Griffin Sisters

Publicity photograph from The Freeman, An Illustrated Colored Newspaper, Sept. 10, 1910 edition. Mabel on the left and Emma on the right.

Mabel (circa 1870 - ?) and Emma Griffin (1873 - 1918), were born in Louisville, Kentucky. They were the highly popular vaudeville performers known as The Griffin Sisters who toured throughout the United States. They began performing as members of John Isham's Octoroons Company and toured with several other companies before organizing their own theater booking agency in 1913 in Chicago. They had been considered premiere performers and broke theater attendance records while with the Sherman H. Dudley agency, created in 1912 as the first African American operated vaudeville circuit. The Griffin Agency was one of the earliest to be managed by African American women, and they also had a school of vaudeville art. Emma Griffin encourage African American performers to use either the Dudley Agency or the Griffin Agency. The sisters also opened the Alamon Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, in April of 1914. They managed the Majestic Theater in Washington, D.C. in June of 1914. The sisters were listed as mulattoes, along with their brother Henry, who was a musician, and their grandmother Mary Montgomery, all in the 1910 Census when the family lived in Chicago. [Bio: Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians, by E. Southern]

The Griffin sisters were also way ahead of their time ... they didn't cower quietly when mistreated. The following is an article in the San Francisco Call Newspaper dated, February 21, 1906:

Two Colored Women Experience Difficulty in Getting Assailant Into Court Two colored women known in cheap, vaudeville as the Griffin sisters, Emma and Mabel, sought to have one "Billy" Pratt, a Mason street saloon-keeper, arrested on their charge of battery. They unfolded their complaint to Deputy Clerk George M. Kelly, sablewhiskered and very voluble, who informed them that the best he could do would be to request the accused to appear before him and opine whether or not a warrant should be issued. And to show that he could do that much Mr. Kelly wrote a politely worded note to Mr. Pratt and gave it to the women to deliver, despite their assertion that they were afraid they might be battered again if they confronted him. Then they were told that if they did not desire to convey, the message they might entrust Its delivery to the policeman on the beat.. When a bystander questioned Mr. Kelly's authority to act as he did the explanation was given that Judge Shortall had been asked to issue the desired warrant, but had declined to do so on the ground that Mr. Pratt was one of his personal friends and that he could not try the case without prejudice. "Then," said the meddler to Mr. Kelly, "why don't you advise the women to lay their case before one of the other Judges?" Mr. Kelly said a great deal in reply without giving logical answer to the question, and he was still talking when the interrogator went and obtained Judge Mogan's promise that he would sign the warrant.

When this was stated to Mr. Kelly he declared that he would not frame the warrant unless he received Judge Mogan's written order to do so. Instead of going back to Judge Mogan, however, the busybody escorted the women to Judge Cabaniss, who heard their story and instantly signed an order that the warrant be issued. But when the trio returned with the order it was the chief of the office instead of Mr. Kelly, who took it and after considerable delay complied with it. "By what right," Mr. Kelly was asked, "does this office undertake to decide whether a warrant shall be issued?' "We do it," replied Mr. Kelly, "to relieve the Judges from the trouble of hearing applications for warrants." "But it is the prescribed duty of the Judges to experience the trouble you allude to, isn't it?" "Well, we have made a rule and we are sticking to it." said Mr. Kelly. "We don't issue a warrant for misdemeanor until we have given the accused opportunity to tell us his or her side of the story." "Thereby you .constitute, this office a. tribunal and usurp the work of the' Police Judges, don't you?" "We have made the rule and we're sticking to it," replied Mr. Kelly. "Thus it has come to pass that charges of misdemeanor are tried and decided by the Warrant Clerk or any of his deputies Instead of by a magistrate duly authorized by the charter to perform that duty. The Griffin sisters are evidently skaters In stageland only, for (Emma's countenance is, several degrees duskier than that of Mabel, whose hair is slightly "kinked and deeply dyed a beautiful antique gold hue").

They claim to have delighted large and cultured audiences in almost every city and town of considerable note, on the Pacific Coast and that they are always headlined on the bills as "Character Change Artists and Entrancing Vocalists." They were en route from a theater to their joint abode night before last when a masculine admirer of their art invited them to partake of liquid refreshments in Mr. Pratt's saloon, and their acceptance of the invitation led *to the alleged battery by Mr. Pratt, who, apparently drew the color line in his treatment of patrons." Mable displayed a lacerated lip and alleged that it was caused by Mr Pratt striking her with a wine glass as he forcibly ejected her and Emma from his refectory.

The article ends here ... I have no idea if Pratt was ever charged or prosecuted with assault.