Charles W. Chesnutt to Harry E. Davis, 5 October 1922
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October 5, 1922.
Hon. Harry E. Davis
202 Engineers Building,
City.
My dear Harry:
I am acknowledging somewhat tardily your letter of September 28th. I have given the matter of membership in the Boulé careful consideration, and have decided that as I already have as man club demands on my time as I can take care of, I feel regretfully compelled to decline your cordial invitation. I appreciate the honor, and it is very nice for you to suggest that even if I could not be active my membership would add to the character and prestige of the new Boulé, but I feel sure that with the membership you have already, the new Boulé cannot be anything but a complete success.1 Please express my thanks to the gentlemen and my best wishes to that end.
Yours very truly, CWC/FWLCorrespondent: Harry E. Davis (1882–1955) was a Black lawyer with a degree from Western Reserve University's law school (1908). He became a Republican state legislator in Ohio and served four terms in the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly (1921–1928). From 1928 to 1934, Davis was a member of the Cleveland Civil Service Commission (president 1932–1934). He later served in the Ohio Senate (1947–1948 and 1953–1954), the upper house of the General Assembly. He was in leadership positions in the Cleveland chapters of many racial-justice organizations, including the NAACP, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the Black freemasons, and the Black fraternity Sigma Pi Phi.
1. The Black fraternal organization Sigma Pi Phi, known as the Boulé (the Greek word for "council"), was founded in Philadelphia in 1904 by and for Black male professionals, who were at the time excluded from most White professional organizations. In 1922, Harry E. Davis (1882–1955) tried to establish a chapter in Cleveland, but could not gather enough potential members; the chapter, Tau Boulé, was not founded until June 1925, as the third Ohio-based chapter. Several prominent Black Clevelanders of Chesnutt's acquaintance became members, but he did not join. See Charles H. Wesley, History of Sigma Pi Phi: First of the Negro-American Greek-Letter Fraternities, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition (Washington, DC: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1954), 176–178 and 369–370. [back]
