Charles W. Chesnutt to Walter White, 25 March 1931
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March 25, 1931
My dear Walter:
I presume you read my article in the current number of The Colophon. It was in some respects a difficult article to write, but the editors were very much pleased, and I have had some commendatory letters, including from Carl Van Vechten.1
I hope you had a very successful Spingarn Medal2 presenting meeting. Mrs. Chesnutt3 is in New York and meant to be present at the meeting, but I had a letter from her yesterday in which she said that the friends with whom she is stopping, at the Dunbar Apartments, had bought tickets for the Paul Robeson4 recital, which took place at the same time, and she felt under obligation to follow their schedule.
Referring to your letter of the other day, I have no doubt whatever, in view of your past record of achievement, that you will be able to hold down your present job and that you will continue the good work in the capacity of "Secretary" rather than "Acting Secretary."
With the best of good wishes,
Cordially yours, Mr. Walter White, Acting Secretary N. A. A. C. P., 69 Fifth Avenue, New York City.Correspondent: Walter Francis White (1893–1955) was a Black civil rights activist and writer. He began working at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1918, at its New York City headquarters, as assistant to James Weldon Johnson, the Association's first Black Executive Secretary. He investigated lynchings and riots, sometimes passing for White, and he became Executive Secretary in 1930. He helped desegregate the armed forces after WWII, and under his leadership the NAACP established its Legal Defense Fund. He nominally remained executive secretary until his death in 1955.
1. 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]
2. The highest honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, for the highest achievement of a living African American in the preceding year. Joel Spingarn (1875—1939), a professor of literature and one of the NAACP founders, was elected board chairman of the NAACP in 1915 and served as president from 1929 to 1939. Charles Chesnutt received this award in 1928. [back]
3. Susan Perry Chesnutt (1861–1940) was from a well-established Black family in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and worked as a teacher at Fayetteville's Howard School before marrying Chesnutt. They were married from 1878 until his death in 1932 and had four children: Ethel, Helen, Edwin, and Dorothy. Susan led an active life in Cleveland. [back]
4. Paul Bustill Robeson (1898–1976) was a bass-baritone concert artist, actor, athlete, and activist, who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and political stances. During the 1940s, Robeson's Black nationalist and anti-colonialist activities brought him to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and such political beliefs all but erased him from American popular culture and history. In 1931, when Susan Chesnutt saw him, Robeson was living and performing in London, but he had returned to the U.S. for a tour that began at Carnegie Hall in New York City, with a program of both classical works and folk and gospel songs. [back]
