On Her Own Ground

  she urged the group to support the doctor’s motion—Ibid., p. 315.

  “I am very much in sympathy”—Ibid.

  Impressed by a recent New York Age article—“$100,000 Fund to Combat Lynching in United States, New York Age, Aug. 17, 1918.

  “I told [him] I represented 20,000 Negro businessmen—1918 NNBL Report, p. 315.

  Without further deliberation—Ibid.

  “Mme. C. J. Walker . . . requests the pleasure”—Invitation to Villa Lewaro, Aug. 25, 1918, George Stewart Collection/IHS.

  Madam Walker had instructed Lelia—LWR to FBR, Aug. 2, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  he objected to some of the names—LWR to FBR, July 24, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “I have never in my life been so disturbed”—Ibid.

  “I am awfully fearful”—Ibid.

  Afraid that Scott “might do one of two things”—Ibid.

  Among his critics were longtime adversaries—Linda O. McMurry, To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 271.

  Scott had been too willing to rationalize—Lewis, Du Bois, p. 542.

  Scott had “proposed to popularize”—Patton, War and Race, p. 66, cites Memorandum from Emmett J. Scott to Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War (Oct. 8, 1917), RG165, E. J. Scott Papers, National Archives.

  there “was no intention on the part of the War Dept.”—Baker to Scott, Nov. 21, 1917, Scott Papers, National Archives, cited in Patton, War and Race, pp. 83–84.

  continued to enjoy “widespread support”—Patton, War and Race, p. 66.

  “transported into a fairyland”—Bessye Bearden, “Valuables Bought by Those Who Opposed Mansion on Hudson,” Baltimore Afro-American, Dec. 6, 1930.

  “nearly 100 white and colored”—“Emmett Scott and Other Notables Dedicate Madam Walker’s Villa,” Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 6, 1918.

  violinist Joseph Douglass—Ibid.

  J. Rosamond Johnson—“Conference at Villa Lewaro,” New York Age, Aug. 31, 1918.

  performed at the World’s Columbian Exposition—Southern, The Music of Black Americans, pp. 256, 283–84.

  featured on transcontinental tours—Ibid., p. 286; Boris, Who’s Who in Colored America, Vol. 1, p. 40.

  Temple Emanu-El—“Men of the Month,” The Crisis, Feb. 1912, p. 147.

  “forget all their differences [and] stand together”—Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 6, 1918.

  “bloodthirsty black men”—Badger, A Life in Ragtime, p. 186.

  December 1917 execution—Aptheker, A Documentary History, pp. 184–85.

  hanging thirteen of them—Johnson, Along This Way, pp. 321–23.

  Even fresher in their minds—“Shooting Black Soldiers,” in Aptheker, A Documentary History, p. 226.

  “Every colored soldier who meets his death”—Ibid., p. 225

  Arising “amidst much applause”—Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 6, 1918.

  “because they treated Negro draftees unfairly”—Ibid.

  “colored women would be sent overseas”—Ibid.

  Ransom presented several more speakers—“Conference at Villa Lewaro,” New York Age, Aug. 31, 1918.

  “emphasized the necessity of the various elements”—Ibid.

  “No such assemblage has ever gathered”—Emmett Scott to MW, Aug. 28, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  Appreciative of the “manifestations of friendship”—Ibid.

  field secretary of the Welfare League—George Lattimore to MW, Aug. 29, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “transmitting . . . to our boys”—Lattimore to MW, Aug. 29, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “It has given me no little annoyance”—MW to Col. Wm. Jay Schieffelin, Jan. 13, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  “I feel it necessary”—Ibid.

  “The Negro in the south . . . has been denied the use of firearms”—Ibid.

  “Now they will soon be returning. To what?”—Ibid.

  “They will come back to face like men”—Ibid.

  “Please understand that this does not mean that I wish”—Ibid.

  “I have tried so very hard to make you see the thing”—Ibid.

  “By the God of heaven”—W.E.B. Du Bois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis, Vol. 18 (May 1919), pp. 13–14, in Herbert Aptheker, ed., Selections from The Crisis, Vol. 1, pp. 196–97; Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., Seeing Red: Federal Campaign Against Black Militancy: 1919–1925 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 57; Lewis, Du Bois, p. 578.

  We return—W.E.B. Du Bois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis, Vol. 18 (May 1919), pp. 13–14, in Aptheker, Selections from The Crisis, Vol. 1, pp. 196–97.

