Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 9 October 1906
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CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
1105 WILLIAMSON BUILDING
CLEVELAND, O.
Cleveland, October 9, 1906.
Dr. Booker T. Washington,
Manhattan Hotel,1
New York City.
Said would call to your attention. Rec'd today from NY 10/12 J.F.A.2
My dear Dr. Washington:-
I am in receipt of your letter and telegram from Tuskegee, 3 calling my attention to the meeting of the Committee of Twelve,4 at the Stevens House on October 12th.5 This is one of the meetings at which I should very much like to be present, and I regret exceedingly that I am tangled up here in a lawsuit which absolutely demands my presence during the whole of this week and very probably into the middle of next week; it is of a nature which does not permit of a substitute and I am therefore compelled to forego the privilege of attending the meeting.
I wish also to acknowledge your brief note calling my attention to the issue of the New York World,6 containing a review of the Atlanta horror.7 I read with great interest Mr. H. G. Wells' article in Harper's Weekly on the "Tragedy of Color", and I think you will agree that my views and those of Mr. Wells are very much the same.8 I do not believe it possible for two races to subsist side by side without intermingling; experience has demonstrated this fact and there will be more experience along that line. Another thing of which I am firmly convinced, in view of recent events, is that no system which excludes the Negro or any other class from the use of the ballot and leaves this potent instrument in the hands of the people who are alien to him in sympathy and interest, can have any healthy effect in improving his condition. No subterfuge of equal qualifi-
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cations and just application to black and white alike of disfranchising provisions, can overcome the solemn fact which is brought home every day by reading the newspapers that these state constitutions leave the Negro absolutely at the mercy of the white man.
I have never been able to see how any man with the interest of his people at heart could favor those abominations. I know that your heart is all right, but I think your very wise head is wrong on that proposition, and I should regard it as a much more hopeful day for the Negro in this country when you cease to defend them. There is no hope for the Negro except in equality before the law, and I suspect that hope will be deferred for many a day in the Southern States. At the same time I think nothing is lost and everything gained by insisting upon the principle. A man weakens his position immensely when he takes any attitude which justifies or excuses his oppressor.
I notice a great deal has been said by colored people about the Atlanta matter. And of course I have not failed to observe that those best qualified to speak, and whose utterances would carry most weight, have not been in a position to express themselves fully. I appreciate the difficulty of their situation. And so far as the mere matter of speech is concerned, discretion on the part of people who live and work in the South is imperative. I observe that a Georgia editor was expelled from that State for saying a few truthful things about the Jim Crow law in Savannah.9 After all, the Northern press, with a surprising unanimity and vigor, has said the things which ought to have been said, much to the chagrin of the South, much to our satisfaction and I trust much to the enlightenment of Northern readers.
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Negro leaders for some time to come are likely to lead a somewhat strenuous existence. They have my sympathy and will have any small support ‸& cooperation that I can contribute.
With best wishes for a successful meeting of the Committee and of the Council, at which you will doubtless be present to exercise a wise and restraining influence,10 I remain
Sincerely yours, Chas. W. Chesnutt.P.S. I presume you have been reading the "Autobiography of a Southerner" in the Atlantic.11 I don't know who wrote it (tho I presume you do.) It is great stuff, & shows a real insight into Southern conditions.
