"The Reminiscences of Bayard Rustin," interview by Ed Edwin (New York: Columbia University Oral History Office, 1987), 6:245–50.
The Oral History Collection of Columbia University

Q: Coming back to A. Philip Randolph's attempt to coalesce the blacks for economic objectives, would not Malcolm X's Muslim economic programs have fitted in well, fairly well with what Mr. Randolph was attempting to achieve?

Rustin: Yes. Mr. Randolph was never opposed to the Muslim's appeal to blacks to engage in entrepreneurial activities. He went out of his way time and again to say that this was a great strength of Elijah Muhammad—he was opening these shops. Mr. Randolph had called many meetings in Harlem of business people, to try to get them to engage in business. Now obviously he failed, as Malcolm failed. I was in Harlem a week ago, and I went up and down 125th Street literally examining what was happening in most of the businesses. Most of the businesses on 125th Street are owned by people from Asia, largely Cambodians, Vietnamese, and people from Korea—I would say over eighty percent of the shops selling vegetables, selling fish, restaurants—so that the entrepreneurial activity at that level is almost non existent in the black community.

Q: Mr. Rustin, you mentioned how little black entrepreneurship there is in Harlem, particularly on 125th Street. I'd like to flash back here to that compendium that Dr. Kenneth B. Clark put out, I think it was under the auspices of HARYOU* quite a few years ago. Part of that included a survey of entrepreneurships in Harlem, in which he found that they were almost all white, the major exceptions being only barber shops and hair dress parlors. Now, from what you have just said about the Asians, I gather there has been something of a sea change up there as to who's selling the produce, perhaps. Who's running other types of shops?

Rustin: Yes. Actually, at the time Clark made his study, and I would say up until five years ago, the major entrepreneurial activity across 125th Street was carried on by Jews. The Apollo Theater was owned by a Jew, Frank's restaurant was owned by a Jew. The Theresa Hotel was owned by Jews. The big department store on 125th, Blumstein, was owned by Jews. A. J. Lester, the major clothing store, was and is owned by a Jew. The two major drug stores were owned by Jews. Now a number of those institutions have disappeared. Institutions, for example, Hotel Theresa, Frank's restaurant—they've gone.



Jewish stores and other non–African American businesses have long existed and been controversial on 125th Street in Harlem.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division


Q: Frank's is gone too?

Rustin: Oh yes. Frank's has been gone. Practically all of the theaters in Harlem, while owned by the big companies—which I don't know if they were Jewish or not—were managed by Jews. The theaters are all gone. There is not a single, major movie house in the whole of Harlem. Now, to a degree, the few barber shops and hair dressing parlors left in Harlem are still owned by blacks. But that is for the black poor. For the black middle class, who used to go to Harlem, their shops are now below 59th Street, along 57th Street, along Third Avenue, Second Avenue, downtown. A number of the young enterprising blacks actually go to white hair dressing parlors and have their hair done—Sassoon, and the like. What you have in Harlem, therefore, now as entrepreneurial activities are young blacks on the streets with carts and tables selling, but they don't own shops by and large. These are people selling records, selling clothing, selling soaps, that kind of thing, jewelry. But the small, quick service restaurants—Korean or Asian. The fish shops—where they sell both raw fish and fish in sandwiches, cooked fish, fast shops—they are practically all Asian. The vegetable shops are largely all Asian. Most of the notion shops. The big department stores have largely gone, and there are a few of the clothing stores, like A. J. Lester's, which are left. The shoe stores are largely owned by the major shoe corporations, and a few are managed by blacks. There are two major shops where they sell sporting equipment—sneakers, tennis equipment, baseball equipment. They are owned by blacks. But the theaters are gone, many of the hair dressers are gone, many of the major middle-class restaurants are gone, because the minute blacks had the opportunity to eat, go to the theater and movies, where they had the opportunity to do this, then they selected those that were less expensive, those that were considered the best, and so they ended up downtown.

Q: Do I recall—perhaps it was in the last interview—that you said that A. Philip Randolph anticipated this movement downtown?

Rustin: Yes, he did. This was a part, again, of his having called for the economic summits amongst blacks to try to get them to prepare for the next stage. It's very hard for people to prepare for the next stage if they're in the process of getting civil-rights legislation. They don't want to hear about what the next stage is. They do not understand that every victory is a problem, that every success creates new conditions that are negative, to be overcome. It was not possible for Mr. Randolph to get that over to the black community, much as he tried in three decidedly different ways. First he attempted it by getting this summit, and he didn't get that. He then attempted to get it by issuing what he called the Freedom Budget for all Americans, which was an economic, overall ideal program for how America ought to operate to eliminate poverty. That was largely prepared by Leon Keyserling, who had been Truman's economic adviser.

Q: He'd been chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Truman.

Rustin: That's right, under Truman. Keyserling drew that up with Mr. Randolph's guidance. That didn't sell. Then he attempted to set up the New York committee as an illustration. He thought that if it worked in New York, then it would be picked up in other places. That fell on its face, fundamentally because people were so busy attempting to get the voter-rights act, the education act, and the housing act, that they lost the ability to look at the forest for looking at the trees.

Q: Now do I recall correctly, also, that Malcolm X and his New York Muslim organization had at least one restaurant—I don't know whether it was fast food or not—in Harlem?

Rustin: They had several—there were two or three. Well, they had three or four steak shops, steak sandwich shops. They devised an imaginative steak sandwich. It was served with onions and other things. Then they had several bakeries, shops where they sold baked goods, the chief of which was something Elijah Muhammad had developed, which was a pie, bean pie. It was made from a variety of legumes which were ground up together and sweetened, and was sort of a cousin to the pumpkin pie. That sold very very widely. They had one or two clothing stores, at the height of that development, and they had one or two stores where they sold frozen foods. In addition, they had two or three shops where they sold notions. So, Harlem was sort of speckled with these shops that grew out of Malcolm X's—I guess they call them mosques there, 116th Street and Lenox Avenue. The big clothing store was under the mosque, and one of the large steak shops was under the mosque. One of the bakery shops was under the mosque—that is the first floor. The mosque was one flight up, as you probably recall.

Q: To your knowledge, were most of these operations profitable?

Rustin: They were very profitable for a time. The very fact that they went out of existence, I think, was not because they were not practicable but because of the split which occurred when Malcolm broke away from Elijah Muhammad.

* Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited