June 3, 2021 • 11 mins
On this day in 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots began in Los Angeles. / On this day in 1897, blues singer and guitarist Memphis Minnie was born.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. Consider it a double feature.
Enjoy the show. Welcome to this Day in History class,
where we bring you a new tipbit from history every day.
(00:25):
The day was June three, nineteen forty three. About fifty
sailors from the U. S. Naval Reserve Armory and Chavez
Ravine in Los Angeles carried clubs and other makeshift weapons
as they went through neighborhoods near the armory. They attacked
anyone who was wearing a zoot suit, which was a
baggy suit popular among jazz musicians and in communities of color.
(00:50):
For days, servicemen, police officers, and civilians beat and harassed
Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. There were no deaths, but
about a hundred Mexican Americans were injured and one hundred
were arrested, while about sixteen servicemen were injured and fifty
non Latino servicemen and civilians were arrested. A zoot suit
(01:12):
consists of loose trousers, a long jacket with wide padded
shoulders and white lapels, a brimmed hat, and a long
watch chain. The get up grew out of the drape
suits that were popular in dance halls in Harlem in
the mid nineteen thirties. Zoot Suits were sort of a
political statement because wearing so much fabric seemed wasteful and
(01:35):
irresponsible at a time when there were wartime rations on fabric.
In the nineteen forties, zoop suits spread from Black communities
to Latino communities and other groups. In Mexican American communities.
The Patuco counterculture movement embraced the zoot suit for people
who were part of this culture, wearing a zoot suit
(01:57):
was also a fashion in social statement that phacized rebellion
and community inclusion. Too, many people who were outside of
the culture Pachucos were perceived as thugs or too ostentatious
for their social status. In nineteen forty two, the Wartime
Productions Board banned a lot of extra features on clothing,
(02:18):
then banned the production of zoot suits altogether, but some
tailors kept making them and they were still legal to wear.
Along with stereotypes of Mexican Americans who faced discrimination in
media and in daily life, came judgment about the types
of people who wore zoot suits. Many people thought of
Mexican Americans and those who wore zoot suits, especially as
(02:42):
criminals and delinquents. The zoot suit became a sign of suspicion.
In nineteen forty three, Los Angeles was full of service
members from the U. S. Military. The Naval and Marine
Corps Reserve Center in chadez Ravine, or the Naval Reserve Armory,
was located in a part of the city that was
(03:03):
mostly Mexican. Many service members thought that wearing zoot suits
was an affront considering wartime rationing. The idea that zoot
suitors were draft dodgers was also floating around. Zoot Suit
wearers were viewed by many as antagonists, and immigrants in
general were looked down upon in the sentiment of the day.
(03:24):
Mexican Americans and service members were often at odds and
fought with each other. By the spring of nineteen forty three,
there were about two or three fights between people in
each group every day. These small but frequent conflicts escalated
into a larger one that became known as the zoot
suit Riots. On May nineteen forty three, a sailor left
(03:48):
a fight between zoot suitors and sailors with a broken jaw.
This fight is theoretically the inciting incident for the riots
that began on June three, when sailors attacked people wearing
boots suits. In the following days, the violence spread. Service
members beat zoot suitors and stripped off their clothes. Police
(04:09):
officers arrested some of the people who have been beaten.
Thousands more people joined the mobs who were punishing people
for wearing zoot suits or donning related hairstyles. In addition
to Mexican Americans, black people and Filipinos were also attacked.
Cab drivers gave service people free rides, so more came
(04:29):
to the city from throughout southern California. The violence made
its way from downtown Los Angeles to Watts East Los
Angeles and other nearby neighborhoods. Some people did fight back,
but the violence was largely perpetrated by the service members.
