Booker T. Washington to Charles W. Chesnutt, July 1907
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July []1907[?]1
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt,
1105 Williamson Building.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Dear Mr. Chesnutt:
I have written Mr. Brascher2 today as per attached copy.
When you come to New York,3 I shall be glad to have you write me at Huntington, New York,4 where I shall spend most of the summer.
With kindest regards to your family and yourself as well; I am
Very truly, Booker T. WashingtonCorrespondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia. In 1881, he became the president of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1. The most likely date is July 15 or 16, 1907. It postdates Chesnutt's letter from July 11 and predates Chesnutt's visit to New York in late July 1907. The accompanying enclosure is dated July 15, 1907, and is among the Brascher correspondence in the Chesnutt collection at Fisk University (see Jesse Crisler, Robert Leitz and Joseph McElrath, An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt [Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002], 28n3). [back]
2. Nahum Daniel Brascher (1880–1945) was a Black journalist and activist in Cleveland, originally from Indiana. With two fellow Black Republicans, Welcome T. Blue (1867–1930) and Thomas Wallace Fleming (1874–1948), Brascher founded the Cleveland Journal in 1903. In 1907, he sought help from Booker T. Washington to get a position at the Congressional Library, but did not get the appointment. When Fleming became the first Black city council member in Cleveland, Brascher served as city storekeeper (1909 to 1911) and worked as a publicity manager for a Black-owned realty company. In 1918, he moved to Chicago, where he had a successful career in public relations and journalism; he helped found the Associated Negro Press in 1919 and also wrote editorials for the Chicago Defender. [back]
3. In late July and early August 1907, Chesnutt traveled to New York City, residing at the Hotel Belleclaire and visiting Booker T. Washington and his family at his summer home in Huntington, New York, on Long Island. [back]
4. Huntington, New York, is a town on the north shore of Long Island, 40 miles from Manhattan. From 1907 to 1910, Booker T. Washington rented the Van Wyck farm as a summer home for himself and his family. He then purchased a home nearby for the summers of 1911–1914. Chesnutt's visit in July of 1907 seems to have been the only time he saw Washington at his summer residence. [back]
