Charles W. Chesnutt Williams to Charles W. Chesnutt, 24 January 1931
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LAW OFFICES OF CHARLES W. C. WILLIAMS
TELEPHONES
DISTRICT
8000 - 8001
SUITE 204-08
615-F ST., N. W.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
24 JANUARY 1931
Dear Grandpa:
Here are some clippings and a letter from John Wilson the leading colored criminal lawyer here.1 The case was unique in that it's the first time in twenty five years around here that a Negro has beaten the hot seat in a case of this nature. Trial lasted two days, and we played to a packed house all the time. We took about ninety exceptions. I addressed the jury and it was some address if I say so myself. If I can I'll send you the record of the case. An old acquaintance of yours (from Hart, Dice & Carlson's office ) reported the case in part.2
Give my love to all the folks and take good care of yourself. If I can spare the time I'm coming up to the bar association convention in August and I'll see you for two or three days.3 Everybody is well down here. You may expect to be a great-grandfather any day now.4
Lovingly, CharlesCorrespondent: Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1903–1940) was the older of Chesnutt's two grandchildren and the only child of Chesnutt's daughter Ethel and her husband Edward C. Williams. He graduated from Howard University in 1926 with a B.A. and from Howard Law School in 1929, and married Colleen Brooks Williams (1904–2006) the same year. He had a law practice in Washington, D.C., in the 1930s. His only child and Chesnutt's only great-grandchild, Patricia, was born in January 1931.
1. John Henry Wilson (1885–1966) was a Black attorney from Washington, D.C. He graduated from Howard Law School in 1907, was married in 1910, and after several years in Indiana returned to Washington, D.C., with his wife, Evelyn Reid Wilson (1829–1974), and daughter Thelma. The Black press covered many of the criminal cases in the 1920s and 30s in which Wilson took part. [back]
2. George L. Hart, Edwin Dice, and Fred A. Carlson ran a prominent shorthand business in Washington, D.C., in the 1920s and 1930s, specializing in legal and government-related transcripts. [back]
3. The National Bar Association (initially the Negro Bar Association), an organization of Black lawyers founded in 1924 in Des Moines, Iowa, held its annual convention in Cleveland in 1931 (August 6–8). It is not known whether Williams attended; his grandfather was vacationing in Idlewild, Michigan, at the time of the convention. [back]
4. Charles and Colleen Brooks Williams's daughter Patricia Ann Williams (1931–2000) was born in 1931. Chesnutt does not seem to have met his only great granddaughter. [back]
