colleagues treat you any differently, do you think, because you were a woman?

Cooke: Some of them did. The majority didn't. They regarded me as a newsperson, not as a female newsperson. But the editor, for instance, Dan Burley, was friendly with me on the outside, but he really didn't want a woman on his staff. It was difficult for him to send me into a sensitive area, and I can understand that. He was male oriented, anyway. So I think he tried to get rid of me. I told you the story about that first story I went on. It was a brutal murder: I felt that I almost got the blood on my feet, I had to get that close to it. Really, it almost turned me off, but I had to argue with myself that, "I have to do this if I'm going to be a reporter. I have to do this." But I'm sure he would have preferred me as a women's editor, to cover dance recitals or music, anything but hard news.

Currie: What do you think kept you working for him?

Cooke: I honestly think it was the fact that I was very active in the Newspaper Guild. I looked up that since. The Newspaper Guild came into being in 1933. We must have joined in 1934, because we had the strike in 1935. We must have joined in the very beginning of the Newspaper Guild. I think it was my life in the Newspaper Guild, my membership in the Newspaper Guild, that kept meó

Currie: From getting fired?

Cooke: That's right. No, not from getting fired. They never had a reason to fire me. But for my not leaving, you know. The way Dan was treating me, I would have been happy to have left, but I felt that I couldn't. I must do this. There weren't any other women reporters in Harlem. There had been another paper here before the Amsterdam News, even, the New York Age. But I was the first woman around here assigned to hard-news stories. I enjoyed my life in the union. It took me beyond the boundaries of Harlem, and I could share experiences with a lot of other people, some women in the Newspaper Guild. They were having a tough time, too.

Currie: Were they having similar experiences?

Cooke: Yes. They weren't accepted with open arms into the hard-news area. So I enjoyed that. I enjoyed listening and hearing and growing, and I was always very happy withóI'm happy with that part of my experience at the Amsterdam News, that it took me outside the boundaries of Harlem.

Currie: How do you think you coped with the resistance you got to being a woman? What ways did you decide to deal with that?

Cooke: I don't know that I actually had a program of how to deal with it, but I think, actually, coming up in the kind of family I did, with a father and mother who said, "We want you to get through college, but we want you to work for a couple of years before you get married or before you do anything, because we want you to know how to take care of yourself," and I think it was that kind of background that made me easily able to cope with anything that happened to me in the work force.

There were two other women on the Amsterdam News strike. Both of them resisted going onto the picket line. They didn't want to go out there and picket.

Currie: Why not?

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and even today I haven't lost contact with those people, if they're still living. I seem to outlive all of them.

Currie: Good genes.

Cooke: I'm sure that's what it is.

Currie: Did working on the Amsterdam News require that you work long hours? What kinds of shifts did you work?

Cooke: Let's see. Yes. Working hours are usually 9:00 to 5:00. If a story broke that would require me to be out at night, I would be out at night. I remember one incident very well. I was very disturbedóand I still am disturbedóat the way the police go about arresting people, you know. And I had done a story about how the police treat people that they've picked up for variousósometimes not serious crimes at all. My husband was an athlete and a very well-known one. He was the best quarter-miler in the world at one time. He had a high-school friend who ran into us at a party one night, and this man said, "What have you been doing, Babe?" He was known as "Babe" Cooke. "What have you been doing, Babe?"

He said, "Oh, I've been teaching, and I'm now trying to get into an area that would make more money than teaching."

"You're a fool!" he said. "I am in the police department." I remember my back going up when he said [this]. And he said, "In two years, let me show you." And he showed his bank book, how much he had made. Now, this was way back. He had in the bank close to $100,000 in two years. Well, that was phenomenal money, as far as, you know, we were used to.

Currie: This was in the thirties!

Cooke: Yes! My husband worked at A&T, head of the science department at this college, for $3,000 a year. You know? And my salary was considerably less than that, maybe $1,800 to $2,000, something like that.

And so I remember my husband saying, "How on earth, on a policeman's salary, could you accumulate anything like that?"

So he told us the story of how he did it. That was during Prohibition. If he knew a man who had a little restaurant, and had no right to serve liquor, he would go in as a customer and find out that he was serving drinks in teacups. He said, "I would show my badge and arrest him for violation of the law. He went on: "When he was arraigned and I was called to testify, I testified in a way that I knew he could not be found guilty, and the man would pay me off." And that's how he was able to accumulate all of that money. Well, that didn't make me love the police too much, either.

One night I had a late assignment. I was working for the Amsterdam News, and I came home in a taxi. I saw somebody, a policeman, manhandling a woman, and I stopped the taxi and got out my press card, and I was really going to do a job on this cop. It happened to be my husband's friend. He was shocked to see me. It underlined all the things I had thought about the police. And, of course, we didn't remain friends. But I say that to say I would have assignments at night, because I know that incident happened at night.

