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Vincent Longo to Charles W. Chesnutt, 4 November 1931

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  • Source Text: Vincent Longo to Charles W. Chesnutt, 4 November 1931, Charles Waddell Chesnutt Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, MS 3370, box 1, folder 6.
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  VINCENT LONGO GENERAL MANAGER RAYMOND 4416 PROPOSED Motion Picture Corporation WITH ENTIRE NEGRO DIRECTORATE AND CAST 427 CARONDELET STREET NEW ORLEANS, LA. November 4th, 1931 Mr. C. W. Chestnutt, Cleveland, Ohio. Dear Sir:-

Some little time ago I took the liberty of writing you asking for your views (whether favorable or otherwise) on a proposed Motion Picture Corporation with an entire Negro Cast and Directorate, but up to the present, I have not had the pleasure of receiving a reply.

Perhaps you have been too busy, or again, it may be that you lacked sufficient data to enable you to arrive at a more or less definite opinion. I am therefore sending you under separate cover another copy of the "National Negro Voice", wherein you will find a report of a rather lengthy interview, regarding the proposed Corporation that the Editor of said Publication had with me for the benefit of his readers.1

An answer from you at an early date expressing your views will surely be appreciated by me.2

Thanking you in advance for a reply, and with kindest personal regards, I am

Yours very truly, VINCENT LONGO, Vincent Longo VL/if


Correspondent: Vincent Longo (1898–1968) was a White real estate broker in New Orleans, Louisiana, who managed (and likely founded) the short-lived Sims Motion Picture Company (1930?–1932?), which never made any movies. He locally advertised beauty contests for Black women under the auspices of the company in 1930, and contacted the New Orleans branch of the NAACP about the proposed company in 1932.



1. The National Negro Voice was a New Orleans-based Black monthly paper that existed from ca. 1924 until at least 1931 (and possibly longer). Few copies survive and the article in question is lost; the enclosed clipping was not preserved. [back]

2. It is not known whether Chesnutt replied; no additional correspondence with Longo has been located. [back]

  • Cite (Chicago style): Vincent Longo, "Vincent Longo to Charles W. Chesnutt, 4 November 1931," The Charles W. Chesnutt Archive, Gen. Ed. Stephanie P. Browner, Matt Cohen, and Kenneth M. Price, accessed December 5, 2025. https://chesnuttarchive.org/item/ccda.corr01856.
  • Source File: ccda.corr01856.xml
  • Document ID: ccda.corr01856
  • Nature of source text: typed letter signed
  • Rights information: The base text of the original item is in the public domain. The text encoding and editorial notes were created and/or prepared by the Charles W. Chesnutt Archive and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Any reuse of the material should credit the Charles W. Chesnutt Archive. [License]
  • Contributors to the digital file: Millhorn, Lauren | Anderson, Antje | Weakly, Laura K. | McMullen, Kevin
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