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Serving As Your Voice of the Nikkei Community Since 1902
Vol. 63, Issue 13 / March 19, 2008
African Americans and Japanese Americans
By David K. Yamaguchi
The North American Post
Businesses at 12th and Jackson, 1937. Oval sign at top right reads "Black and Tan Cabaret."
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The same building today.
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OVER THE MARCH 8-9 WEEKEND, the Northwest African American Museum opened to great fanfare at the old Colman School. I believe that all should put it on their lists to get over there in the coming months. As the NAAM is the first local ethnic museum out of the gates in a big way, perhaps we can get some new ideas on running such institutions.
Additionally, as the black and Japanese communities have lived side by side for decades, at least two of the exhibits on display relate to us. Specifically, while the caption of one historical photo describes the post-war Black Elks Club, where a 17-year-old Ray Charles had his first regular gig, the image includes the dental office of Dr. Toshikiyo Uchida (father of Miyoko Kodama) above Aoki Shoe at Maynard and Jackson. Similarly, a larger display highlights the Black and Tan nightclub, which occupied part of the brick building on the southeast corner of 12th and Jackson. Today filled by a single Vietnamese grocery, before World War II the building housed the Black and Tan, Chikata Drugs, and Tazuma 10c Store (run by Bushiro Tazuma, the father of columnist Yukio Tazuma).
This shared history is evident in a historical photo of the building, posted at the downtown bus stop on the northwest corner of that intersection.
What remains unclear from the brief explanatory paragraph there, however, is where the Black and Tan was in the building.
This mystery was cleared up for me in February, when I sat next to Florence Sumida at a dinner. When she mentioned that Chikata Drugs had been her father's business, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask her about the Black and Tan.
Florence Sumida
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Ms. Sumida explained that the Black and Tan was in the basement. She pointed out that there is a door, still present, at the eastern end of the building that leads downstairs. That was the club entrance. Thus, as a child, she could lie on the rug in the parlor of their home, which was the back of the store, and listen to jazz coming up through the floor. When she would do so, her mother would "have a cow," because she didn't think it was the sort of music a little girl should be listening to. In any case, with Ms. Sumida's story, especially its central image of a little kid laying on the floor, I'll remember the configuration of the three businesses in that small building from now.
In the big scheme of things, it is hard to know how much this little story of the Black and Tan and Chikata Drugs matters. Certainly it adds breadth to the local recorded history of WWII-era relations between blacks and JAs, when both knew prejudice well. As my dad has said, "It is really something to not be served in a restaurant." It may thus find value in capturing the minds of African-American students-in helping them place the history of JAs in context relative to their own.
In any case, the story of the Black and Tan and Chikata Drugs enriches the literature on African-American/JA relations in Seattle. It builds on the more widely known story of the arrival of Kakichi Tsuboi, Issei patriarch of the Tsuboi family, famously given hot coffee and dry clothes his first night after jumping ship by a kindly black couple, a Mr. and Mrs. John Moore (see Kazuo Ito's Issei). And for Sansei, of course, there is the cult story of Beacon Hill Boys, Ken Mochizuki's semi-autobiographical account of growing up JA among blacks in the 1970s. (Say what?)
For me, the story of the Black and Tan and Chikata Drugs illustrates the delicious local history that is slipping
through our fingers, week by week. It shows how the sand of such stories can be caught, simply by writing them down and parking them in places like this.
For words written in these humble pages will live on. As the example of the Japanese American Courier (a pre-WWII Seattle Nisei paper) shows, future generations of JA scholars will plumb them by University of Washington microfiche and by whatever technology replaces it (see Feb. 27 article in this paper).
Let me close on the broader themes of ethnic history museums and the importance of writing down family stories that attach human faces to history while we have them. These are ideas I learned listening to National Public Radio earlier this month.
Having written stories matters because it ensures that people are not forgotten. Writing stories helps descendents know who they are. Writing history will help them to be proud. Writing history will help them to be strong.
So send us your story, or tell it to the good folks at Densho or at the Omoide project. Mou osoi desu-The hour is late. The bell doth toll. Start today.
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