Currie: Did you do something with that?

Cooke: I didn't. I don't think I was very brave. You know, we were friends. He wasn't a friend of mine, but he was a friend of my husband's. I did tell my husband about the incident. My husband's "friend" was shocked to see me. He never came back to our house, never got in touch with us again.

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Adam Powell had been raising hell on 125th Street, which is certainly the heart of the Harlem business area. Black people were having difficulty getting jobs at Bloomstein's, a department store on 125th Street. Childs had a restaurant and black people couldn't even go into it as patrons, let alone having jobs. So Adam had a massive picket campaign, a massive campaign for jobs and decency among the merchants on 125th Street. There was a very famous restaurant here called Frank's, which had been one of the most famous restaurants in the city and had a white patronage, regardless of the fact that it was right in the middle of the black area. Black people could go in as patrons, but they were seated in a segregated spot. So Adam picketed them. I happened to be on that picket line, and I went in with him. I was one of the few that went in with him when he discussed his program to procure responsible jobs for blacks in Harlem.

After he really cleaned up 125th Street, we had black workers in all of the places, and we could go in as patrons in all of the places. He started on the firms downtown. Among them was Ruppert's Brewery. The head of Ruppert's Brewery had been a graduate of Syracuse University, where my husband had graduated. So my husband thought that that would be a perfect place for him to apply for a managerial job, and he did. I know. I typed the résumé. Adam finally got to Ruppert's Brewery, which was on the East Side in the nineties, and presented his program to Mr. Ruppert, who sat there very carefully listening. My husband had applied at Ruppert's maybe a year before Adam got to the brewery. So Mr. Ruppert said, "Well, we are about to hire a Negro representative." We weren't black yet; we were Negroes.

And Adam said, "You are? Would you give me his name?"

And he said, "It's Cecil Cooke." Well, Adam and Cecil had been friends in high school, and in college. Adam went to Cornell. Cecil went to Syracuse. There were so few black students in these colleges upstate, they all knew each other.

So Adam said, "Oh, that's fine." And Mr. Ruppert said, "Yes, we'll be very happy to have Cecil Cooke here. You know, he's a graduate of Syracuse, where I graduated." And Cecil got a job within the next few days, financially the best job he had up to that time. I don't think it was the best job that he ever had, but financially, the very best job he ever had.

Currie: What did he do?

Cooke: He was the field representative for Ruppert in the metropolitan area, which included northern New Jersey and the area around New York City, not necessarily New York City, to go in to see how the merchandise was being moved, if there were any complaints. It was a very interesting job, and actually very lucrative. And it gave me a lot of freedom to do many of the things that I wanted to do. Upon reflection, I think that my activities later caused Cecil to lose that job. I always felt that. I can't prove it, but I felt that.

Currie: You mean your being called up before the House on Un-American Activities Committee?

Cooke: That's right. The reason I say that, I was already working for the Compass, and I had been called up before the House Un-American Activities Committee. One afternoonóthe editorial office of the Compass was on the same floor with the switchboardóKatherine, on the switchboard, called me and said, "Marveló" I always went as Marvel Cooke. I never went as Mrs. Cecil Cooke. "Is your husband's name Cecil?"

I said, "Yes, it is." And when I got home, Cecil told me that he had been released from his job, that when he went in that day, he was given his notice. I always felt guilty about it, that my activities had caused him to lose this job that had no political connections at all, you know.

Currie: What made you think that he had lost his job because of you?

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Currie: That's a long time in one place.

Cooke: It certainly is. Maybe it means that I'm not progressive.

Currie: [Laughter.] I wouldn't think so. Maybe we can go on now to the People's Voice. I guess we need to get a little bit of background on the People's Voice. This was Adam Clayton Powell's paper.

Cooke: That's right. He and a businessman by the name of Charles Buchanan, who owned the Savoy Dance HallóI don't know whether you've ever heard of it. It was a famous dance hall in the city. You know, all the most prestigious social clubs would have their dances at the Savoy. Anyway, they felt that there was a need for a paper that would help build the community, rather than sensationalize it, as the Amsterdam News had done. They started this paper, the People's Voice.

I must say it reported the little police doings and the police stories, but in a very different way. There was a crime columnóI've forgotten the title, but the sensational stories were no longer than a paragraph, one, two, three, four. They weren't played up. If you wanted to know about an arrest or anything that was against society, it was in this little column, this little kind of police column. The rest of the paper was made up of stories that would help build this community.

Currie: Can you give me some examples of what you mean by stories that would help build the community?

