“Just Be Quiet Pu-leeze”: The New York Amsterdam News Fights the Postwar “Campaign against Noise”

Using archival and rhetorical methods, “Just Be Quiet” analyzes discourse about “noise” produced by New York City's leading black newspaper, the New York Amsterdam News, from 1945 to 1955, a period when many white Americans came to perceive cities as loud, dangerous, and increasingly brown. The Amsterdam News provides an important new perspective on “noise,” differing from the now well-documented perceptions of white police and complainants, and helps sound studies rethink bifurcated definitions of noise as either “silenced” or “resistant.” I argue that the Amsterdam News' coverage assumes “noise” to be both community defining and key to forging shared space, contributing toward what I call “decolonizing listening” among its readers, a critical practice making connections between black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers much more audible while amplifying the fact that Harlem's noisiest elements actually stemmed from forced segregation: overcrowding, little zoning and code enforcement, antiquated transportation, and over- or underpolicing.