1. Early life

2. Career
    Early career (1896–1900)  European career (1901–1913)  World War I and the Russian Revolution (1914–1925)  Soviet worker (1926–1933)  Later life 

3. References

• {{marriage|Joseph B. Harris|1896|1904}}
• {{marriage|Alexander Ivanovich Mizinkin|1911|1926}}

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Emma Harris (Russian: Эммы Ричардовна Харрис Мизикина), 9 October 1871 in Augusta — After 1940 in New York) was an American-born Russian and Soviet actress, singer, dancer, cabaret artist and writer.

Early life

Emma Elizabeth Matthews was born on October 9, 1871 on (or near) the John Phinizy Plantation in Richmond County, Georgia, near the city of Augusta to former slaves, Sarah Green and Richard Matthews. In summer 1880, upon finishing fourth grade at Ware High School, Emma was sent to Norfolk, Virginia to live with her widowed Aunt Hattie to continue her studies and later attend the Negro Mission College (which opened 1883). But after a few years, her Aunt suddenly died, leaving the young Emma stranded in Virginia with no place to go.^[1]

Career

Early career (1896–1900)

Instead of returning home, Emma caught the next train north, enrolling herself into the Boston Musical Conservatory and finding work as a chambermaid to support herself. Early 1896, Sissieretta Jones arrived in Boston to organize her Black Patti Troubadours, a vaudeville revue featuring Negro operatic singers, dancers and blackface comedians. After opening in Pittsfield, the show traveled to New York City in October.^[2] That winter, while performing in Brooklyn, Emma met and married local janitor, Joseph B. Harris. They settled into a small apartment, where they hoped to start a family. She also assisted in bringing several of her relatives up from the South. After the sudden death of their only child, Emma began focusing on her singing career. Due to her staunchly religious parents' disapproval of her career as an entertainer, Emma quit the Black Troubadours and began singing in the Trinity Baptist Church Choir for nearly five years. However, In 1900 she rejoined the entertainment world by joining Theodore Drury's Opera Company.

European career (1901–1913)

In spring 1901, German Impresario, Paula Kohn-Wöllner, approached Emma (and seven other women) to organize a Negro revue Louisiana Amazon Guards.^[3] In early May, the show arrived in Germany and rehearsed and opened in Leipzig before touring across Germany that summer. That fall, the four-act revue began its European tour, traveling across Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Denmark & Sweden. The show reorganized late-1902, after firing Mrs Kohn-Wollner, the revue relocated to Berlin and continued touring Germany until July 1903, when Mrs. Kohn-Wöllner was rehired and launched the girls on a British tour before opening in Saint Petersburg, Russia early March.

Unfortunately as the troupe immediately dissolved upon arrival, Emma and fellow members, Coretté Alefred and/or Fannie Smith formed the Koretty Kreol duo and opened at the Aquarium Gardens. Shortly afterwards (now as a trio), the women opened in Helsinki's Hotell Fennia before traveling south to appear in Moscow's Aumont Theater, run by the manipulative French director, Charles Aumont. During these first weeks in Russia, Emma learned her lonely husband died back in Brooklyn.

On January 22, 1905, while the women were appearing in St. Petersburg and attending a party hosted by William Caton (popular American jockey), the women witnessed the Bloody Sunday (1905) riots outside the Tsar's palace and across the city. The trio quickly returned to Moscow that night and performed at the Aumont Theatre until Emma quit the trio sometime in February.^[4]

The following month in Helsinki, now as a solo artist, Emma opened successfully at the Princess Restaurant with her singing and classical dances. After her Finnish appearances, she began an extended Siberian concert tour. While performing in Vyatka, Emma met a handsome, English speaking scientist and museum curator named Baranov.^[5] The two quickly became lovers, and Emma joined his Central Russian lecture tour, as he promised they would travel to America together the following year. As they toured the major cities along the Volga river, Baranov held his lectures while Emma would perform. Trains hardly reached many parts of Russia during that period, so much of the journey was using 'troikas' and were often followed by hungry wolves. But soon Emma realized he was a charlatan. Baranov presented her as his singing African savage, manipulating and stealing her money after the show. Arriving in Kazan, Emma escaped, but Baranov reported her to the authorities as a Japanese spy. Emma was thrown in jail until an intervention from the US Consulate in Moscow. Returning to Moscow to meet the Consul Samuel Smith, he was shocked to discover she was a Negro. Realizing she couldn't count on America for further help, Emma decided to remain in Russia.

Towards the end of the year, Emma ran into an old friend, Baltimore businessman, Harry Leans who was visiting Europe.^[6] He offered to fund her first solo tour across Europe. From late 1905-1917, Emma (as Oriedo Galima: the Black Nightingale) toured the Russian Empire, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt singing in Russian, German & French and performing Algerian belly dances in numerous theaters and cabarets. Briefly around 1908, Emma joined Afro-American comedian Edgar H. Jones on one of his many Russian tours.

