Harry E. Davis to Charles W. Chesnutt, 17 October 1922
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Ohio House of Representatives
1921-22
HARRY E. DAVIS
CUYAHOGA COUNTY
I am submitting the facts regarding our proposed organization and request instruction from all concerned.
To date nine persons have signified their intention of joining, and have deposited $5.00 each with me to apply on our charter. The rules of the organization will not permit a smaller number than ten to be taken in, nor can we substitute any other names than those already approved.
Under the circumstances, it does not seem to me that we can complete the proposed organization without having additional names submitted, and unless some of the tentative members of the local organization have something else to suggest, I will in a short time return the money advanced to me and call the matter off. However, I shall be glad to hear from each person concerned, and I hope that there will be a suggestion which will obviate difficulties.2
Yours very truly, Harry E. Davis HED:IBCorrespondent: 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. As a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1921–1928, Harry E. Davis would have been in the capital, Columbus, Ohio, frequently, and been supplied with official letterhead stationary, but he corrected this letter to the address of his office in Cleveland, at 202 Engineers Building. [back]
2. 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]
