Story continued from the April ‘19 NEWSCENE edition. The Times Magazine had assigned a team of journalists to cover the barge landing for the arrival of the king and queen staged by the white, Cotton Carnival celebration. While waiting for the arrival of the white king and queen, they heard the sounds of bands playing music and crowds cheering coming from Beale Street. What the saw and heard compelled them to craft an article for the Times Magazine. They recorded this story: “Beale Street’s Hero… Times… May 25, 1936” “A centre of celebration last week was Memphis’ Beale Street, the garish Negro thoroughfare with it’s assortment of poolrooms and pawnshops, its gin parlors and its hot-fish restaurants. While Memphis whites were celebrating the annual Cotton Carnival, Beale Street was having its own Fiesta, crowing its own king and queen, parading its own elaborate floats. The king was Undertaker Eddie Hayes. The Queen was Ethyl Venson, pretty young wife of a Negro dentist. Highest honors throughout the fiesta were paid to a portly old Negro who had motored from his home in Manhattan for the occasion. A great hero in Beale Street is William Christopher Handy, 62. At the small park named in his honor, Handy mounted a reviewing stand built…” The parade and the return of Handy attracted the attention of cities and media across the nation and had the effect of giving the celebration instant national acclaim. The 34-piece Autress Russell American Legion Post No. 27 Drum and Bugle Corps led the parade. The corps had been organized by Dr. Venson during his tenure as Post Commander. Many of the legion’s members were also part of the Fiesta’s organizing committee. The enthusiasm of the Drum and Bugle Corps’ involvement in the Fiesta was an example of the overall spirit of the Negro community in 1936. Their readiness to participate in a joint effort for the uplifting of a people is what made the formation of the Beale Street Cotton Makers’ Fiesta and its successor, the Memphis Cotton Makers’ Jubilee, great and successful. Dr. Venson was the Post Commander and he was able to get the Post to serve as a co-sponsor of the celebration, in part because many of the Post members were on the Board of Directors that was organizing the celebration. The Beale Street Cotton Makers’ Fiesta was a Memphis community event, partly because of the clout represented by the diverse and profound leadership represented on the organizing board. This diversity must be attributed to the range of leaders Dr. Venson was able to assemble to organize the celebration. The formation of MCMJ was a testament to a spirit of unity and ability to unite for a common good that existed in the Negro community in the 1930s that is not been as prevalent since. The signature event following the Grand Fiesta Parade was the Coronation and Masquerade Ball held at the Beale Street Auditorium in the gateway to Church Park. Most of the music played was written by W. C. Handy. The Ball attracted hundreds of white people. Space was reserved for them in the gallery of the auditorium. Several hundred Negros attended the ball. W.C. Handy could not resist the temptation of dancing with the beautiful Queen Ethyl, wife of the celebrations founder, Dr. R. Q. Venson. The “Ladies in Waiting,” a part of the Royal Court for the King and Queen, watched as Handy and Queen Ethyl danced to the music played by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, “King of Jazz” who played Handy’s greatest classic of the jazz age, “The St. Louis Blues.” No souvenir program was printed for the 1936 celebration. The first printed program booklet came out the following year. This program displayed a picture of Robert R. Church on the front cover as a dedication and tribute to Mr. Robert R. Church. Most importantly, on the first page in the program was an article titled, “The Cotton Makers’ Jubilee Initiation and Aims.” If there had been a souvenir program printed for the 1936 celebration, this article would have been the lead article. The article does not say who the author was. From my experience in reading articles written by Nat. D. Williams, his fingerprints and DNA were all over it. The article is so significant that it has been made part of this documentary. THE COTTON-MAKES JUBILEE INITIATION AND AIMS In 1937 “The Memphis Cotton Makers Jubilee” is the official name attached to this year’s celebration, this is the most unique, promising, interesting, and significant demonstration ever engaged in by the colored people of Memphis and the Tri-State area. It is unique because it marks one of the first times in the history of this area, with rare exceptions, that colored and white Memphians and Delta citizens have been united in a common program for the advancement and development of their common home community—the Deep South—the cotton belt. Cotton—its production, exchange, distribution, financing, and construction—touches all phases of life in this section, and makes no discrimination among classes or colors in its influence. The great Memphis Cotton Carnival—an annual Memphis event—is a celebration which is dedicated not only to the spirit of conviviality periodically expressed and common to all people, but is also a tribute of recognition to the part which cotton plays in the life and substance of this community—Memphis On The Mississippi—the Capital of the Cotton Kingdom. The objective—the principal one—of the Memphis Cotton Makers Jubilee celebration is to symbolize the great and important part which the colored people of this area have played in the history of cotton. 34
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