In 1911, while touring through the Caucasus mountains, Emma met Russian theater and film director, Alexander Ivanovitch Mizikin who became her business manager. Sometime in 1912-13, the couple married and established a residence in Kharkiv (becoming Emma Richardsovna Mizikina). Alex opened a string of cinemas across the Ukraine (such as the Zerkalo Zhizni Cinema) which featured Russian and American films. Meanwhile, Emma continued her concert tours throughout Russia.

World War I and the Russian Revolution (1914–1925)

Upon the outbreak of World War I, the couple relocated to Moscow and purchased a 15-room house (12 Kozikhinskiy Ln) in the central part of the city and hired six servants and a personal chauffeur. To supplement extra income as her concert tours had come to a halt, Emma became the madam of an exclusive brothel run out of her home, which served wealthy and aristocratic clientele. In spring 1915, while her husband fought on the front lines, Emma shifted from performing to acting. At the G.I. Libken Studios in Yaroslavl. Emma appeared onscreen in an interesting attempt on Russian soil an American adventure film Satan's Woman (Zhenshchina Satana), about life within the circus and musichall. Directed by Sigismund Veselovsky and produced through the 'Alians' Film Office {F. Parkhomenko}, the film was released on May 14, 1915. Eventually the film was lost (or censured) after the Bolshevik Revolution. The film however perhaps made Emma the first major black silent film actress in Imperial Russian cinema. Several months later, she appeared in the comedy film Legs Up! (Nogi Vverkh) produced through the 'Kinolent' Film Office.

Early 1917, Emma joined the Red Cross, working as a nurse on armored train no.1045 aiding the Red Army across the Ukraine. After the February Land Act was enacted early 1918, Emma moved to a large house (4 Kalanchevskaya Ln) in Moscow's Red Gate district which she turned into a boarding house for visiting American journalists and diplomats, whom she threw large dinners and was kindly referred to by as the 'Mammy of Moscow'. Sometime in March 1918, during a massive rally, Emma was pushed to the front and introduced to Vladimir Lenin, who believed blacks represented the "ideal Communist". Shortly afterwards, she was given a government position in the Commissariat of the People's Education, teaching English to government officials in the city of Simbirsk near the Russian front lines on the Siberian Front. In September 1919, the Cheka raided her boarding house, and arrested Emma under suspicion of hiding White Army soldiers. After a few days in Lubyanka Prison, she was released as the government refused to execute a Negro woman.

In 1920, with her husband now apart of a Soviet film Company, Emma returned to acting appearing in well-received propaganda filled films (which Emma later admitted was really poorly produced). As the Great Famine ravaged central Russia in 1921, Emma joined Col. William Haskell's American Relief Administration aiding the starving population until the end of the famine during the summer of 1923.

Soviet worker (1926–1933)

After divorcing Alexander in 1926, Emma retired from the stage, shared a two-room apartment with one of her former prostitutes and joined the workforce as an interpreter for Proletarsky Trud Silk Mill until 1929 when she became one of the lead speakers for the International Red Aid (MOPR), she traveled Russia giving fiery speeches protesting against racism, singing Spirituals and writing poems for Soviet newspapers.

In June 1932, Emma was among those who welcomed 21 African Americans (among those was Langston Hughes) who had come to organize and appear in the political anti-racism film Black & White with the Meschrabpom Film company. Emma was also asked to be a part of the film, due to her acting experience in Russian cinema. During the productions, she gave several powerful speeches at the Park of Rest & Culture in fluent Russian protesting the Scottsboro boys trials^[7] in the American South. However, the film never materialized and Emma was given a job with the Moscow Torgsin Store.

In early 1933, she became chief correspondent for the Stankoimport State Trust.^[8] That August, after an interview mentioning a wish to visit the US, took a trip to Latvia to receive an American passport then caught the caught the next ship from Hamburg, back to New York after 32 years living abroad.

Later life

References

• Hustler (squadron)
• Hustler TV
• Hustler TV (disambiguation)
• Hustler TV Europe
• Hustler TV (Europe)
• Hustler Video
• Hustles
• Hustle (series 5)
• Hustle Till I Die
• Hustle tv
• Hustle, Virginia
• Hustlin' (album)
• Hustling for health
• Hustlin' Rebel Field
• Huston Diehl
• Huston (disambiguation)
• Huston, Idaho
• Huston Street (road)
• Huston Tillotson
• Huston-Tillotson University
• Huston Township, Pennsylvania (disambiguation)
• Hustopece nad Becvou
• Hust Stockton
• Husui
• Husulu