Police officers mainly protected the service members and arrested many
(04:50):
of the victims. Local officials did little to stop the violence,
and service members did not face serious consequences. Many news
reports and that the violence was justified. The conflict basically
ended on June eighth, when service members were kept from
leaving bases, and soldiers and sailors were barred from entering
(05:10):
downtown Los Angeles. The next day, the Los Angeles City
Council banned people from wearing zoot suits in public, and
anyone who did would get thirty days in jail. Two
committees were formed to investigate the riots. The Citizens Committee
report found that race prejudice was part of the cause
of the riots. It also said that the poor living
(05:31):
conditions many Mexican American space contributed to any delinquency, and
that the problem of juvenile delinquency in general was not
confined to any race, But the report did not address
the violent actions of the service members. Zoot Suit riots
later happened in other cities in the United States. Zoot
(05:52):
suitors later became leaders in the Chicano movement and were
active in other fights for social justice. I'm a coote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. If you'd like to learn more
about the riots, listen to the episode of Stuff you
Missed in History class called zoop Suit Riots. And if
(06:14):
you can't get enough history, check out Unpopular, a new
podcast that I host about people in history who challenge
the status quo and how their stories can help us
think about protests, dissent, and change in today's societies. Thanks
again for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, y'all,
(06:37):
I'm Eves and you're listening to This Day in History Class,
a show that takes history and squeezes it into biteside stories.
The day was June three, Blue singer and guitarists Memphis
(06:58):
Mani was born. She was one of the most influential
blues artists in the US from the nineteen twenties to
the nineteen fifties. Though I'm covering her today, scholarly opinion
differs on the exact day and year of her birth.
Memphis Mini was born Lizzie Douglas. In her song Nothing
in Rambling, she says that she was born in Louisiana
(07:19):
and raised in Algiers, but us since his records indicate
that she was born in Mississippi and raised in a
small farming community south of Memphis, Tennessee. She learned to
play the banjo and guitar as a child, and she
was much more interested in music than she was in farming.
When she was a teenager, she left home to move
to Bill Street, in Memphis. Memphis, Many began playing music
(07:43):
on the streets with jug bands and string groups. She
also performed at Church Park. By she had married. Anne
was performing with blues musician Joe McCoy. That year. A
talent scout from Columbia Records discovered them and they recorded
the song Bumble Bee Blues, which became one of Memphis
Mini's most popular songs. Over the years, she recorded several
(08:07):
different versions of the song for different labels. The couple
continued to produce records together, and they grew more popular
in and outside of Memphis. They garnered so much attention
that they moved to Chicago, making a name for themselves
on the popular blues scene in the city. She and
blues musician Big Bill Brums went head to hit in
(08:28):
a guitar contest in a nightclub one time, and Many
took the prize. She also took on artists like Tampa Red,
sunny Land Slam, and Muddy Waters. Around ninety five, Minnie
and McCoy broke up. At the same time, Memphis Mini
was getting more work as a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
(08:48):
She toured a lot in the nineteen thirties, especially in
the South. She stood out as a woman in a
male dominated music scene, but she also stood out for
playing new music styles and with different and Truman's. She
worked regularly for talent scout and producer Lester Melrose, who
created a kind of formula for his blues offerings and
(09:08):
toned down Mini's music. In the late nineteen thirties, she
married Ernest Little son, Joe Lawler's, another musician. They made
some of Many's most memorable songs together, including Me and
My Chauffeur Blues and her autobiographical song In My Girlish Days.
Many formed a vaudeville troupe to tour theaters and organized
(09:30):
Blue Monday shows at Ruby Lee Gatewood's tavern, a blues
club on the South Side of Chicago that patrons knew
as the Gates. She played a national electric arch top guitar,
bridging the transition from acoustic Delta blues to Chicago blues.
Poet Langston Hughes described her electric guitar as quote a
musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill. Muddy
(09:54):
water song Honeybee was a reworking of Mini's Bumblebee. Though
Many found success the record industry and club owners did
take advantage of her. In nineteen fifty three, Many released
her last commercial recordings, Kissing in the Dark and World
of Trouble. The audience's taste had straight away from her
acoustic blue sound. Many and some of her contemporaries found
(10:16):
renewed interests, but in the nineteen fifties her health was failing.
She moved to Memphis, and her sister Daisy, helped to
take care of her after her husband died. She was
affected by a number of medical complications in her later years.
Fans sent money and musicians held benefits to help her.
She died of a stroke in August of nineteen seventy three.
(10:40):
Some of the musicians influenced by Memphis Many include her
niece Laverne Baker, Body Rate, and Rory Block. Memphis Many
was one of the first twenty artists inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame when the Blues Foundation established it
in nineteen eighty I'm e chef Code and hopefully you
know a little more about history today and you did yesterday.
(11:01):
And if you have any comments, sark suggestions, you can
send them to us at this day at I heart
media dot com. You can also hit us up on
social media. We're at t d I h C podcast.