Cooke: Adam was a very interesting man. He believed in sensational headlines. He thought that that would bring attention to the paper. So he once came inówe saw him once a week when he cameóto discuss the content of the paper, go over the stories. One story, I've forgotten what it was about, but he thought the headline should be "White Race Doomed." I'll never forget that. Big headline with some sort of cartoon or picture illustrating it. But the headline was "White Race Doomed." We had a long editorial discussion. "We don't want the white race to be doomed! What we want to do is participate in the life of the country." And we finally talked him out of that sensational headline. I've forgotten what the story was, but it had to do with some group that was trying to build the black community. It seems to me the story had to do with the National Education Association, which was meeting in Cleveland or some place like that, because Doxey Wilkerson, who afterwards became general manager of this paper, was very active in the National Education Association [NEA]. He had made a presentation about black students in white colleges. It had to do with a positive story like that.

But anyway, Adam thought that the headline should be "White Race Doomed." Anyway, the white race wasn't doomed, obviously.

Currie: Was this financed byó

Cooke: The interesting thing about that paper was that its orientation was toward building this community. His best friend politically was Ben Davis, Ben Davis was like the editorial department behind the editorial department. [Laughter.] He really advised Adam as to what kind of stories he felt, as an activist in the community, should go into the paper. He really gave him a lot of good advice, and the paper became a reflection of what black people wanted, needed to do, their participation in the school system, in government, you know. It started out as a very good paper. In my opinion, it's just a shame that it didn't live.

Currie: So do you know whose money financed it?

Cooke: I really don't. I wouldn't be responsible if I said. I don't know.

Currie: Was Adam Clayton Powell at the Abyssinian Baptist Church at that point?

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Currie: Let me just turn over the tape quickly.

[End Tape 1, Side A; Begin Tape 1, Side B]

Currie: So Doxey Wilkerson called you and said, "Good morning, Lady."

Cooke: He said, "I have been fired from the paper."

I said, "That can't be!"

He said, "Yes, I was fired this morning."

I said, "I will be the next one fired, I predict."

He said, "I don't think they'll touch you."

I said, "Of course. If they fire you, they're going to fire me." I called Fredi and I said, "Fredi, Doxey's been fired. I know I will be fired."

And she said, "And I will be fired." It happened just in that sequence.

The morning after Doxey called me, my lease was to end. That very morning I got this letter signed by a man that I'd always felt was a friendóhe was a lawyer and he was an advisor to the paperósaying that they no longer needed my services.

I called Fredi. She said, "I got mine, too." So actually, I feel they were trying to get rid of people who had any political clout.

Currie: Were you all Communist party members?

Cooke: Well, Doxey was, I was, and Fredi was. But immediately afterwards they fired a few others who were good trade unionists. They fired them one by one. Florence Murray, who was a very good reporter, very good writer, was fired. Doxey's secretary, Madeline, who was very, very good, was fired. Everybody on that staff was not Communist, but they were firing anyone who was active in the Newspaper Guild. I think that was the biggest thing.

Currie: Were all these people active in the Newspaper Guild?

Cooke: We were all members of the Newspaper Guild. It was a closed shop.

Currie: Who was the person in back of these firings?

Cooke: Max Yergan. That's the name I've been trying to remember. It's funny how these things come to you. Max Yergan hadóI can't say that he was ever a Communist, but he had participated in many activities with well-known Communists, and he leeched onto Paul Robeson, who was never a Communist, never a member of the Communist party. I feel a lot of people are Communists who don't even know it, you know. But he made his reputation going around with Paul and participating with Paul. After Doxey left, Yergan became general manager of the paper, and all of us were fired one by one. This began the death of that paper. It died soon after that.

Currie: So he had wrested control from Adam Clayton Powell?

Cooke: That's right.

Currie: So Adam Clayton Powell was no longer in charge?

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Currie: Yes.

Cooke: Just divide it in half.

Currie: So you wanted them to write little?

Cooke: Yes. George's column had to be contained within three half-sheets. Never! And I remember talking to Doxey about having so many problems with this copy, because often some of the most important things would be at the end. So you had to cut it sometimes right in the middle. So I wrote again to George. We were good friends. I said, "Look, George. We really have to have your column within three sheets." But he just kept writing in the same manner. So Doxey, who was friendly with George, too, said to me, "Tell him that you'll just have to lop off after three sheets. Whatever is on the next has to go." George didn't believe it. So we started cutting it after three sheets, and he complained, "Some of the most important things were at the end." I said, "Well, get it in within three sheets." That was the type of problem we had. George learned how to do that.

Currie: This was a different experience for you, having to manage writers.

Cooke: That's right. I didn't do any writing at the People's Voice, none whatsoever. I remember once I got to work early and some little incident happened on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, and I was the only one in the office. I went out and did a little short on it. When Doxey came in and said, "Who did this?" I thought, "Oh, my God, I guess I've lost my touch." I said, "I did. What's wrong?" He said, "It's the best thing I've seen for a long time. You mean to tell me you write like that and you're not writing?"

