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——————————————————————————————————— Henry L. Hudson, “How and Why Alcoholics Anonymous Works for Blacks,” in Frances Larry Brisbane and Maxine Womble, eds., Treatment of Black Alcoholics, published as Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, Vol. 2, Nos. 3/4 (Fall 1985 / Winter 1985-86 (New York: Haworth Press, 1985), pp. 11-30. The following excerpt is taken from pp. 18-22: ———————————————————————————————————

How and Why Alcoholics Anonymous Works for Blacks Henry L. Hudson

Henry L. Hudson, B.A., C.A.C. Director of the Staff Counseling Unit at Montefiore Medical Center, 111 East 210 Street, Bronx, New York 10467.

Origins of the First Black AA Groups

[18] An AA group started by a Black physician, Dr. Jim S., in Washington, D.C., in 1945, has the distinction of being the first AA group in a Black community. As a result of Dr. Jim’s alcoholism he went from practicing medicine to doing unskilled labor and day work. His story is quite similar to those of other original AA members, except for the fact that he is Black. The process by which he became affiliated with AA was also quite typical. A Black woman, Mrs. Ella G., who was a friend of Jim’s family, had developed an interest in alcoholism through church work and because of an alcoholic brother. Through her efforts to help her brother, she had become knowledgeable about alcoholism and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Mrs. G. had made the acquaintance of a sympathetic White AA member, who had a strong enough commitment to AA principles, and he was willing to “twelve step” a Black alcoholic. She suspected that Jim had a drinking problem, and arranged for a meeting between him and Charles S. We do not have all of the details of the conversation which took place between Ella, the Black woman and Charles, a White, Southern [19] “reformed drunk,” who was being asked to violate important social mores, and enter into an intimate peer relationship with a Black, in the form of a “twelve step call.” There are no records of his thoughts at the

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time, but we do have a record of the outcome. Charles S. performed a rather routine twelve step call on a Black middle-class alcoholic. He told Jim something about his own drinking history, about the disease of alcoholism, and how it manifests itself in life situations. He also spoke about how he had come into the fellowship of AA. He also communicated how the AA program changed his life, and agreed to become Jim’s sponsor (Jim S., 1976). Dr. Jim S. not only achieved sobriety through this effort, but he immediately became active in “carrying the message” of AA to other suffering alcoholics in the spirit of the Fifth Tradition and the Twelfth Step (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 1952). He became actively involved with other Black alcoholics, mostly from the lower socioeconomic class, and finally was successful enough that he was able to start the first Black group in 1945. He reports in a letter to the Alcoholism Foundation that his sponsor was not the only White member who was willing to place AA traditions and principles above the consideration of race and class:

I wish to state at this time that several of the White group members have visited our group meetings and have taken an active part, many times addressing the group or acting as group leaders. We have found them very inspiring and enthusiastic. (Jim S., 1945)

The claim is not being made that all White AA members were as liberal as those in this small group, nor that their feelings concerning the primacy of AA principles were feelings held by the majority of White AA members. The chairperson of another Black group, which was forming in St. Louis during this period, comments on this reality in a letter to the Foundation Office on October 20, 1945:

I must admit that when I contacted the AA Office in St. Louis, the representatives who called at my home to discuss the possibility of forming a group for Negroes were most unprejudiced in their attitudes and offered us quite a lot of help. They did, however, explain that all members of the White groups [20] here in St. Louis did not feel as they did about accepting Negroes into their own groups and suggested that we form our own group. (Torrence S., 1945)

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But the record indicates that there were enough White AA members with sufficient commitment to AA principles and traditions to carry the message of AA to Black alcoholics, and to provide help for those Black alcoholics who requested it. By the middle of 1945, the fellowship had grown to approximately 13,000 members and 465 groups in the continental United States. We have no way of knowing at this time the number of Black AA members, but there is definite knowledge of two Black groups, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in St. Louis. A third group in Valdosta, Georgia, is believed to exist. We also know of an integrated group in New York City. In 1947, the first Black AA group was established in New York City in the Black community of Harlem. A detailed examination of the historical development of AA in this Black urban community is presented as an example of similar processes which were going on in other Black communities in large urban areas throughout the United States.

