Talk with You Like a Woman: African American Women, Justice, and Reform in New York, 1890-1935

CHAPTER 8. I Don’t Live on My Sister, I Living of Myself: Parole, Gender, and Black Families, 1905–1935

237 8 i don’t live on my sister, i living of myself PAROLE, GENDER, AND BLACK FAMILIES, 1905–1935 This is business I want to talk with you like a woman. . . . Dr. Baker tell your officers to stop call up to my sister concerning of me. . . . I am working for my living. . . . I am my own woman I live before so many women officers interfere in my business. . . . I am working, I report; let hence wise be sufficient. I don’t live on my sister I living of myself. —Lucy Cox, letter to Bedford, 1924 I think it would be best for you to take [Carrie] . . . back to Bedford, she has gotten out of my control will not obey me. [S]he prefer the same [type] of criminals which she class herself with in New York. . . . She is my sister as true, we all have nothing against her but the class she keep company with. —Carrie Hall’s brother, letter to Bedford, 1927 Lucy Cox was angry. In 1924, the black North Carolina native admitted that she had made mistakes, one of which landed her in the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford for prostitution. But Cox believed that at the age of twenty-four she could take charge of her life, deal with her missteps , and learn from them. She was frustrated that her release from prison was contingent upon continued surveillance by an approved custodian as well as her parole officer. Her strong will and sense of independence made her resent the fact that her relatives were responsible for reporting on her behavior. Cox’s anger about the parole process provides insight into black women’s relationships with their relatives. More importantly, her demand that she be allowed to “talk” with the prison superintendent “like a woman” demonstrates how black women parolees attempted to voice their concerns 238 REHABILITATION, RESPECTABILITY, AND RACE about the parole process and to negotiate difficult relationships with family members and parole officers who believed they lacked the ability to take care of themselves. Black women like Cox who were paroled from Bedford or the New York State Prison for Women at Auburn between 1905 and 1935 negotiated with state representatives and family members over the conditions of their parole. Race influenced prison administrators’ assumptions about parolees, and the differing expectations of parolees and state officials complicated the parole process. In a significant number of cases, working-class black families handled black female parolees by cooperating with the state. Family members appealed to the state, often ambivalently, in a city whose influence on young women often defeated their attempts to sustain a cohesive, though struggling, family unit. The agents of the state may have regarded black people as an essentialized racial group, but families saw themselves as uniquely concerned with their particular—not necessarily racial—needs. Parole records disclose prison administrators’ racial, class, and gender biases. Black women were often held to different standards and subject to different judgments from white and immigrant women. In particular, black women’s treatment was shaped by administrators’ fundamental disapproval of the black community. Their distrust was often the determining factor when they denied black women parole or cited them for parole violations ; their decisions were often different when the parolee was white or foreign-born. Black women not only bore the ordinary burdens of parole but were also sent into domestic service rather than factory jobs. And although administrators promoted marriage for white parolees, they believed that matrimony for black women would produce more financial insecurity than stability. Expectations and Realities of Parole Parole represented the final phase of rehabilitation, when offenders were released after imprisonment.1 Parole extended the state’s control over the offender when she was no longer under the surveillance of the prison matron and attendants.2 Parolees remained under the state’s legal custody and supervision until they either completed their sentence or were given a final discharge from their sentence for good behavior. A family member, spouse, or employer with the prerequisites of stable employment, respectable community status, and suitable housing had to convince a parole board that they could supervise the former inmate and would report any violations. Auburn superintendent Cornelius Collins warned departing inmates: “The 239 Parole, Gender, and Black Families police will watch you. . . . We will watch you, your friends will watch you. A slip on your part will bring you back to...