I didn't have time to write. Really, it turned out I was managing. I was assistant managing editor to no managing editor, because John Louis Clark finally just resigned. I remember Adam saying to him, "Who's going to run the paper?" He said, "Marvel. She's been doing it, anyway." I became assistant managing editor to no managing editor. They would not hire a woman as a managing editor, and I was happy, because the designation "managing editor" was not within the Guild contract. Assistant managing editor was.

Currie: So you couldn't have been in the Guild?

Cooke: I couldn't have been in the Guild.

Currie: So you didn't want to be managing editor?

Cooke: No, I didn't want to. I just inherited the job. I wanted to be out in the street, writing stuff. I didn't want to be managing editor.

Currie: Did they pay you the same as they were paying John Louis Clark?

Cooke: No. No. I got my sameóI've forgotten. It was a very small salary, like $85 a week. I think that that was it, because of a conversation my husband and I had afterwards. Eighty-five dollars a week, that's what I was hired at, that's what I got the whole time I was at the People's Voice.

Currie: You never got a raise in five years?

Cooke: No! The paper didn't have enough money.

Currie: Did anyone get a raise?

Cooke: No. No.

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Cooke: We inherited this man that I just told you about. Most of the people on the People's Voice wrote quite well. They may not have been trained journalists.

Currie: They may not have been trained journalists, but they knew how to write copy?

Cooke: That's right. Fredi was very interesting. I don't think that any black paper up to that timeóI'm not talking about the black papers nowóhad ever had a columnist who was as well versed in her field, or his field, as Fredi was. She had worked as an actress, as a dancer, and she'd worked in Hollywood, but her copy was miserable. She couldn't write a straight line. But I knew that this column was important to the life of the paper. I remember that what I would do was to edit her copy the last, when I could spend a lot of time on it. She realized what I was doing to make it readable. Fredi was just a natural born whatever she was. She had never had any formal schooling. But I knew she was important. Her name was important to the paper, and her copy, the things that she was presenting about difficulties blacks were having in the theater, was important. So I would spend hours rewriting that copy, not changing her ideas, but rewriting that copy to make it readable. She was offered a job on one of the white dailies as a result of this column, the theatrical column, and I was flattered. She said, "Well, you'll have to hire Marvel Cooke, too, because I can't work without her." She never left, but anyway, it was quite a compliment to me.

Currie: So she knew?

Cooke: She knew. She said, "I wish I could put it like that." But anyway, it was an important column. She was important to the paper. It was an important contribution that the paper was making to the arts, and I was willing to work hours and hours and hours to make it palatable.

Currie: What about the other women on the staff? How did you manage them?

Cooke: I didn't. We just worked together well. For instance, Florence Murray was very good. I have a book of hers here. Florence Murray was a very good journalist. She was a very good investigator. She wrote well. I had no problem with any of them, and we liked each other. I never felt like a boss, and they never treated me that way. We got along fine.

Some of the men resented me. The sports editor before the one I just spoke about, who wrote wellóno, he came after. As a matter of fact, this man must have left. Yes, he did, because Joe Bostic came after. Joe knew how to write, and his sports columns were pretty goodówere good. I shouldn't say "pretty good." They were good. He didn't like to work under a woman. He gave me quite a bit of trouble.

Currie: What did he do?

Cooke: He would say, "What do you know about sports? What do you know?"

I said, "Maybe I don't know what you know, but I feel I know how I'd like to read it. I think I know a little bit about presentation." So we managed, battling back and forth like that. It wasn't too bad, but I know that he would have preferred working for a man.

Currie: You said you were hired as assistant managing editor, and you weren't at all sure you deserved that.

Cooke: Because I had never worked in that capacity. All I'd done was write. I never worked in that capacity. But I have a feelingóthis is only a feelingóthat Ben Davis, who was the spirit behind the editorial board, credited me with more ability than I thought I had at that time, and he influenced Adam and his associates to hire me as assistant managing editor.

Currie: John Louis Clark, who was, as you say, alcoholic, what had his background been as a journalist?

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the office would be there with me. Often Florence Murray, the woman I spoke about, would come down with me. She had a good background in news and make-up, because her father was the publisher of a paper in Alexandria, the little town in Virginia, very close to Washington. He had a paper there, and she had grown up in a newspaper. She was very good and very helpful.

Currie: So she knew how to help you make up the paper?

Cooke: That's right.

Currie: I have to say it sounds like most of these men were sort of skating along. [Laughter.]

Cooke: Well, I guess they were. I guess they were.

Currie: I mean, Doxey went to sleep, the managing editoró

Cooke: Doxey did his job.

Currie: Okay.

Cooke: His job wasn't an editorial job; it was sort of an advisory position. He was the general manager, and he set the tone of the paper. He did a lot, but had nothing to do with the Jimmy Higgins work to get that paper out. He saw to it that I got proper transportation home and things like that. [Laughter.] I think Doxey was really very misplaced. I think it was an improper decisionóI don't know who made itófor him to leave Howard University as a professor, to get into this horrendous field, you know.

