Affective Histories: The Harlem Uprising of 1943

In this paper I apply affect theory to what historians refer to as the Harlem “riot” of 1943, a two-day demonstration of property destruction that occurred six weeks after the deadliest riot in American history (Detroit) and during heightened tensions of World War II. On a summer evening in 1943, local Harlem residents and tourists alike danced, laughed, socialized, and otherwise made their presence known in the most famous Black neighborhood in America. Hours later, three thousand Black Americans took to the streets in forty-eight hours of protest which resulted in five deaths and over $5 million dollars in property damages. Affect theory has been employed in many disciplines as a way to reinterpret traditional understandings of human experience and behavior within oppressive systems. This article applies Margaret Wetherell and Sara Ahmed’s respective affect theories to develop a new framework for understanding the Harlem “riot” of 1943 as an anti-colonial uprising, paying special attention to the centrality of women as actors, and their rejection of exploitation as a central theme of the forty-eight hours of violence. The term “riot” holds attention on the masculine performance of violence, the illegality, disorder, and destruction, whereas I center Black women as productive agents of disruption and refer to the Harlem event of August 1-2, 1943, more capaciously as an anti-colonial labor uprising. What began as an individual act in defense of Black womanhood against white control represented in a NYPD officer’s assessment of Marjorie Polite, transformed into a popular critique, albeit brief, of the affective political economy in Harlem, New York.