AA and the Black Urban Alcoholic

Leach et al. (1969) stated that two objective measures of the effectiveness of the AA program of recovery for a particular group or community are the number of AA groups established and maintained by the members themselves and the number of weekly meetings. In line with this thesis, we could say that AA was not a meaningful resource in the Black community prior to the early 1940s. But of course, AA was not a factor in treating alcoholism in most American communities during this time. But in New York City, as in other communities. Black alcoholics became aware of the fellowship and its activities in the early 1940s. Therefore, the real test of strength of AA in Black communities can be determined by examining what happened after 1941.

The Integrated Group

One of the AA groups established in the early 1940s in New York City was the Greenwich Village group. According to records in the AA archives, this group was known as the ‘‘integrated group” by [21] 1946, because it had several Black members. Harold U. (a Black AA old timer, reports in an oral history (Hudson, 1978, IB) that the first Black to join AA and get sober in New York City was either Ted W., a middle-class Black postal worker from Brooklyn, or John H., who worked for a rich White couple living in Greenwich Village. John H. was either a chauffeur, a domestic or a cook. Of the

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first Black alcoholics to join AA in New York, one was middle-class in terms of occupation, and one was from the lower socio-economic class. Both joined the Greenwich Village group, which was all White at the time. Thus, we know that some of the White members of this group were willing to do twelve step work and sponsor alcoholics who were Black. It would appear that neither the middle-class nor the lowerclass Black alcoholic encountered any major functional problems with AA related to race or class prejudices in getting sober. This suggests that the therapeutic elements of the AA program must be effectively neutral in terms of race and class. By 1946, there were at least four Black members of the Greenwich Village group who were sober. There were some obvious concerns among some members of this group about the plight of alcoholics in the major Black communities of New York City. A group of these concerned members decided to start a group in the Black community of Harlem. This venture was the real test of the hypothesis concerning the critical difference of Black alcoholics and their needs, and the supposed race and class limitations of the AA program of recovery. If these hypotheses are valid, the efforts to establish local autonomous AA groups in this large Black community should have resulted in failure.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes to Harlem

In 1946, as previously mentioned, several White members of the Greenwich Village group, along with the Black members, decided to establish a group in the Harlem community. The moving force in this undertaking was Felicia M., a wealthy White female alcoholic, Mr. C, a White male alcoholic who owned a book store, Ted W., the Black alcoholic postal worker, Elizabeth D., a Black female alcoholic and John H., the Black domestic. In February of 1947, their efforts resulted in the establishment of the St. Nicholas Group of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA Fact Files 1947-1949). Harold U., in his oral history of the St. Nicholas group (Hudson, [22] 1978 IB) reports that he joined the group about nine months later. Although Harold was born in the Black upper class and was well educated, his occupational experiences as an adult were mostly unskilled labor and service work. He reported that he first heard about AA through the Alexander article in the Saturday Evening Post, but did not come to AA until seven years later, because he had not reached his bottom. When asked about the motivations of the White AA members who were involved in starting the St. Nicholas group, Harold reports the following (Hudson, 1978 IB).

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They meant well. They were really interested in helping Black alcoholics. It wasn’t that they didn’t want them (Blacks] coming down to their groups, but it was hard to get a Black to go downtown. So AA was not really catching on [in the Black community] when it was very much needed.

The Greenwich Village group was an hour’s subway ride from the major Black communities of Brooklyn and Harlem. So, although the problems of alcoholism were serious in these communities, the resources for handling them were few. In reflecting on this time and speculating about the probable feelings and attitudes of Black Harlemites, Harold relates the following:

Some people [Blacks] are always bringing up the issues of racism and I can understand that, because a lot of them came out of a segregated society [the South] and were not really very well integrated here in New York, so we had a lot of trouble getting Blacks [alcoholics] to come downtown to White groups. (Hudson, 1978 IB)

So these concerned AA members decided that AA should be where it was needed, in the Black community. Thus, the St. Nicholas group was established.

The Growth of AA in the Black Urban Community

By 1949, the membership of the St. Nicholas group had grown from about 12 members to about 40. A second one, the Riverton group, had been started in Harlem, and AA had been established in major Black communities in Brooklyn and Queens ….