In the aftermath of the 1943 riot, the federal Office of Price Administration opened an investigation into complaints of price gouging in Harlem.
Previously, landlords would violate voluntary price restraints when lease renewals were due. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia increased pressure on the city agencies involved, which forced the landlords to comply with cost controls, a circumstance that may have prevented another riot.
Culturally, the riot inspired Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, winner of the 1953 National Book Award, and artist William H. Johnson’s representation of the “oppressed and debased community” in Moon Over Harlem.