Thanks so much for listening to the show, and we'll
see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(11:25):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. Consider it a double feature.
Enjoy the show. Welcome to this Day in History class,
where we bring you a new tipbit from history every day.
(00:25):
The day was June three, nineteen forty three. About fifty
sailors from the U. S. Naval Reserve Armory and Chavez
Ravine in Los Angeles carried clubs and other makeshift weapons
as they went through neighborhoods near the armory. They attacked
anyone who was wearing a zoot suit, which was a
baggy suit popular among jazz musicians and in communities of color.
(00:50):
For days, servicemen, police officers, and civilians beat and harassed
Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. There were no deaths, but
about a hundred Mexican Americans were injured and one hundred
were arrested, while about sixteen servicemen were injured and fifty
non Latino servicemen and civilians were arrested. A zoot suit
(01:12):
consists of loose trousers, a long jacket with wide padded
shoulders and white lapels, a brimmed hat, and a long
watch chain. The get up grew out of the drape
suits that were popular in dance halls in Harlem in
the mid nineteen thirties. Zoot Suits were sort of a
political statement because wearing so much fabric seemed wasteful and
(01:35):
irresponsible at a time when there were wartime rations on fabric.
In the nineteen forties, zoop suits spread from Black communities
to Latino communities and other groups. In Mexican American communities.
The Patuco counterculture movement embraced the zoot suit for people
who were part of this culture, wearing a zoot suit
(01:57):
was also a fashion in social statement that phacized rebellion
and community inclusion. Too, many people who were outside of
the culture Pachucos were perceived as thugs or too ostentatious
for their social status. In nineteen forty two, the Wartime
Productions Board banned a lot of extra features on clothing,
(02:18):
then banned the production of zoot suits altogether, but some
tailors kept making them and they were still legal to wear.
Along with stereotypes of Mexican Americans who faced discrimination in
media and in daily life, came judgment about the types
of people who wore zoot suits. Many people thought of
Mexican Americans and those who wore zoot suits, especially as
(02:42):
criminals and delinquents. The zoot suit became a sign of suspicion.
In nineteen forty three, Los Angeles was full of service
members from the U. S. Military. The Naval and Marine
Corps Reserve Center in chadez Ravine, or the Naval Reserve Armory,
was located in a part of the city that was
(03:03):
mostly Mexican. Many service members thought that wearing zoot suits
was an affront considering wartime rationing. The idea that zoot
suitors were draft dodgers was also floating around. Zoot Suit
wearers were viewed by many as antagonists, and immigrants in
general were looked down upon in the sentiment of the day.
(03:24):
Mexican Americans and service members were often at odds and
fought with each other. By the spring of nineteen forty three,
there were about two or three fights between people in
each group every day. These small but frequent conflicts escalated
into a larger one that became known as the zoot
suit Riots. On May nineteen forty three, a sailor left
(03:48):
a fight between zoot suitors and sailors with a broken jaw.
This fight is theoretically the inciting incident for the riots
that began on June three, when sailors attacked people wearing
boots suits. In the following days, the violence spread. Service
members beat zoot suitors and stripped off their clothes. Police
(04:09):
officers arrested some of the people who have been beaten.
Thousands more people joined the mobs who were punishing people
for wearing zoot suits or donning related hairstyles. In addition
to Mexican Americans, black people and Filipinos were also attacked.
Cab drivers gave service people free rides, so more came
(04:29):
to the city from throughout southern California. The violence made
its way from downtown Los Angeles to Watts East Los
Angeles and other nearby neighborhoods. Some people did fight back,
but the violence was largely perpetrated by the service members.
Police officers mainly protected the service members and arrested many
(04:50):
of the victims. Local officials did little to stop the violence,
and service members did not face serious consequences. Many news
reports and that the violence was justified. The conflict basically
ended on June eighth, when service members were kept from
leaving bases, and soldiers and sailors were barred from entering
(05:10):
downtown Los Angeles. The next day, the Los Angeles City
Council banned people from wearing zoot suits in public, and
anyone who did would get thirty days in jail. Two
committees were formed to investigate the riots. The Citizens Committee
report found that race prejudice was part of the cause
of the riots. It also said that the poor living
(05:31):
conditions many Mexican American space contributed to any delinquency, and
that the problem of juvenile delinquency in general was not
confined to any race, But the report did not address
the violent actions of the service members. Zoot Suit riots
later happened in other cities in the United States. Zoot
(05:52):
suitors later became leaders in the Chicano movement and were
active in other fights for social justice. I'm a coote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. If you'd like to learn more
about the riots, listen to the episode of Stuff you
Missed in History class called zoop Suit Riots. And if
(06:14):
you can't get enough history, check out Unpopular, a new
podcast that I host about people in history who challenge
the status quo and how their stories can help us
think about protests, dissent, and change in today's societies. Thanks
again for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, y'all,
(06:37):
I'm Eves and you're listening to This Day in History Class,
a show that takes history and squeezes it into biteside stories.
