Black Gotham Stories

The black elite had pursued their lives with the firm conviction that class could trump race.  The draft riots proved The black elite had pursued their lives with the firm conviction that class could trump race.  The draft riots proved otherwise.  Savage mobs invaded and destroyed the homes of prosperous black men.  William Powell, who ran a Colored Sailors’ Home on Dover Street, gave a newspaper account of how the mob spent an entire night attacking his building and how he and his family barely escaped with their lives.  Albro Lyons lived close by at 20 Vandewater Street in a building that, like Powell's, housed his family as well as a Colored Sailors' Home; it also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.   Philip White lived just a few houses from the Lyons home at 40 Vandewater.  Lyons watched helplessly as the mob assaulted his home three times before entering and ransacking it.  After it was all over, a police officer, John Rode, wrote to Lyons telling him to take refuge at “said drugstore.” 

Since Philip’s drugstore was just around the corner on Frankfort Street, I can only speculate that this was the place Rode was referring to. Indeed, quite amazingly Philip found himself protected against the mob by his poor Irish neighbors who were themselves Irish!  His drugstore was not just a successful black enterprise but also a neighborhood institution that his neighbors depended upon.  They did not want to see destroyed.