  “Negroes will come back feeling like men”—Moorfield Storey quoted in David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 15.

  “Am still getting up to work in the garden”—MW to FBR, undated (perhaps Sept. 17, 1918) (MWC/IHS).

  “are following the sun beams”—MW to Jessie Robinson, Sept. 22, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “Am grateful for the warm weather”—MW or Villa to FBR, Oct. 3, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  her income taxes . . . were due “at once”—MW to Righter & Kolb, undated (possibly Sept. 1918) (MWC/IHS).

  “After you take care of taxes”—FBR to MW, Sept. 13, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “If I do not buy in Harlem”—MW to FBR, Sept. 27, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “When I explained my intention”—MW to FBR, Oct. 8, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “Never has the old Puritan city seen”—“Boston Lifts the Lid Today” and “Seen in Newspaper Row,” Boston Evening Globe, Nov. 11, 1918, pp. 1 and 2.

  Businessmen in pinstripes—Ibid.

  “It seems that the whole country”—MW to FBR, Nov. 14, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “Lelia and I had a very pleasant trip”—MW to FBR, Dec. 1, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “was especially courteous to us”—MW or Irvington to FBR, Dec. 4, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  a “splendid time”—LWR to FBR, Nov. 30, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  A tall, “olive-brown”—Dorothy Butler phone interview with author, Apr. 9, 2000.

  “commanding son of a gun”—Marion R. Perry, Jr., interview with author, June 17, 1982.

  New York Age later reported—“Weds Three Days After Burial of Her Mother,” NewYork Age, June 14, 1919.

  It is entirely possible—Marion R. Perry interview with author, Oct. 7, 1982.

  They may also have met—Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1914.

  a “shower” of birthday cards—FBR to MW, Dec. 19, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  Peggie Prosser, had arrived—MW to FBR, Dec. 20, 1918 (MWC/IHS); FBR to MW, Dec. 21, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “somewhat like the goods that soldiers”—MW to FBR, Dec. 19, 1918.

  Spanish teacher at Dunbar—“Miss H. E. Queen, Dunbar Teacher’s Funeral Arranged,” Washington Tribune, Oct. 12, 1940; “Miss Hallie Queen, Dunbar Teacher, Buried in Harmony,” Washington Post, Oct. 13, 1940, clippings (from Charles Cooney).

  master’s degree from Stanford—Boris, Who’s Who in Colored America, Vol. 1, p. 164; Washington Tribune, Oct. 12, 1940.

  A.B. from Cornell—Washington Tribune, Oct. 12, 1940; Washington Post, Oct. 13, 1940.

  Fluent in Spanish, French and German—Hallie Queen File on microfilm in RG 165, Records of the War Department and Special Staffs; Name Index to Correspondence of the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department Staff, 1917–1941, M1194.

  chairman of Howard University’s Red Cross and relief work done during the East St. Louis riots—Washington Tribune, Oct. 12, 1940.

  “Negro subversion”—Lewis, Du Bois, p. 559.

  to “carry out surveillance”—Patton, War and Race, p. 76 n. 73, cites RG 165, 10218 MID, 1917–1941, NARS.

  reports to the War Department . . . ended in November 1918—Hallie Queen File on microfilm in RG 165, Records of the War Department.

  “no German propaganda [was] carried”—Ibid.

  “The building and grounds”—Hallie E. Queen, “The Last Christmas Day,” und
ated (MWC/IHS).

  was “gracious, cordial and unaffected”—Ibid.

  “Well did they show the largesse”—Ibid.

  “It was significant that in that beautiful state dining room”—Ibid.

  sculptor, whose work had been exhibited—“Men of the Month,” The Crisis, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1912), p. 67.

  “The personnel of that . . . party”—Queen, “The Last Christmas Day.”

  “magnificent selection of books”—Ibid.

  Early the next morning—Ibid.

  At the mayor’s personal invitation—Grover A. Whalen (Secretary to Mayor John S. Hylan) to MW, Dec. 7, 1918 (MWC/IHS); Queen, “The Last Christmas Day.”

  Although the first severe snowstorm and “twilight gloom”—“Ovation to Sea Fighters,” “Ships Pass in Review” and “Mayor’s Fleet of Welcome,” New York Times, Dec. 27, 1918; “Thick Weather Dims View of Dreadnaughts,” New York Evening Post, Dec. 26, 1918.

