Race, Class and Prostitution in the City: Washington DC’s Black Madam- Odessa Madre

For @AlaiaWilliams for continuing to remind me to write this. Readers are a precious commodity.

In the essay “Working for Nothing but a Living” Dr. Sharon Harley describes the life of  Odessa Madre, a dark skinned Black woman who became a Madam in the 1940’s because as a high school graduate, who as dark skinned and described as “not attractive, but smart” by her peers, being a madam was one of the major options available for her to make decent money in Washington, DC in the 1940’s.

Born in 1907 her mother was a seamstress and her dad and uncle operated a Madre Brothers barber shop and a pool hall.

During the 1940’s Madre was estimated to have had controlled six prostitution houses, employed twenty women and garnered a net annual income of $100,000.

What is fascinating about this essay is that Harley shows how even though Madre was born in a working middle class family, and that she went to Dunbar, and when she graduated from high school her parents gave her a car, Madre felt that the main job open for African American women- being a teacher was not an option for her. So she chose to become a madam instead. To be clear, Madre was not a member of the Washington, DC elite. However Harley theorizes that Madre’s skin color and looks would have prevented her from joining if she desired.

Color, race, class and the politics of the city are all at work here.

Harley describes Madre saying,

Odessa Madre was a prominent figure in mid twentieth century black Washington, D.C., underground economy. As a graduate of Washington’s elite Dunbar Senior High School, she could have found employment in the legal labor economy or lived comfortably due to her parents financial success….For good reason she recognized that the few professional and clerical jobs available to educated black women  were more likley to be filled by  light skinned, so called attractive women or to have a predominance of such women.

Skin color and earning power is central to my research. Recently I have been looking at the erotic capital of strippers. By erotic capital I mean the ways in which skin color and body size translates into higher earning power for women.  I am really interested in the erotic capital of video vixens and waitresses.

While erotic capital isn’t at work with the Madre’s own personal narrative. Harley does touch on it she writes about Ceclia Scott, a black businesswoman who operated a bar on U street next to the Howard theater. According to Scott,

 Attractive light skinned young women…were good for business because her patrons who spent freely on liquor and tipped handsomely, preferred such women. Indeed some of her friends approached her about hiring their daughters because as she stated she “paid a decent wage and because of the type of clientele we attracted- doctors and big time hustlers who paid large tips. Besides they knew we would take care of their daughters.

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The line between legitimate and illegitimate business practices is being blurred here as well. Harley writes,

It is a story of how certain resourceful, ambitious, and courage Black women with limited legal economic opportunities resorted to criminal activities to earn a living for themselves and support kin and Black institutions- goals which they shared with their law-abiding neighborhoods and family members.

Another aspect of this narrative that I found interesting is how race relations between Madre and her young white male peers played a role in he ability work as a madam.

Madre was raised in neighborhood off  of Georgia Ave which was mixed with Irish folks on one side of the street and African Americans on the other.  The young Irish boys who were Madre’s playmates as a little girl went on to become members of the Metro Police Department, and they “proved invaluable to Madre’s eventual rise to the top of the underground hierarchy.”

Madre died penniless in 1983, having been in and out of jail for drug dealing and possession. African American’s in DC, remembering how Madre had historically shared with low income and impoverished families and children in DC- collected the money to bury her.

Did you know of Madre?

What do you think of the idea of a woman madam? Does it seem more insidious than a man who is a pimp?

Skin color limiting employment options? What do you think? Have your Aunts or Grandmother’s ever talked about how their skin tone shaped their job options?

She needs a documentary, doesn’t she?