The day was June three, Blue singer and guitarists Memphis
(06:58):
Mani was born. She was one of the most influential
blues artists in the US from the nineteen twenties to
the nineteen fifties. Though I'm covering her today, scholarly opinion
differs on the exact day and year of her birth.
Memphis Mini was born Lizzie Douglas. In her song Nothing
in Rambling, she says that she was born in Louisiana
(07:19):
and raised in Algiers, but us since his records indicate
that she was born in Mississippi and raised in a
small farming community south of Memphis, Tennessee. She learned to
play the banjo and guitar as a child, and she
was much more interested in music than she was in farming.
When she was a teenager, she left home to move
to Bill Street, in Memphis. Memphis, Many began playing music
(07:43):
on the streets with jug bands and string groups. She
also performed at Church Park. By she had married. Anne
was performing with blues musician Joe McCoy. That year. A
talent scout from Columbia Records discovered them and they recorded
the song Bumble Bee Blues, which became one of Memphis
Mini's most popular songs. Over the years, she recorded several
(08:07):
different versions of the song for different labels. The couple
continued to produce records together, and they grew more popular
in and outside of Memphis. They garnered so much attention
that they moved to Chicago, making a name for themselves
on the popular blues scene in the city. She and
blues musician Big Bill Brums went head to hit in
(08:28):
a guitar contest in a nightclub one time, and Many
took the prize. She also took on artists like Tampa Red,
sunny Land Slam, and Muddy Waters. Around ninety five, Minnie
and McCoy broke up. At the same time, Memphis Mini
was getting more work as a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
(08:48):
She toured a lot in the nineteen thirties, especially in
the South. She stood out as a woman in a
male dominated music scene, but she also stood out for
playing new music styles and with different and Truman's. She
worked regularly for talent scout and producer Lester Melrose, who
created a kind of formula for his blues offerings and
(09:08):
toned down Mini's music. In the late nineteen thirties, she
married Ernest Little son, Joe Lawler's, another musician. They made
some of Many's most memorable songs together, including Me and
My Chauffeur Blues and her autobiographical song In My Girlish Days.
Many formed a vaudeville troupe to tour theaters and organized
(09:30):
Blue Monday shows at Ruby Lee Gatewood's tavern, a blues
club on the South Side of Chicago that patrons knew
as the Gates. She played a national electric arch top guitar,
bridging the transition from acoustic Delta blues to Chicago blues.
Poet Langston Hughes described her electric guitar as quote a
musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill. Muddy
(09:54):
water song Honeybee was a reworking of Mini's Bumblebee. Though
Many found success the record industry and club owners did
take advantage of her. In nineteen fifty three, Many released
her last commercial recordings, Kissing in the Dark and World
of Trouble. The audience's taste had straight away from her
acoustic blue sound. Many and some of her contemporaries found
(10:16):
renewed interests, but in the nineteen fifties her health was failing.
She moved to Memphis, and her sister Daisy, helped to
take care of her after her husband died. She was
affected by a number of medical complications in her later years.
Fans sent money and musicians held benefits to help her.
She died of a stroke in August of nineteen seventy three.
(10:40):
Some of the musicians influenced by Memphis Many include her
niece Laverne Baker, Body Rate, and Rory Block. Memphis Many
was one of the first twenty artists inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame when the Blues Foundation established it
in nineteen eighty I'm e chef Code and hopefully you
know a little more about history today and you did yesterday.
(11:01):
And if you have any comments, sark suggestions, you can
send them to us at this day at I heart
media dot com. You can also hit us up on
social media. We're at t d I h C podcast.
Thanks so much for listening to the show, and we'll
see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(11:25):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
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