The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher

There is at least one occasion a year when Manhattan Casino requires no decorations, the occasion of the General Improvement Association's Annual Costume Ball. The guests themselves are all the decoration that is necessary.

This is not only because many guests attend in costume, but also because, of all the crowds which Manhattan Casino holds during the year, none presents a greater inherent variety: There is variety of personal station that extends from the rattiest rat to the dicktiest dickty, for this is not an exclusive, invitational "function" but a widely advertised public affair; and it is supported by everybody, because the proceeds are to be given over to Negro advancement. There is variety of personal appearance that ranges from the dingiest dinge to the most delicate pink; variety of age, from little brown gnomes of nine or ten to Cleopatras of sixty; variety, finally, of occupation, related of course to variety of social standing. At the So-and-So's Dance you would find chiefly doctors, lawyers, and undertakers; at the Speedway Club Dance, bootleggers, big-time gamblers, professional politicians; at the Barbers' Ball, tonsorial artists, chauffeurs, and headwaiters. Anybody may achieve admittance to any one of these, but the crowd somehow remains in large measure distinct and characteristic. Not so with the G. I. A. Costume Ball. This is the one occasion in Harlem when everybody is present and nobody minds. The bootleggers raise no objection to their rivals, the doctors. The K. M. 's are seldom if ever seen to turn up their noses at the school teachers. Elevator boys and gamblers together discuss their ups and downs: and the richest real estate man in the colony greets his bootblack with a cordial smile. The bars are down. This is for the Race. One great common fellowship in one great common cause.