Emma Richardovna Harris-Mizikina (Russian: Эмма Ричардовна Харрис-Мизикина; October 9, 1871, in Augusta — after 1940 in New York City; born Emma Elizabeth Matthews) was an American-born Russian actress, singer, dancer, cabaret artist, and writer.
Early life and education Harris was born to a poor Negro family in the southern city of Augusta, along Georgia's Savannah River, on October 7, 1871. At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, her parents, Sarah Green and Richard Matthews, left the Phinizy plantation to seek a better life and opportunities in the city. Green worked as a washerwoman, scrubbing clothes for the local white families, while Matthews labored daily in one of the city's numerous cotton processing mills. After Harris was born, two more children followed (Thomas, in 1873, and Josephine, in 1880).
By 1880, the family had settled in an old brick tenement on 319 Houston Street. Soon after, Harris began attending Edmund Asa Ware High School, the first public high school for African-Americans in Georgia. That summer, Harris was sent to Norfolk, Virginia, to live with her widowed Aunt Hattie Matthews to continue her studies and later attend the Negro Mission College, which opened in 1883. But a few years later, her aunt died, leaving the young Harris stranded in Virginia with no place to go. Instead of returning home, in 1892, Harris made her way to New York and found work as a chambermaid. On December 23, 1896, Harris met and married local janitor Joseph B. Harris. The couple settled into a small apartment in Brooklyn, 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, Harris began focusing on her singing career. Due to her staunchly religious parents' disapproval of her career as an entertainer, Harris began singing in the Trinity Baptist Church Choir and working as a domestic close to five years.
Louisiana Amazon Guards (1901–1904) Around April 3, 1901, while riding a trolley to work, Harris noticed that someone had left a copy of the New York Herald beside her. She saw an advertisement posted by German theatrical impresario Paula Kohn-Wöllner, seeking seven Negro women with the ability to sing and dance for a concert tour of Germany. Harris replied to the advert and was promptly accepted. Kohn-Wöllner, who had previously managed two theatrical troupes in the 1890s in Leipzig and Chemnitz, had made a trip to New York to visit her two married sisters, when she got the idea to organize a Negro theatrical troupe to tour across Europe. Soon the troupe consisted of Olga Burgoyne (a 26-year-old singer from the Oriental America show), Fannie Wise (a 19-year-old singer from Brooklyn), Florence Collins (a 26-year-old pianist from Kentucky), Alverta Burley (a 19-year-old from Baltimore), S.T. Jubrey (a 32-year-old housewife from Virginia) and Harris. Another girl, 20-year-old Corette Hardy, was also accepted, but it was decided that she was to be left behind as a replacement in case any of the women decided to quit the newly christened "Louisiana Amazon Guard" troupe. On April 10, the six women were brought to the Passport Office to apply for their first passports. After two weeks with Ms. Kohn-Wöllner paying for all six of the women's travel expenses, they boarded on the S.S. Deutschland, heading for Germany.
By April 21, the troupe had arrived in Leipzig, Germany. Throughout June and July, the troupe made a series of successful performances at Kaiserkrone and Carlsbad's Hotel Weber in Kiel. In late August, the women intrigued Hungarian audiences at the Os-Budavara fortress. In September, the women fulfilled a month-long engagement at Vienna's Colosseum Theater. The following month was spent at Copenhagen's Cirkus Variete for the beginning of their brief Scandinavian tour.
In November, the troupe spent two successful weeks at Goteborg's Circus Madigan and two more weeks at Stockholm's Svensalen Variety Restaurant. Between their performances, on November 11, Ms. Kohn-Wöllner conducted several interviews with the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, frequently pushing forward Wise (dressed in a black and white dress). Ms. Kohn-Wöllner mentioned her plans to organize a band for the troupe, the contract she signed with the Folies-Bergere (for January 1902) and to bring over Hardy, who was still waiting in America. The troupe returned to Germany in December to entertain at Berlin's Circus Schumann where they ended the year, preparing for another year of extensive touring.
The new year of 1902, the group opened in Magdeburg for a two-week engagement before moving on to France, where the women intended to perform at Paris' famous Folie-Bergere cabaret. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if that ever came into fruition and the troupe returned to Germany to appear in Braunswich's Bruning Theater and Halle's Walhalla Theater. The month of March was spent in Breslau's Liebich Etablissement, followed by performances at Danzig's Wilhelm Theater and Poznan's Kaisergarten in April. In May, the group disappears briefly from the limelight as Fannie Wise and S.T. Jubrey suddenly quit the group and returned home to the United States. During this time their replacements, standby performers, Corette Hardy and Fannie Smith (20-year-old from Philadelphia) were promptly brought over to Europe. Throughout June, the troupe toured across Switzerland, performing in Zurich and St. Gallen before returning north to Germany. The month of July was spent at Munich's Deutsches Theater, followed by a month at Leipzig's Central Theater (September) and Dresden (October).