Currie: Why do you say that?

Cooke: Well, because I am sureówhat was the man's name who was president of Howard so long? Oh, yes! Mordecai Johnson.

Currie: I used to know that.

Cooke: I know that name, too. Anyway, it was felt by students at Howard that when Mordecai Johnson left Howard, Doxey was the natural inheritor of the presidency. He would have been a tremendous president, because he understood so well the problems that black people generally, and particularly students, had. He would have been wonderful. I just feel that it was unfortunate for educationófor Doxeyóthat he was ever lured out of the field of education into this crazy, crazy profession.

Currie: Was the People's Voice a weekly newspaper?

Cooke: Weekly. As a matter of fact, there have been, if any, very few black dailies.

Currie: That's what I understand.

Cooke: Which I am going to talk about that when I talk about going into the Compass, because I had difficulty.

Currie: How many people worked for the People's Voice?

Cooke: You mean entirely in all divisions?

Currie: Yes.

Cooke: Let me see. I can only estimate at this long distance, but I would say there were ten in the editorial office, maybe six in the business office, and maybe four or five others.

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Cooke: Are you talking about the Compass now?

Currie: The People's Voice.

Cooke: I feel that there were forces here in this areaóthere still are, I guessóthat were against the kind of leadership that Adam Powell and his paper played in this community. And it died because it was too progressive. There were forces that didn't want to see it thrive. They'd rather see a sensational paper. We felt our paper was quite sensational when it exposed discrepancies of a landlord.

Currie: A slum lord.

Cooke: That's right.

Currie: But that's something the Amsterdam News was not doing?

Cooke: At that time, it was not. I have a feeling that now it does that. But at that time, they were more interested in the type of story that caused me to leave there: "Killed Sweetheart, Slept With Body," which the People's Voice would never have headlined. They may have capsulized that story in that column that they ran, but they never would have played that story up. They would play up a slum-lord story that caused devastation to the general population.

Currie: What was the thing you liked the most about the job at the People's Voice?

Cooke: Oh, the excitement of being where the news was and handling it and helping make the decision to dispense it to the community. I enjoyed it very much. I didn't enjoy not writing, because at that time I felt that I was going to be a fine American writer. [Laughter.]

Currie: About how old were you when you came to the People's Voice?

Cooke: Maybe thirty-six or thirty-seven, in that age bracket. Yes, about that.

Currie: What's the thing you disliked the most about the job?

Cooke: Not writing. Not having the time to write. I felt that I had some ability and that I could have contributed to the editorial polish of the paper.

Currie: Then from the People's Voice, you went to the Compass?

Cooke: Yes, but I think that there is a story that should come in here. It has to do with the Newspaper Guild.

Currie: Okay.

Cooke: Richard Carter was a young writer on the Daily News or one of those papers. I think he had been at the Herald Tribune. But he felt that he would love to become an organizer for the Guild. The Guild was new, and when he joined the staff, he said that he would prefer to work with the two black units. A friend of mine at the Guild headquarters called me and told me about Richard Carter, that he wanted to work with the uptown units. We were called the uptown units. She thought it would be very good if he talked with me. I remember exactly what I said to her. Her name was Gladys Bentley. I said, "Is he to be trusted?" And her answer was, "All the way."

So she set up a meeting for us at Frank's Restaurant, and I recognized him immediately. He was quite young. He was under thirty. We had a long discussion about the Guild, and he became a really very good representative of the two uptown units. Whenever we had any problem with the management, he was always there and did a heck of a job. It was very interesting, because Richard Carter is the product of a very affluent family, of course not black.

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Cooke: I would be a reporter assigned to whatever came up. I thought this was quite challenging, especially since I'd had that hiatus at the People's Voice, where I did no writing at all.

Currie: He introduced you to other people on the staff?

Cooke: Yes, those I didn't know. There were only two or three that I didn't know, anyway. They knew me. It was a very friendly atmosphere. I remember Sol taking me to the elevator and he said, "We haven't discussed salary." He went on, "I feel very embarrassed to tell you how little the salary is. It's $125 a week, but the paper is new and is struggling, and this is what we pay." I was kind of surprised. I'd never made $125 a week.

I remember coming home. I was still in the larger apartment. Cecil said to me, "Did you get $100 a week?"

I said, "No."

He said, "You didn't? I told you not to take anything less. You've got to get at least $100. What did you get? What are they paying you?"

I said, "One-hundred and twenty-five." But that's how I went to the Compass. I always felt that there could have been somebody better suited to that job than I. But there was nobody in the black press who had been as active in the union as I had been.

Currie: And you knew all these people.

Cooke: Yes, I knew them, and they were very protective of me.

