Charles W. Chesnutt to Alexander H. Martin, 23 September 1921
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September 23, 1921.
Fifty-eighth Anniversary Committee,
Mt. Zion Congregational Church,1
Alexander H. Martin, Esq., Chairman.
Dear Sirs:
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your invitation to attend the Fifty-seventh Anniversary Commemoration of Mt. Zion Church. I was not able to be present, but I have heard a lot of nice things about it, and enclose my check for $3.00, which is not very much but well above the minimum suggested by you in your letter, as a birthday present for the church, wishing it many more years of prosperity and usefulness.
Yours very truly, CWC/FLCorrespondent: 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. Founded in 1864, Mt. Zion Congregational Church was one of the first Black churches founded in Cleveland, Ohio; it still exists today. In its early years, it was in rivalry with another church for Black elites, St. Andrew's Episcopal (a co-founder of which was Chesnutt's cousin John Patterson Green), but 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. Chesnutt was not a member of Mt. Zion (his family attended services at an integrated church, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, since the 1880s) but in the 1920s donated at least twice to their anniversary fundraiser. [back]
