The year is 1949. A Black American man and a Jewish American man walk into the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce to apply for membership. This is not the beginning to an outdated joke. Rather, this is the real story of how Black American Roosevelt “Nick” Nixon and Jewish American Ira Goodman became business partners.
“You expect a punchline from that,” said Attorney Randall Nixon, son of Nick Nixon. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Despite having money for dues, both Nick Nixon and Goodman were denied. The two friends were not deterred, however, and promptly pooled their resources to purchase a grocery store. The store was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, a historical inner city nexus of the black and Jewish communities living in West Baltimore. This marked the commencement of Nick and Ira’s business relationship, and their chain of stores of the same name—or simply Nick’s, depending on where in the city the storefront was located.
Randall Nixon does not know how Goodman and his father came to know each other. The story of how the lifelong friends met has gotten lost over the years. It is known that they immediately bonded over shared military service—they had both served in the Navy during the Second World War—and similar experiences with discrimination during their service.
“They had a common background,” said Randall Nixon. “They had been through common experiences of literally fighting their way across the Pacific.”
In 1942, Nick Nixon of Rocky Point, North Carolina aimed to serve in the Navy. At the time, Black Americans made up less than three percent of all Navy sailors, and the vast majority of them served as cooks and messmen. Many black leaders actively advocated for the desegregation of the armed forces and racial equality within the military, often voicing their concerns directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in meetings.
Once a month, Nick Nixon hitchhiked 60 miles from Rocky Point to Wilmington to try to be selected. Repeatedly, he was turned away on the sole account of his race. Finally, in mid-1942 he was inducted. He likely would have served as a stevedore had it not been for an altercation with a white man who tried to deny him two pieces of watermelon at the mess. When the man grabbed Nixon’s arm to stop him and refused to let go, Nixon simply dragged the man across the line along with his two pieces of watermelon. Then he beat him up.
“They said, ‘Nixon—you like to fight!’” said Randall Nixon. “And what they did—this was a tradition in the armed forces—they used boxing as a mechanism for both discipline and entertainment. So they put him in the ring.”
Fighting both in the war and against his fellow sailors, Nick Nixon ascended through the ranks and became one of very few Black Americans to earn the title of Chief Petty Officer. After being discharged, Nick Nixon faced the option of either returning to the American South to likely become a sharecropper like his father or joining thousands of other Black Americans in the Great Migration to the Northeast, West and Midwest. This was how Nick Nixon ended up in Baltimore and friends with Ira Goodman.
Following the opening of Nick and Ira’s came the establishment of the business club. Nixon and Goodman gathered several of their friends and held regular meetings in one of their stores. The club rapidly outgrew that space, leaving them in search of a larger headquarters.
“They tried to meet in the church across from the grocery store, and that didn’t work out terribly well because the church had other demands on it,” explained Randall Nixon. “There was a synagogue up the street, tried to meet there. That didn’t always work out because of the services.”
In 1956, Nick Nixon purchased a farm. At the time, it was more than 20 miles outside of the Baltimore city limits and in a relatively undeveloped part of the state. It neighbored Ellicott City, the unincorporated community and county seat of Howard County, which in 1950 was recorded to have a population of less than 15,000. Columbia, Maryland, which now neighbors the farm as well, had not been established.
“For 20-plus miles, there was nothing between the city line and the family farm,” said Randall Nixon. “When my parents bought the farm, people called it Nick’s Folly. Because, they said, ‘That land ain’t ever gonna be worth nothing. It’s just going to be a piece of dirt for as long as you live.’”
Despite the distance, the farm which Randall Nixon still calls home became the new headquarters for the business club. At a time, there would be nearly 40 cars of people parked on the property, all of whom Randall Nixon’s mother cooked for. A family catering business was promptly established.
The club members, all Black and Jewish American, jokingly dubbed themselves the “He-Bros”. Meetings took place in the old large barn, while the children ran and played together all over the property and the women played cards.
“Dad and Ira had a liquor license so they would bring out a case of scotch and a case of gin,” said Randall Nixon. “They had Cuban cigars, because they had a merchant’s license. Dad set up a putting green and a driving range. They would hit balls just like the goyim did.”
