Charles W. Chesnutt to W. E. B. Du Bois, 27 October 1926
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6/33/56
CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
I see that you have published my letter on the "Negro in Art" in the November "Crisis".2 I fear I made it too long, so that you had to give me all the space on that subject. However, I am not ashamed of it, indeed I think it looks very well in print.
There is just one typographical error. Either my careless typist or your intelligent compositor or proof reader left out the final letter "s" in the word "manners" in the third line from the end of the third column, making me refer to "the ordinary novel of manner," when obviously I meant "the ordinary novel of manners". However, I think that to the intelligent reader the mistake corrects itself.
The North Carolina writer in "The Outer Pocket" of the November "Crisis" seems to have found one way of getting into print. I hope some day he may reach a round of the ladder of success which will enable him to write great stories with great racial themes. Since he is only twenty-two, he has ample room for growth.
Has the "Crisis"—if so, I have not noticed it—reviewed Mr. Van Vechten's3 "Nigger Heaven"? I read Mr. James Weldon Johnson's4 review in the current number of "Opportunity",5 and I have been wondering what your reaction to the book was. I could not criticize it adversely even if I cared to, because of the fact that he has treated me so splendidly in his comments on my writing.
Yours very truly, Chas. W. Chesnutt. CWC:ESCorrespondent: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was a sociologist, historian, and world-renowned civil rights activist. After completing coursework at the University of Berlin and Harvard University, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. He was a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University (1897–1910 and again in the 1930s). He was a prominent leader of the Niagara Movement and helped found the NAACP in 1909. As the editor of the NAACP's journal, The Crisis, from 1910 to 1931, Du Bois published four of Chesnutt's short stories as well as two of his essays. See "The Doll" (April 1912), "Mr. Taylor's Funeral" (April/May 1915), "The Marked Tree" (Dec 1924/Jan 1925), and "Concerning Father" (May 1930); and "Women's Rights" (1915) and "The Negro in Art" (November 1926).
1. By the summer of 1925, Chesnutt's business, Chesnutt & Moore, had moved its offices to 1646 Union Trust Building from its previous address, 1106 Williamson Building. [back]
2. In the spring of 1926, W. E. B. Du Bois, as the editor of The Crisis, sent out a questionnaire asking a number of writers and publishers how Black people should be represented in art. Select answers were printed the following seven months as a series under the general title "The Negro in Art" (for the first installment and the questions, see The Crisis 31, no. 6 [April 1926]: 278–280). Chesnutt's answers appeared as a short essay. See "The Negro in Art," The Crisis 33, no. 1 (November 1926): 490–493. [back]
3. Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964) was a photographer, novelist, and music and drama critic, an influential figure in New York literary circles in the 1920s, and a patron of the Harlem Renaisssance. He was also a collector of books on Black Americana. [back]
4. James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) was a Black author and political activist. He was Executivie Secretary of the NAACP (1920–1930). On December 17, 1930, he resigned as Secretary of the NAACP to accept the Adam K. Spence Chair of Creative Literature and Writing at Fisk University. [back]
5. Published by the National Urban League, Opportunity: Journal Of Negro Life (1923–1949) was dedicated to sociological topics and to fostering literary culture, which included holding literary contests (1925–1927) and well-attended annual dinners in New York City that honored Black writers and connected them to publishers. Prize winners included Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurson, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Sterling Brown, and Franklin Frazier. [back]