Currie: Protective in what way?

Cooke: Well, Jack McManus was no longer in the Guild because of his position.

Currie: He was the editor-in-chief?

Cooke: Yes. Jack McManus gave me a very, very hard time, and rightfully so in the beginning, because in the black pressóand it still is true, I imagineówe had at least three or four days to develop a story. I was accustomed to taking my time to go into the background, you know. I wasn't accustomed to that kind of pace.

Currie: A daily pace.

Cooke: Yes. I was approaching stories in a not-correct manner. Jack McManus was quite right when he criticized me in the beginning, but my friends on the staff realized what my problem was and they helped me overcome it.

Currie: What did they do?

Cooke: Well, they said, "You know, you're on a daily now. We don't have time to go into backgrounds in the way you have been accustomed to. Maybe tomorrow you can bring another facet to the story. It has to be done at a different pace than you've been accustomed to." I understood that, and I think I was young enough then to have made the adjustment. It wasn't that hard.

But I still seemed to have trouble with Jack McManus. Everything I wrote, he criticized. Finally, Richard CarteróI call him Dickóand the other members of the union, felt that I was being unfairly criticized. "Let's make a complaint about this." I'll never forget the day we faced Jack McManus. I didn't want to go in with the committee, but I had to. Dick said, "We on the desk can't understand why you complain so much about Marvel's copy. It certainly is superior

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Cooke: I don't think it bothered me too much being the only black, because I'd been the only black all my life from grade school, you know. That didn't bother me so much. But being the only woman did bother me, because I felt, in Jack's case, after this incident, I felt that he was being a little tentative about the stories I was assigned to cover.

Currie: How would they do that?

Cooke: I wouldn't be assigned to something that was violent. I did get into one because I was black. There had been some violence in Brownsville.

Currie: This is the story?

Cooke: No, it wasn't the story, but it was my introduction to Brownsville. I'm recreating things.

Currie: That's great!

Cooke: Some young black man who had gone afoul of the law had been sent to an institution for the mentally unbalanced. Because of overcrowded conditions,óhe was one of the least violent,óhe had been released. He lived in Brownsville, a section in Brooklyn. He suddenly went berserk and went out of his house, and he killed a couple of people, one or two. I don't know how many. But the community was in turmoil over this incident.

There was a very good newsman and a friend, who is now not living, named Dan Gilmore, on our desk. He had been assigned to this situation in Brownsville. He called the office and he said, "I think Marvel is the only person that can get through this community. The community has locked arms around that family. It's a well-liked family, and they're not letting any newsmen through. A white newsman can't get through, can't get into that woman's abode. I think Marvel's the only one who can do it."

So I went over to meet Dan. We actually, with some suspicion, did walk through that community. Because of my racial identity, I was able to go through. They didn't suspect me. They didn't want any media attention, the community didn't. They were protecting this young man's mother. I'll never forget. I think I even mentally visualize that apartment. We walked up the steps. She lived on the second floor. We knocked and said who we were, and she said, "I'm not talking to anybody from a newspaper." And I remember saying to her that, "I am black. Somebody's going to write this story. It would be better for you to have reporters who are sympathetic to the situation here than to have it sensationalized the way it will be." So she let us in.

I remember that Dan said to meówe took a taxi back to New Yorkóhe said, "You take this part of the story. I'll take the other." We actually had the story almost written in the taxi before we got to the Compassówe were hitting a deadline. Oh, everybody was so excited about the fact that we were the only paper in the city that had that story.

So when Dan and I came in to work the next morning, I remember Sol, the one that I had seen when I went to get the job, he was the city editor, was pleased with this story. Ted Thackery, the general manager, called Dan and me in. Everybody said, "You're going to get praised for this story. It's a good story. You approached it properly."

We went in. We got hell. Ted Thackery said, "No other paper had a story like this! What do you mean by this story?" Oh, he gave us hell.

Currie: Why did he do that?

Cooke: I don't know. He wasn't the editorial department. He just thought maybe we'd gone berserk on this story.

Currie: That's interesting. Because no one else had it, he didn't want you to have it?

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so this woman and I went up to Westchester Avenue and we did a little pieceóit was constrained by spaceófor the Crisis on the slave market. We did it, and we let her use her name on it. But I actually became fascinated with the slave market at that time. It was many years after that, that I said something about it in an editorial meeting of the Compass.

Currie: And you did something at the Amsterdam News on it?

Cooke: A little, but it wasn't in-depth. It was just that it was there and it was a shame. I didn't say it was a shame, because that would be editorializing, but I presented it that way.

So the editorial board bought it. They thought it would be a good idea. I did go up and establish the fact that the slave market was still thriving. As a matter of fact, thriving better then than it had in days before, because we were deep in the Depression at this time. So I remember getting myself togetheróI think we were in this apartment thenótrying to look like I thought the women on the slave market would look.

