Lessie Ophelia Toler to Charles W. Chesnutt, 14 April 1932
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Chapel Hill, N. C.
April 14, 1932.
My dear Mr.Chestnutt:
I am making a study of the opinions of a selected group of Negro men and women who appears in "Who's Who in Colored America" on the subject of the Negro and Communism.1
Will you be kind enough to scale your opinion on the enclosed sheet and return in the stamped-addressed envelope?
The study is being made as a research project by a graduate student in sociology at the University of North Caroliina under the direction of Dr. Guy B. Johnson.2
I assure you that no identification will be made of your opinion.
Thank you for your cooperation. Lessie TolerCorrespondent: Lessie Ophelia Toler Fleming (1904–1960) was a White social worker who received her master's degree in sociology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1932 with her thesis "Communism and the Negro." She supervised social field work for the state of North Carolina in various capacities and regions from about 1935 through 1942. She later became a professor of sociology at Kent State University in Ohio, along with her husband, the sociologist James E. Fleming (1909–1964).
1. Entries on Chesnutt were included in Who's Who in Colored America beginning with the first edition, edited by Joseph J. Boris (New York: Who's Who in Colored America Corp., 1927), 40–41. [back]
2. Guy Benton Johnson (1901–1991) was a White sociologist and anthropologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1927–1969) who studied African American history and contemporary culture; he corresponded with many Black activists and intellectuals, and participated in the famous Myrdal Study of the American Negro (1939–1940) alongside his wife, social historian Guion Griffis Johnson (1900–1989). [back]
