Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 28 August 1908
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CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
1105 WILLIAMSON BUILDING
CLEVELAND, O.
File
Cleveland, August 28, 1908.
Dr. Booker T. Washington,
Huntington, L. I.
My dear Dr. Washington,
I was duly in receipt of newspaper cutting containing your letter to the New York World on the subject of lynching.1 I not only note the facts, with which I was already reasonably familiar through the newspapers, but I also note the direct and forceful manner in which you refer to them. It is a very wise and just presentment of a point of view which ought to be pressed upon the public consciousness, and I have no doubt whatever that coming from you it will have its weight.
I had a letter from my daughter Helen2 the other day, telling me that you paid a visit to Arundel-on-the-Bay,3 and seemed to enjoy yourself. I hope you feel all the better for the social relaxation in which you have indulged during the summer.
Cordially yours, Chas. W. ChesnuttCorrespondent: 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. Booker T. Washington's statement condemning lynching, printed in the New York World, 20 August 1908, addressed a major race riot in Springfield, IL, 14-16 August 1908, during which two Black men were lynched and 75 others injured. The World was a widely-read Democratic newspaper from 1860 to 1931, made hugely popular by publisher Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911) between 1883 and 1907; Washington had arranged with the paper that the statement would be released to the Associated Press, so it was widely reprinted and also issued as a pamphlet. In the statement, Washington drew attention to other lynchings that had occurred that summer and advocated strongly against mob justice. Cf. The Booker T. Washington Papers, Volume 9 (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1980), pp. 611-613.[back]
2. Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880–1969) was Chesnutt's second child. She earned degrees from Smith College and Columbia University, taught Latin (including to Langston Hughes) at Cleveland Central High School for more than four decades, co-authored a Latin textbook, The Road to Latin, and served on the executive committee of the American Philological Association in 1920. She was her father's literary executor and first biographer.[back]
3. Arundel-on-the-Bay, located on a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay, was a beach resort frequented by Blacks at the turn of the century. Chesnutt's children Helen and Edwin vacationed there in August 1908 (Helen Chesnutt, Pioneer of the Color Line, 228), during which time Booker T. Washington and his family came for a weekend. Washington was also attending the National Negro Business League's annual convention in nearby Baltimore, Maryland.[back]
