Charles W. Chesnutt to Mary Haven Thirkield, 16 May 1932
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May 16, 1932
Mrs. Mary Haven Thirkield,
Fifteen Gramercy Park,
New York, N. Y.
Dear Mrs. Thirkield:
I am in receipt of your letter and the accompanying folder, "A Black Blot? or A Clean Page?"1 It is very interesting, at the same time most discouraging. I have been contributing for many years to the N. A. A. C. P.,2 and other organizations which attack this evil, but at present I have suffered so deeply by the prevailing depression, that my resources are practically exhausted, and I can contribute nothing now to any cause however good, but hope the time will come soon when I shall be in better shape.3
I return herewith the booklet which you sent me.
Yours very truly, CWC:MKCorrespondent: Mary Michelle Haven Thirkield (1858–1935), a White woman from the Boston, Massachusetts, area, was the daughter of well-known abolitionist Gilbert Haven (1821–1880) and married to Wilbur Patterson Thirkield (1854–1936). She was a lifelong advocate for Black rights and Black education through the Methodist Episcopal Church's Women's Home Missionary Society, whose president she was from 1913 to 1927. After many years spent mostly in the South, she and her spouse lived in New York City after his retirement in 1928.
1. The anti-lynching folder or booklet Thirkield sent ("A Black Blot? or a Clean Page?") has not been located, and the organization that created it is not known. But it was likely based at least partly on the NAACP's "Lynching Record for 1931," the annual supplement added to its original lynching report, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 (New York: NAACP, 1919), since the NAACP listed thirteen Black victims (and one White), of which the first was Raymond Gunn, lynched in Marysville, Missouri, on January 12, 1931. [back]
2. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began in February 1909, with a Committee on the Negro and "The Call," a statement protesting lawlessness against Black people. In 1910, the organization adopted its current name and in 1912 began publication of a monthly journal, The Crisis, which was edited by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1912 to 1944. Chesnutt's involvement with the NAACP extended over many years, and included serving on its General Committee, attending conferences, presiding at NAACP events in Cleveland, publishing four stories and two essays in The Crisis (1912, 1915, 1924, 1926, 1930, and 1931), and being awarded in 1928 the organization's highest honor, the Spingarn Medal. [back]
3. See also Chesnutt's letter to Walter F. White (1893–1955) from October 16, 1931, about not renewing his NAACP membership because of lack of funds. [back]