After twenty-one months of touring across Europe, during their Dresden engagement, the entire troupe walked out on their German impresario. Kohn-Wöllner was taken to court and accused of exploiting them financially. Lead performer Ollie Burgoyne was elected as their new manager and, now as the "Five Louisianas", the women left for Berlin, where they entertained at the Orpheum Theater and Harmonie Circus. After a brief engagement in Trier and Aachen, the group suddenly disappeared. In March 1903, Ollie Burgoyne and Florence Collins renewed their American passports and departed for London to join the cast of Hurtig & Seamon's In Dahomey, which opened on March 16 at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
The four remaining women continued performing around Germany for the next three months before departing for the Russian Empire. After receiving a passport from Berlin's American Embassy (July 10, 1903), the troupe traveled northwest to Saint Petersburg, to appear for two months at the popular Krestovskiy Garden Amusement Park, where they opened on July 19. On September 29, the troupe opened in Moscow at Aumont's French Theater for another two months billed as the "4 Ebony Belles". The focal point of Moscow's lively nightlife, located just west of Triumphal Square, the Aumont Theater was an entertainment garden occupying several park-like acres that was a relief from the more genteel and prosperous classes of society, who weren't put off by the frivolous nature of the establishment's entertainment. That evening, as the crowds made their way from the theater towards the open-air café chantant, the troupe joined twenty variety acts onstage varying from trained animals and acrobats to operatic singers. The theater director, Charles Aumont, was a successful yet ruthless French-Algerian businessman that renovated the gardens in 1898 to make visitors feel like they had visited a magical world. He was well known for exploiting chorus girls and female performers to allure the largely male audience. After their turn onstage, the head Maître d’ (an African-American man named, Frederick Bruce Thomas), informed the women that as singers, they would be called upon after their performance to entertain the private parties.
During the winter of 1903, the Louisiana Amazon Guard (Ebony Belles) finally dissolved. Alverta Burley married African-American entertainer, Oliver E. Brodie and the couple toured as "Brodie & Brodie". Harris convinced Coretté Hardy and Fannie Smith to remain in Russia with her and they formed the "Harris Trio". For the next six months, the trio performed between Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. In March 1904, the duo became the "Harris Trio" with the addition of Fannie Smith, and together they departed for Helsinki with an engagement at the illustrious Hotell Fennia, where Finnish high society enjoyed to mingle. During the summer of 1904, the Harris Trio, together with Ollie Bourgoyne and Jennie Scheper (from the Florida Creole Girls) formed a new company known as the "Creole Troupe" and continued touring the principal Russian cities. On January 22, 1905, while attending a party, hosted by popular American jockey, William Caton, in central Saint-Petersburg, the women witnessed the Bloody Sunday riots outside the Tsar's palace and across the city. The trio immediately packed up and returned to Moscow, where they resumed working at the Aumont Theater. In February, while performing in the city of Vyatka, the trio decided to dissolve and Corette and Fannie departed for Poland.
The Black Nightingale (1905–1913) Now as a solo artist, Harris returned to Helsinki in March 1905, performing for two weeks at the popular Princess Restaurant followed by two more weeks in the Finnish city of Tampere at the Seurahuoneen Sali. Shortly afterwards, she returned to St. Petersburg and Moscow, where she met a handsome, English-speaking scientist and museum curator named Baranov; soon afterwards the two became lovers.
Despite the revolution raging across the Russian Empire, Harris embarked on an extended Siberian tour that coincided with Baranov's own personal lecture tour across Russia's expansive Volga region. Baranov accompanied her everywhere acting as her manager and promised to accompany her on a trip to the United States the following year. Since trains hardly reached many parts of Russia, much of the journey was made using troikas and were often followed by hungry wolves. Harris later discovered that her Grand Duke was a charlatan. Baranov had been presenting her onstage as a singing African savage, manipulating and stealing her money after the show. Eventually, the couple arrived in the city Kazan. Located on the left bank of the Volga and Kazanka River and 520 miles east of Moscow, the former capital of the ancient Qazan Khanate was ravaged annually by many winters and summers; it was also modern compared to the numerous Germanic villages and towns that lined the Volga. As the educational and cultural center of Russia's vast Volga region, the city featured electric lighting, electric trams, telegraphs, telephones and the Kazan Imperial University. Desperate to escape, Harris attempted to flee from her abusive lover only to be seized by several Tsarist gendarmes who took her to jail. As the Russo-Japanese conflict was still raging, Baranov reported Harris to the authorities as a spy for the Japanese that was traversing across Russia under the guise of a performer. Eventually, an intervention from Moscow's American consulate allowed her to be released.
On September 2, the Russo-Japanese War ended, as the Russian Empire was forced to surrender to the Japanese. Scraping enough money by teaching English around Kazan, Harris boarded a train to Moscow, where she sought out Samuel Smith, who orchestrated her release from prison. The racist Smith was shocked to discover that he had aided a Negro woman from prison. Realizing she couldn't count on America for further help, Harris decided to scrap her plans to return the United States the following year and remain in Russia.