C.W.C.Correspondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia; in 1881, he became the principal of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1. The Hotel Manhattan (or Manhattan Hotel), opened in 1896 and demolished in 1960s, was a 16-story hotel designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh (1847–1918) and located at the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and 42nd Street near Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It was Booker T. Washington's preferred residence when in New York. [back]
2. Jeremiah Frank Armstrong (1877–1946), known by his middle name, was the first Black student to graduate from Cornell College 1900. He was chief assistant to Emmett Scott (1873-1957), Booker T. Washington's personal secretary and main advisor, from 1903 to 1908. He left to attend medical school and in 1912 began to practice as a physician in Chicago.[back]
3. The Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, evolved from the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, founded in 1881, with Booker T. Washington as its principal. It became a leading educational institution for Blacks in the South, emphasizing teacher training and industrial education. Chesnutt, who had himself been the principal of a Black normal school in the early 1880s, first visited Tuskegee in February 1901, and remained well-informed about and personally connected with the institution all his life.[back]
4. The Committee of Twelve for the Advancement of the Interests of the Negro Race was founded by Booker T. Washington in January 1904 to bring together prominent Black activists. The primary goal was to commission or reprint and widely disseminate articles with positive views of the Black community, financed by an annual contribution by Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), contributions of the 12 members, and fundraising. In the summer of 1904, W. E. B. Du Bois resigned from the Committee over disagreements with its accommodationist approach and with Washington's dominance, and went on to found the Niagara Movement, the antecedent of the NAACP, as an alternative. Chesnutt accepted a spot on the Committee of Twelve in June 1905, effectively replacing Du Bois. His known correspondence with the group ended in 1909, shortly before it became defunct in 1910.[back]
5. Booker T. Washington called an emergency meeting of the Committee of Twelve to discuss the Atlanta Riot of September 1906 on October 12, 1906, directly following the meeting of the Afro-American Council from October 9–11, 1906, which would have brought many members of the Committee to New York. Stevens House was a hotel on 27 Broadway, where Washington stayed during the 1906 Council meeting. Washington invited Chesnutt by letter and telegram on October 4, 1906. [back]
6. The New York World was a widely read Democratic newspaper published from 1860 to 1931, made popular by publisher Joseph Pulitzer between 1883 and 1907, with contributions from many famous journalists. Booker T. Washington is likely referring to an upcoming issue to be published on Sunday, September 30, 1906. It contained an editorial by Samuel M. Williams (1869-1959) on the Atlanta Riot the previous weekend (September 22 and 23, 1906), as well as a letter to the editor by John W. E. Bowen, Black president of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, who had witnessed the riot's aftermath. Along with Chesnutt and Washington, Bowen was a member of the Committee of Twelve.[back]
7. The Atlanta Riot began on Saturday, September 22, 1906, when several Black men were reported in local newspapers to have sexually assaulted White women. A White mob began to attack Black citizens and destroy homes and businesses. Although the exact number of deaths is unknown, between 25 and 40 Black people died (as well as two Whites). Called in on Sunday, September 23, the state militia patrolled the streets and arrested over 200 Black men the next day in the Brownsville area. The riot was covered widely in the national and international news at the time. Among Blacks, it exacerbated tensions between political factions and led to increased criticism of Booker T. Washington's accommodationist approach.[back]
8. Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prominent White British writer of political commentary and science fiction, who had socialist (Fabian) leanings. From March to May of 1906, he visited the United States for the first time. Wells wrote to Washington before he left for the U.S. (March 10, 1906) to ask to meet with him, and they met in Boston for an interview. Wells's lengthy travel essay, The Future in America: A Search After Realities (1906), contains a discussion of the race question in the U.S., including Wells's observations about the mixed-race background of most African Americans and an account of his interview with Washington. "The Tragedy of Color" was the twelfth installment and appeared September 15, 1905, 1317-19.[back]
9. William Jefferson White (1831-1913), a Black minister and educator, was the editor and publisher of the Georgia Baptist. In the summer of 1906, he helped organize the Georgia Equal Rights Convention, working alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, but after having defended Black citizens during the Atlanta Riot in September of that year, he fled Atlanta, fearing for his life.[back]
10. The Afro-American Council, a civil rights organization founded in 1898 under the leadership of African Methodist Episcopal bishop Alexander Walters and New York Age publisher T. Thomas Fortune, existed until 1907. Many prominent Black activists, including Booker T. Washington, were members. Widely publicized annual meetings were held from 1899 to 1907, before the organization was dissolved. Many of its members became founders of later prominent Black organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League. What was to be the penultimate annual meeting of the organization took place from October 9-11, 1906 in New York City.[back]
11. A serialized "Autobiography of a Southerner Since the Civil War" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly under the pseudonym "Nicholas Worth" in four installment from July to October 1906. The author was Walter Hines Page (1855-1918), former editor of the Atlantic Monthly and co-owner for Doubleday, Page and Co., and Chesnutt's former editor and regular correspondent. In 1909, an expanded version of the story was published anonymously, as The Southerner: A novel, being the Autobiography of Nicholas Worth (Doubleday, & Page Co.).[back]