The business club marked only the beginning of a lifelong relationship between the Nixon and Goodman families. In the early 1960s, when violence and bullying became daily occurrences for Randall Nixon and his older brother at their Baltimore public schools, their mother made a swift decision to transfer them both to a private school.
“There were two schools in Baltimore that were in the Baltimore area that didn’t discriminate,” said Randall Nixon. “One was the Quaker school and one was the Jewish school.”
Though not officially Jewish, the Park School of Baltimore—commonly known simply as Park—possesses a predominantly Jewish history. It was founded in 1912 as the first non-sectarian independent school in Baltimore. Among many things, Park’s founders sought to create a solution to citywide antisemitism that left Jewish students either totally barred from private schools or faced with discriminatory quotas severely limiting the number of Jewish students admitted.
Randall Nixon’s mother interviewed all of the faculty at both Park and the Friends School, which was the independent Quaker school. After deeming Park the better institution, she enrolled her sons there. Muriel Goodman, Ira Goodman’s wife, soon followed, enrolling her own children at Park as well.
“I think it was a conspiracy between Muriel and my mother,” said Randall Nixon, laughing. “I remember my mother said later, she went to my dad and said, ‘The kids are going to go to private school. It’s going to cost you $5,000 a year.’ Muriel did the same thing to Ira.”
While the Park School Council formally petitioned the Board of Trustees to integrate their private school in 1950, Park began accepting Black American students in 1955. Randall Nixon recalled a primarily Jewish campus, with the few non-Jewish students there all being black. He recounted away games being unjustly called after referees saw the black team members and the last names on the Jewish students’ varsity jackets, and parties at other private schools frequently ending in fights.
“We were locked in whether we liked it or not,” said Randall Nixon. “We were part of the fracas. There was no such thing as neutrality. Because your friends are getting beaten up, you might as well join in. That was the world that we lived in.”
One of Randall Nixon’s significant memories of his father takes place in June 1967. Nick Nixon, who was always away at work during the daytime, suddenly began arriving home in the early evening to watch the six o’clock news. Just as Randall Nixon harbored memories of Muriel Goodman picketing with his mother during the Civil Rights Movement, he then watched his parents actively support Israel during the Six Day War.
“I never saw my dad during any other time,” said Randall Nixon. “I realized how important it was—the continued existence of Israel—to my parents. My parents were actively rooting for Moshe Dayan and the Israeli army. And I’ll never forget that time.”
Though he did not participate in the formal graduation ceremony, Randall Nixon went through Hebrew school alongside his close friends. When recounting his schoolyard memories, he often describes himself and his non-Jewish peers as goyim, and seamlessly sprinkles in the occasional Yiddish term.
Randall Nixon went on to study at Cornell University, where one of his most influential professors was late famed physicist and Soviet dissident Yuri Orlov. He pledged Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., was invited to a Jewish fraternity, and joined Hillel. One thing he learned at Cornell:
“The thing that I learned was that the world was run by goyim. I mean the world that I lived in was run by black people and Jewish people. I said, ‘Oh my God—there’s so few Jews here.’”
It was also at Cornell that Randall Nixon first heard Israel labeled as an apartheid state.
“The thing that I continue to say is these people have no sense of history,” said Randall Nixon. “Those of us black folks of an older generation who have had experiences during the Civil Rights Movement with our Jewish companions—we understood that Israel was about to be pushed into the sea. You only have to go back one generation to realize how perilous the nation of Israel was—how perilous its existence was.”
Randall Nixon is devoted to rekindling the synergy between Black and Jewish American communities that shaped his childhood and contributed greatly to his identity. Both of his children attended Park as well. He has co-produced the documentary Walking While Black, aimed at promoting education and understanding across cultural boundaries.
“It’s a shared history,” said Randall Nixon of black and Jewish histories. “And a lot of black folks don’t have that knowledge.”
Nick Nixon passed away in 1972. He was killed in one of his storefronts during an armed robbery attempt. Eight months after that, Ira Goodman died of a heart attack.
“They were best buddies,” said Randall Nixon. “They would finish each other's sentences. They were just friends for life.”
Though Goodman’s children have moved out of Baltimore and one has passed away, they remain in touch with Randall Nixon and his brother.