Currie: Essentially, just for the record, the slave market is made up of day workers?

Cooke: Day workers, yes. People who needed to augment their very small income in order to live. They did it this way. They'd go up and stand and be assessed as to their brawn, and hired by the women of the community to do day work.

Currie: And there was a place in the Bronx where they would go?

Cooke: There may have been more than this one place, but I did know about Westchester Avenue, about 176th Street. I'm not quite sure, because I don't know the Bronx that well. But I know it was Westchester Avenue.

Currie: So you decided you'd pose as one of these women?

Cooke: Yes, pose. I had never done anything like that before.

Currie: Whose idea was it that you were going to pose?

Cooke: It was mine. It would take a black woman to do it. I was the only woman on the staff, and thank God I was black and I could do it. So I remember getting myself together like I thought these womenóI'd seen them, so I knew how to do it. I had my proper paper bag with my work clothes in it. I went up and stood with several women at that corner, hoping to get hired. The women were suspicious of me because, I guess, no matter how hard I tried, I didn't look quite like they looked.

Currie: How did they look?

Cooke: Well, their nails weren't done, you know. I mean, their lifestyle was so different from mine that I guess I just didn't look the way they looked. They were suspicious of me. They didn't know what I was doing up there. They had never seen me before. I remember my husband used to drive me up there and drop me two blocks away, and he'd say, "I wouldn't speak to you for anything in the world. You just look awful." But I obviously didn't look "right." So I remember there was a bet on at the paper that I would not get a job.

Currie: Why is that?

Cooke: Because they didn't think I could look like these women, you know. I didn't look like I could do day's work, anyway, and nobody was going to hire me. And the bet was, I remember, a quart of Scotch. If I didn't get a job, I would give them a quart of Scotch so they could have a party, and if I did get one, I'd get a quart of Scotch.

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to clean the bedroom first." And she gave me a pail of water, not a mop, but a washcloth. I had to do it on my knees, wash up this woman's floor on my knees. I had neverómy mother had had people working for her in Minnesota. Nobody had had to do anything like that! But I did it. I was very happy to do it, because you know, it was part of the story.

She was cooking, and I noticed she was very clean and I wouldn't mind eating anything that she cooked. I remember it was lamb stew and it smelled very good, and I was getting hungry. I had to do the bathroom on my hands and knees. Just before I was to do the living room also on my hands and knees, she had asked me what my name was, and I said, "Marjorie." I said "Marjorie" because if she called me anything else, like Kathleen, then I wouldn't answer. But it began with M-A-R. So I said, "My name is Marjorie." So she said, "Marjorie, would you have something to eat?" I thought, "Thank God!" And she sat down and gave me some crackers and a glass of tea. I wasn't used to drinking hot things out of a glass, but a glass of tea and some marmalade or something like that, and she sat there and ate her lamb stew. You know, I couldn't imagine doing Rebecca, who was here at my house, that way. That's what she gave me to eat, and she ate her lamb stewówith relish.

When we got through, I finished up the living room on my hands and knees, and she asked me would I do windows. I said, "That's one thing I don't do."

Well, I'm a little ahead of the story, because the girls on the corner had decided I wasn't a plant, and they had become friendly with me. They said, "You've never had a job. You've never done this before. If you get a job, be careful to see what time it is that you go in, because they have a way of setting back the clock on you. If you've put in five hours, they'll say it's four. But you set your clock with whatever time you see in that house," and gave me a few other pointers like that. I had set my watch. She had a clock on the wall, the kitchen wall, and I'd set it with that.

So anyway, I did her floors, all of them, and then she asked me to iron. I am the world's worst ironer. I don't believe anyone irons as poorly as I do. What she had was some men's shirts and some curtains, the kind of curtains that have the flounces around them, you know. I ironed those shirts, and I told my husband afterwards I didn't put a wrinkle in them. I didn't know that I was capable of ironing that well. But I ironed well, and I ironed those curtains with the flounces around them. I was so tired, I was about to drop dead.

So she said, "Well, I have some windows I would like you to wash."

I said, "Well, I don't do windows." I thought, "I've had enough experience here with this woman now."

Currie: You had enough for the story.

Cooke: Yes. I said, "I don't do windows." I said, "By the way, I have some children. I always am home when they come home from school, so I have to leave."

So she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Margie, because I really like you."

I said, "Thank you."

She said, "Would you come next week?"

I thought, "You've seen the last of me!" I said, "Yes, ma'am. I'll be up on the corner." [Laughter.]

The pay was seventy-five cents an hour. That was sort of standard. So I had set my watch and it was now three o'clock. I had gone in there at ten o'clock. So I was owed five times seventy-five cents, whatever that is.

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Currie: What about the series on prostitution?

