Alexander H. Martin to Charles W. Chesnutt, 1921
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| alterations to base text (additions or deletions) | added or deleted text |
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added text | Deleted text Added text |
| position of added text (if not added inline) | [right margin] text added in right margin; [above line] text added above the line |
| proofreading mark | ‸ |
| page number, repeated letterhead, etc. | page number or repeated letterhead |
| supplied text | [supplied text] |
| archivist note | archivist note |
1864
19211
Mt. Zion Congregational Church
East 31st Street Near Central Avenue2
Rev. Harold M. Kingsley, Pastor3
Phone Prospect 4518
Rev. W. H. Jones, Ass't Pastor
Cleveland, O.
FIFTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE:
Mr. Alexander H. Martin, Chairman
Mr. W. H. Jones, Secretary
Mrs. T. W. Fleming
Mrs. J. W. Wills
Mrs. R. K Hodges
Dear Friend and Co-Worker,-
Mt. Zion Congregational Church sends you greetings:4
We would respectfully announce the rapid culmination of the movement to bring, through Mt. Zion as a medium, the help of a practical, applied Christianity to the solution of the problems of the Central Avenue District and of our group in this City.5
This is a pleasing accomplishment to mark the 58th year of the church, and THIS EVENT and THIS YEAR we celebrate.
You are cordially invited to join with us in a fitting commemoration of our 57th anniversary. We have prepared a program for Sept. 11th to Sept. 14th, inclusive, which will entertain and edify you and send us forward with enthusiasm, power, consecration and your support for the sucessful accomplishment of the larger, better work of the future.
May we ask you to send us in the enclosed envelope on acknowledgement of the receipt of this letter, accompanying the same with a birth day present for the Mt. Zion? Is ONE PENNY for each YEAR she has stood here holding aloft the Banner of the Cross, a fitting suggestion of a MINIMUM for your offering in this behalf?
We shall be glad to see you frequently at Mt. Zion and to be assured of your assistance as we seek to make her a TEMPLE for ll, ministering helpfully to all the people.
Yours for Christ and the Church, THE ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE A. H. MARTIN, President W. H. JONES, Secretary 300 sent Sept 23/21Correspondent: Alexander H. Martin (1872–1962) was a Black lawyer and Republican politican from Ohio who attended Western Reserve University's Adelbert College and its law school. He practiced law in Cleveland, Ohio, from the 1890s to the 1960s, and served in many community institutions that supported the Black community, including Mt. Zion Congregational Church, the Cleveland Association of Colored Men, and the Cedar Avenue YMCA.
1. While the letter is undated beyond the year (1921) given in the letterhead, the mentioned dates of the 57th anniversary celebration Mt. Zion Congregational Church, from September 11–14, 1921, and Chesnutt's answer and his handwritten note at the bottom of the letter make it clear that this was written before September 11. [back]
2. Mt. Zion Congregational Church in Cleveland was originally located on E. 9th St. but in the 1870s moved to E. 31st St. (now Maple St.) and Central Ave., in the midst of the growing Black community. This building was renovated several times, but a fire destroyed it in 1923. The church purchased Temple Tifereth Israel on 55th St. and Central Ave. (formerly home of Cleveland's largest Jewish congregation), less than a mile further East, and was located there into the late 1930s, running many social services for the community before and during the Great Depression. [back]
3. Harold M. Kingsley (1887–1970) was a Black minister and political activist. Originally from Alabama and with Episcopal roots, he became a Congregational minister in the early 1910s, and headed Mt. Zion Congregational Church in Cleveland from 1921 to 1923, before serving in Chicago at the Church of the Good Shepherd and at the Pilgrim House in Los Angeles, working for interracial harmony. His successor at Mt. Zion was Russell S. Brown (1889–1981), who served there from 1925 to 1933. [back]
4. Mt. Zion Congregational Church was one of the first Black churches founded in Cleveland (1864–present). In its early years, it competerd with another church for the Black elites, St. Andrew's Episcopal (a co-founder of which was Chesnutt's relative John Patterson Green, 1845–1940), but was considered the more inclusive of the two. By the early 20th century, new Black churches (Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal) appealed more directly to a rapidly growing lower middle-class and working-class Black community. Attendance at Mt. Zion fluctuated greatly in the 1910s and 1920s, but the church provided a range of social services for the Black community. Chesnutt was not a member (his family attended services at an integrated church, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, beginning in the 1880s) but in the 1920s donated at least twice to their anniversary fundraiser. [back]
5. The Central Avenue District East of downtown was the center of Cleveland's Black community. The Cleveland Black population increased rapidly during the early years of the Great Migration, reaching almost thirty-five thousand (4.3% of the total population of the city), and was concentrated in the district, which slowly expanded eastward. Poverty caused by discrimination and exclusion (even as there was no formal segregation) was wide-spread in the neighborhood; Black churches were prominent among the Black organizations that sought political reform and provided assistance. [back]