  Her 1918 earnings had jumped to $275,937.88—FBR to MW, Jan. 6, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  “Your receipts exceeded over a quarter of a million”—Ibid.

  “You should congratulate yourself”—FBR to MW, Jan. 23, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  Even with the wartime supply problems—FBR to MW, Dec. 16, 1918 (second of two letters on Dec. 16) (MWC/IHS).

  “You will be surprised at the number of parlors”—FBR to MW, Jan. 23, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  Even the conflicts with the agents—FBR to MW, Jan. 1919, undated partial letter (MWC/IHS).

  introducing a line of facial products—FBR to MW, Jan. 14, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  “This makes an apparent deficit”—FBR to MW, Jan. 6, 1919 (incorrectly dated as Jan. 6, 1918) (MWC/IHS).

  “For instance, your receipts for Monday . . . were over $2,000”—FBR to MW, Jan. 1919, undated partial letter (MWC/IHS).

  By month’s end the company had taken in $26,477.43—FBR to MW, Feb. 3, 1919, #2 (MWC/IHS).

  a 3.38-carat solitaire—Tiffany & Co. to MW, Mar. 8, 1919 (MWFC/APB).

  CHAPTER 20 GLOBAL VISIONS

  “By the help of God”—Report of the Thirteenth Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League, held at Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 21–23, 1912, p. 155.

  “for the purpose of founding”—Report of the Fifteenth Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League, held at Muskogee, Oklahoma, August 19–21, 1914 (Nashville: AME Sunday School Union, 1914), p. 52.

  Then in 1914 she contributed funds—FBR to Ella Croker, Nov. 19, 1914 (MWC/IHS).

  she offered $1,000 and “start a little Tuskegee Institute in Africa”—Report of the Seventeenth Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League, held at Kansas City, Missouri, Aug. 16–18, 1916 (Washington, DC: William H. Davis, 1916), p. 135. (The school that Madam Walker envisioned was never built.)

  “seven African . . . girls”—Indpls. Freeman, Dec. 28, 1912.

  Emma Bertha Delaney—Sylvia Jacobs, “Emma Bertha Delaney,” in Hine et al., Black Women in America, p. 316.

  black Civil War veterans . . . frequently met—Painter, Exodusters, p. 141.

  to help pay the salaries—Sylvia Jacobs phone conversation with author, Apr. 4, 2000.

  “Africa for the Africans”—C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), p. 74.

  president of the Pan-African Association—John E. Fleming, “Alexander Walters,” in Logan and Winston, DANB, p. 631.

  German East Africa is now Tanzania. German Southwest Africa is now Namibia, ruled by Germany since the Berlin Conference—Belinda Cooper, “Germany,” in Appiah and Gates, Africana, p. 827.

  control of nearly 90 percent—Elizabeth Heath, “Berlin Conference of 1884–85,” in Appiah and Gates, Africana, p. 226.

  “wild quest for Imperial expansion”—W.E.B. Du Bois, “World War and the Color Line,” The Crisis, Nov. 1914, p. 28.

  what Du Bois called “the civilized Negro world”—Elliott P. Skinner, African Americans and the U.S. Policy Toward Africa, 1850–1924 (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1992), p. 390.

  “The more I think about the President’s declaration”—Robert Lansing, “Self-Determination and the Dangers,” Lansing Papers, Private Memorandum, 1915–1922, Container 63 (reel 1), Manuscript Division, LOC.

  “not vital to the life of the world in any respect”—William Roger Lewis, “The United States and the African Peace Settlement: The Pilgrimage of George Louis Beer,” Journal of African History, Vol. 4 (1963), pp. 413–33, cited in Skinner, African Americans, p. 408.

  passports for six “carefully selected”—Du Bois to Robert Lansing, Nov. 27, 1918, Du Bois Papers (Amherst), Reel 7, Frame 87, LOC.

  “It would be a calamity”—Ibid.

  recommended denying travel documents—Frank Polk to Robert Lansing, Dec. 20, 1918, RG 256, RACNP/LOC, File 138–12 (Microfilm M820, Reel 48).

  “I think your inclination not to grant passports”—Lansing to Polk, Dec. 21, 1918, Ibid.

  Wilson already had excluded Republicans—Laurence Urdang, ed., The Timetables of American History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), pp. 295–96.

  black Americans . . . intent upon raising embarrassing questions—Skinner, African Americans, pp. 393–94, cites Clarence G. Contee, “Du Bois, the NAACP, and the Pan-African Congress of 1919,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 57 (Jan. 1972), pp. 13–28.

