Charles W. Chesnutt to Wendell Phillips Dabney, 16 October 1931
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October 16, 1931
W. P. Dabney, Esq.,
Editor, The Union,1
412 McAllister Street,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dear Dabney:
I herewith enclose several fish pictures recording some of my catches this summer. You can show them to any of my scurrilous defamers, and if necessary I can support them by numerous affidavits.2
The family all join me in regards.
Cordially yours, CWC:LKCorrespondent: Wendell Phillips Dabney (1865–1952) was a Black activist, musician and journalist. Originally from Richmond, Virginia, he moved to Ohio in 1883 to study at Oberlin, Ohio, and then to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1894. He worked for the city of Cincinnati from 1895 until 1923 and was the founder, editor, and publisher of the Black weekly paper The Union (1907–1952). Chesnutt and Dabney knew of each other in the 1920s, but only their 1930s correspondence survives.
1. The Union was a Cincinnati-based Black weekly newspaper founded in 1907 by Wendell Phillips Dabney (1865–1952), who edited it until his death. Initially affiliated with the Republican Party, it identified as Independent after 1925. [back]
2. Chesnutt refers to his ongoing banter with Wendell Phillips Dabney over several letters about his fishing in Idlewild, Michigan where the Chesnutts spent the summers from 1925 to 1932. The three enclosed photographs have not survived, but earlier photos of Chesnutt fishing in Idlewild are digitally available in the Cleveland Public Library's collection of Chesnutt family photographs. [back]
