Piercy Augustus “Percy”
Haynes
Athlete, musician, restaurateur.
Active in the music industry from the
1930s through to the 1970s.
"Born in British Guiana (now Guyana) in
1911, one of six children of William and
Fredrica Haynes, he came to Winnipeg with
his family in 1912, settling at 257 Lulu
Street and attending Pinkham School.
He was also a gifted piano player and
vocalist and soon became a fixture on
Winnipeg’s music scene." Source:
Manitoba Historical Society Archives
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Most
people who are familiar with the name
Percy Haynes likely remember him for
Haynes Chicken Shack, the longtime
restaurant and musical hot spot he and
wife, Zena, operated on Lulu Street for
more than 35 years.
That was just one chapter of his
remarkable life, and Black History Month
seems like a good time to re-examine it.
Piercy Augustus Haynes was born in what
was then called British Guiana in 1911 and
came to Winnipeg with his parents the
following year. The family settled at 257
Lulu St., a small cottage-style house off
Logan Avenue, where they raised sons Alan
(Chick), Clifford, Piercy (Percy) and
Abram. The site also doubled as a workshop
for William Haynes, Percy’s father, who
was a carpenter.
Percy Haynes attended Pinkham and Hugh
John MacDonald schools and was a youth
leader at MacLean United Church Mission,
located on Alexander Avenue at Lulu. Aside
from being a noted pianist, Haynes also
excelled at sports. He is first mentioned
in the local media in a 1925 Manitoba Free
Press article after wowing onlookers at a
summer athletics camp in Gimli, which
noted he “was an easy first in nearly
every event he tried.”
With his all-around athletic abilities,
Haynes joined a couple of track-and-field
teams and in 1928 was a member of the
Stella Mission’s athletics team nicknamed
“the Olympics,” which won the Dominion
teen athletics championship. In 1929, he
coached the MacLean United Mission
athletics team to the provincial Sunday
school athletics championship.
As he grew out of the youth athletics
scene, Haynes turned his attention to
other sports, such as boxing, softball and
basketball. He excelled at them all. He
was a member of the Winnipeg Stellars
basketball team that won the 1932 Dominion
amateur basketball championship. He was
also a noted softball pitcher, leading a
number of teams to city playoffs and
championships.
Boxing brought Haynes the most attention.
He was the city’s amateur welterweight
champion in 1933 and 1934. Arguably his
most famous fight took place in April 1934
,when he faced Dominion and international
welterweight champion Maurice Camyré. For
the first two rounds, Haynes dodged the
champ’s body blows and peppered him with
lefts, which led to a hard-fought third
and final round. Haynes won by decision.
After the bout, a Winnipeg Tribune sports
columnist mentioned to Camyré that Haynes
was also a well-known local baseball
player and pianist. The boxer replied: “He
doesn’t look fragile nor gentle when you
get close up, but there’s no denying he’s
artistic.”
Through the 1930s, Haynes juggled his busy
sports schedule around his day job as a
carpenter. He also found time for his
music. At a New Year’s Eve gig in 1932, he
met Zena Bradshaw, a jazz singer who had
recently relocated from Edmonton with her
stepson. The two became a fixture on the
club scene and married in 1943.
During the Second World War, Haynes, like
many of his peers, wanted to enlist with
the Royal Canadian Navy at HMCS Chippawa.
When he showed up at the recruiting
station, however, he was turned away
because he was black. It was suggested to
him he might want to go to the army
recruitment centre instead, because they
accepted men of colour.
Haynes refused to take no for an answer.
Decades later, he told a Free Press
reporter, “I went to the top. I wrote to
the admiral of the navy, and I told him
exactly what I felt about it.”
That admiral was actually naval secretary
Angus L. McDonald.
McDonald wrote back, saying the regulation
was in place because the confines of ship
life were considered an “unsafe place” for
men of colour. Haynes responded to
McDonald, as well as other navy brass and
politicians, pointing out the
ridiculousness of the rule. A few months
later, he received a followup letter from
McDonald inviting him to return to the
HMCS Chippawa recruiting centre, where he
would be allowed to apply.
Haynes was accepted and became the first
black man to serve in the modern Royal
Canadian Navy. (William Hall, who joined
the British navy in Halifax in 1852, is
often considered the first to serve in a
Canadian navy.)
Petty Officer Haynes worked as a
shipwright but never went to sea. His
skills as a composer and entertainer kept
him in Halifax entertaining troops and
staging musical shows. For a time, Zena
relocated there, and they performed
together. Haynes was also a sometimes
member of the travelling cast of Meet the
Navy, a musical revue show that played for
troops and civilians across Canada and the
United Kingdom. In 1945, a movie version
of the show was filmed in Britain, with
Haynes appearing as both a musician and
actor.
After the war, Haynes did not go back to
carpentry. Instead, he took a job as a CPR
sleeping-car porter. He worked the rails
for more than 20 years, becoming involved
in the Porters’ Club, then with the
Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees,
to improve the working conditions of black
railway workers. He also resumed his
musical career and pitched for a number of
teams in the commercial softball league.
In the summer of 1952, the carpentry shop
attached to the Haynes family’s Lulu
Street home was converted into a small
restaurant called Haynes Chicken Shack. It
was Zena’s dream to one day run a
restaurant, and she recruited her sister,
Alva Mayes, a local cook already famous
for her fried chicken, to manage the
kitchen. Haynes noted the home was already
the scene of many late-night jam sessions
where the family put out a generous spread
of food for their visitors, and, “We
figured we might as well get paid for it.”
Zena’s restaurant was a hit, and after
Haynes retired from the CPR in the late
1960s, the couple performed there
regularly, furthering its reputation as a
musical hot spot.
Over the years, musical greats such as
Billy Daniels, Oscar Peterson and Harry
Belafonte visited when they were in town.
The influence rubbed off on Zena’s son,
Del Wagner, who become a popular
bandleader and musician in his own right.
The restaurant was expanded to hold the
larger crowds. At the peak of its
popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, you
could expect to wait in line for an hour,
even two, to get a seat on a Friday or
Saturday night.
In retirement, Haynes turned his attention
to community activities. A longtime Mason,
in the late 1960s he was elected twice as
the Grandmaster of the Prince Hall Grand
Lodge of Minnesota, which at the time
included Manitoba. He also became a
respected community activist, bringing
attention to the increasingly poor
condition of the housing stock in the core
area of the city. Mayor Stephen Juba
presented him with a community service
award for his efforts. Haynes also ran,
unsuccessfully, for the provincial
Liberals in 1977 and for city council in
1980.
Zena Haynes died in 1990, but the
restaurant carried on. Haynes worked there
as a greeter until a week before his death
from colon cancer on July 24, 1992. He was
81 years old.
Debbie Johnson, a longtime employee, and
her husband, Louis Brown, bought the
restaurant from Haynes’ estate in 1993.
The restaurant, however, had been all
about Percy and Zena Haynes. Despite using
the same recipes and hiring musicians to
play on the weekends, the crowds dwindled,
and Haynes Chicken Shack closed its doors
for good in 1996.
Christian Cassidy
From Recipe for Success published in Winnipeg Free Press, Sunday, February 8, 2015
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May
1, 1964
Credit for the photos immediately above and accompanying the written article:
Winnipeg Tribune Fonds at The University of Manitoba
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