Keeping an Open Mind About it All
A decade and a half later, in early May 1940, Marvel Cooke, a reporter for the
Amsterdam News, walked the streets of Black Metropolis investigating what her
newspaper headlined as Harlem's "Million Dollar Take." Cooke estimated that there
were some 200-odd spiritualists, and perhaps as many again card readers, crystal gazers,
and their ilk, reaping "nearly $1,000,000 from approximately 50,000 or so Harlemites
passing through their doors annually." This was one of the "few businesses in Harlem
which has actually flourished during the latest period of economic stress." Sipritualists,
fortune tellers and the like were "usually housed in dimly lit, smelly railroad flats
in sections where they are not apt to be hounded by the police who periodically declare
war on them." There were two issues that these modern "miracle workers" were called on
to resolve: "Am I going to find work?" and "Am I going to hit the number soon?" It will
come as no surprise to discover that the vast majority of customers, though by no means all,
came from the ranks of the unemployed and the poorest of Harlem's residents.
It matters little where these people were genuine spiritualists and fortune
tellers or out-and-out conmen and women. The underlying business...
Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars, p96-97