  “only quick and adroit work”—W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 260–61, cited in Skinner, African Americans, p. 396.

  “The leading Negroes of the U.S. will ask”—New York Herald, Dec. 12, 1918, cited in Skinner, African Americans, p. 397.

  “I talked with Emmett Scott”—FBR to MW, Nov. 27, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “domestic questions cannot and will not be thrashed out”—FBR to MW, Jan. 6, 1919 (incorrectly dated as Jan. 6, 1918) (MWC/IHS).

  traveled to Washington to attend Trotter’s National Race Congress—Walter H. Loving report to Director of Military Intelligence on National Race Congress, Dec. 20, 1918, RG 165, File 10218-302, Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs, Correspondence of the Military Intelligence Division Relating to “Negro Subversion,” Microfilm M1440.

  “by unanimous vote”—W. Stephenson Holder to MW, Dec. 12, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  “I wish you might have been at that conference”—MW to FBR, Dec. 19, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  all “the names submitted, even to the Bishops”—Ibid.

  such “a clamor arose”—Duster, ed., Crusade for Justice, p. 380.

  she “regretted that the years spent in fighting”—Ibid.

  “Mrs. B. registered a strong protest”—MW to FBR, Dec. 19, 1918.

  “Since they have elected me”—Ibid.

  “Monroe Trotter may be all right”—FBR to MW, Jan. 11, 1919 (MWC/IHS).

  “I hope you will be very careful”—FBR to MW, Dec. 24, 1918 (MWC/IHS).

  Major Walter H. Loving . . . had personally visited Abbott—Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., “Seeing Red”—Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy 1919–1925 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 39.

  “convinced the paper promoted racial hatred”—Ibid.

  “professions of patriotism”—Ibid.

  State Department had stepped up its surveillance—Ibid., p. 4.

  “appearance of disloyalty”—Ibid., p. 5.

  Near the end of the war—Ibid., p. 3.

  After the war, MID operatives continued to spy—Ibid., p. 12.

  “I am seriously of the opinion”—FBR to MW, Dec. 24, 1918.

  “one of a half dozen” and “indefatigable”—Lewis, Du Bois, p. 559.

  former music director—Southern, The Music of Black Americans, p. 307.

  Any aggressive protest—Kornweibel, “Seeing Red,” p. 9.

  “a well-concerted movement”—U.S. Senate, Investigation Activities of the Department of Justice, 66th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document 153 (Wa
shington, DC, 1919), pp. 172–73, cited in ibid.

  filled with “defiance and insolently race-centered”—Kornweibel, “Seeing Red,” p. 9.

  “confided the fear that black soldiers”—Diary of Dr. Cary T. Grayson, Mar. 10, 1919, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Vol. 55, p. 471, cited in ibid., p. 37.

  “puzzled by and cynical about the desire”—Skinner, African Americans, p. 395.

  “This business of electing delegates”—New York Age, Dec. 21, 1918, p. 4, cited in Fox, The Guardian of Boston, pp. 223–24.

  “We feel that our unselfish devotion”—George R. Cannon, “Representation at Race Conference Asked,” New York Age, Nov. 7, 1918.

  “the Allied Powers . . . hand over ex-German colonies”—Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Dover, MA: The Majority Press, 1976), p. 11.

  the Hamitic League—Skinner, African Americans, p. 395.

  “Bruce Grit” column—Ernest Kaiser, “John Edward [Bruce Grit] Bruce,” in Logan and Winston, DANB, p. 76. (Bruce also wrote a column for Marcus Garvey’s Negro World.)

  “engage world opinion”—“Villa Lewaro-on-the-Hudson, Birthplace of International League of Darker Peoples,” The World Forum, Jan. 1919 (from RG 165, File 10218-296, Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs, Correspondence of the Military Intelligence Division Relating to “Negro Subversion,” M1440, Reel 5).

  Oxford-style English he had learned—Paula F. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), p. 8.

  “Rapacious and unscrupulous ‘world power’ politics”—The World Forum, Jan. 1919.

  Under its plan, a “supernational”—Ibid.

  teach “chemistry, physics, biology”—Ibid.

  “If peace can be secured”—Ibid.

  “utterly impossible as well as impractical”—FBR to MW, Jan. 25, 1919, #3 (MWC/IHS).

  “It seems strange to me”—FBR to MW, Jan. 17, 1919 (MWC/IHS).