Cooke: It was my suggestion, also. I felt that the fact that a woman is a prostitute does not mean that she is by nature a prostitute, but that certain circumstances in her life had made it impossible for her to get into the work force, for one reason or another. There are and were many black prostitutes. How I prepared for that series was to attend Women's Court for a couple of weeks, where these women who were prostitutes, who had been jailed, would come before the judge. There would be trials.

To me, I remember sitting there thinking, "My God, I want to get out of this court as fast as I can. I'm bound to see somebody in here I know. Some day I will see somebody I know, and I'll be embarrassed." Because it became apparent that many of them had gone into this field of work because it was impossible to get work otherwise.

I remember I used to carry the current copy of the Compass to see what was going on while I was away. I remember one day going to the ladies' room at lunch break, and a very beautiful black lady, young woman, was in the washroom. She was sitting there. I felt that she was possibly one of the prostitutes. She spoke excellent English, and she was beautifully dressed. She looked like she could be a friend of mine. She could easily have been a friend. So she said, "What is that paper?"

I said, "Oh, it's the Compass." I didn't say I worked on it. I said, "It's the Compass. Do you know the Compass?"

She said, "No."

I said, "I think you'd be very interested in it. It's a very good and a very liberal paper. Would you like to read it?"

And she said, "I'll give it back."

I said, "No, you can have it. You keep it." Her case came up that afternoon. It was held over until the next day. Of course, I was in the court the next day. I said, "This is the last. I'm not coming back in here anymore. I've heard enough stories, anyway."

Currie: What kind of stories did you hear?

Cooke: Well, of course, everybody said that they were not out to pick up a man. But it was obvious what they were, and nobody went into the social reasons that caused them to go into that line of work. This woman worked as receptionist at a massage parlor. The massage parlor was raided, and she was picked up in the raid, although she was not actually prostituting herself. She worked for a house of prostitution. It looked like they were going to be found guilty. She was there with two other women. She was the only black; the other two women were white.

We got together again at lunchtime, when I went to the washroom. It turns out she said, "I hope that nothing happens to me, because my husband is a seaman. He's not in town now." Her husband wasóand this is actually the truth, just like I ran into this girl this dayóher husband was a young man from Minnesotaóa member of a family I knew very well. His mother and my mother were very good friends. I had said when I went in there, "I'm going to run into a friend." You know? I remember. I'll never forget that. That was my last day in Women's Court.

Currie: Did you interview her?

Cooke: No, I didn't. Dick and I went down to a bar prostitutes were known to habituate.

Currie: You tried to get picked up?

Cooke: Yes.

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Cooke: I hadn't all along, but it was assigned to me at some point for some reason that I don't remember. But I was fascinated with this case, and it's always played a big part in my life. You know, when we talk about McCarthy, I remember that case. It was so obvious to me, as a reporter, that these people were being set up because they were progressive, you know. I think that Ethel was on the stand, when one of the workers from the paper came to me and said, "They want you back at the paper right away."

I went back. The paper was closing. Corliss Lamont had got everything he could out of the paper and he was dumping it.

Currie: How much notice were you given?

Cooke: It just seemed, as I remember it, it was as of that moment, but we possibly got the notice dictated by in our contract. Anyway, that was the end of my working on a newspaper.

Currie: How long had you been at the Compass?

Cooke: Maybe two years, not more, not less. About two years. It was very excitingóthe most exciting time I had as a journalist.

Currie: What made it so exciting?

Cooke: Because I was able to do a series like the slave market, which I thinkóI don't know now, in retrospect, I don't know how well I did it, but it exposed a social ill. The story on prostitution, showed how women are exploited. I spent a whole day in jail at Women's House of Detention while I was doing research for that series.

Currie: Was that on the prostitute story?

Cooke: Yes. I've forgotten how I got in. I think some friend got me in. I talked with the women who had been set up or had really been prostitutes. It was very interesting to me to work at that level, you know.

Currie: To really feel the impact?

Cooke: That's right.

Currie: Why were you able to do that at the Compass and not at other papers?

Cooke: Well, in the first place, at the Amsterdam News, I didn't work long enough as a reporter. I wasn't developed. I did know about the slave market, for instance, but I didn't realize what impact revelations about it might have. And I wasn't there long enough. I got to the People's Voice, which I adored, but I was doing the mechanical work. I'm glad I had the experience, because I learned how to put a paper "to bed". But I was not able to do any reporting. I could have assigned somebody to such a story. Often, for instance, Florence Murray did stories I would have liked to have done.

Currie: What were some of those stories?

Cooke: I can't remember now, but they would be stories of some social significance. But I wasn't working, you know, really as a reporter. At the Compass, after I broke through the strangle-hold that the editor put on me, I was able to do many things that I enjoyed doing and exposing. It was creative work, you know. It was creative work.

Currie: We've been going for well over two hours. Maybe this is a good place to stop today, and we can pick up tomorrow.