NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

VICE-PRESIDENTS
ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE
REV. JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
BISHOP JOHN HURST
ARTHUR B. SPINGARN
OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

69 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

(AT FOURTEENTH STREET)

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON.
SECRETARY

WALTER WHITE,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

MARY WHITE OVINGTON
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. DU BOIS,
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

ROBERT W. BAGNALL,
DIRECTOR OF BRANCHES

WILLIAM PICKENS,
FIELD SECRETARY

January 26, 1928

Mr. Claude McKay
C/O Thomas Cook & Sons
Marseilles
France

My dear Mr. McKay:

I have just written a little biographical
sketch of you for Harper & Brothers for bringing out
your book. They are going to send me a copy as soon
as the book is off the press. I am very anxious to
see it and I hope it is going to have quite a sale.

I have been wanting to write you for some
time. I should like very much if you were back in the
states, in fact, right in New York. You ought to be
here to take full advantage of the great wave of
opportunity that Negro literary and other artists are
now enjoying. In addition - we need you to give more
strength and solidity to the whole movement. I wish
you would think about coming back, and if I can in any
way be of any assistance whatever, please do not
hesitate to call on me.

With kindest regards, I am

JWJ/RR

ENDORSED BY THE NATIONAL INFORMATION BUREAU, 215 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

WALTER WHITE
ASSISTANT SECRETARY

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. DU BOIS.
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

February 27, 1928

My dear Mr. McKay:

I was in Washington a few weeks ago and I took the
liberty of talking with the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr.
Wilbur J. Carr, about the probabilities of your returning to the
United States. I did this without any knowledge or consent on
your part, my only reason being my own desire and the desire of
other friends I have talked with to have you back in the United
States where we could have your close cooperation in helping on
the movement which is now underway, the new Negro literary move-
ment. I talked with Mr. Carr because he is an old friend of mine.
I knew him quite well when I was in the United States Foreign
Service.

Mr. Carr told me when I talked with him that he would
have the matter looked into very carefully and that he would
write to me about it. Since then I have received a letter from
him and I am sending you enclosed a copy of it. I hope, even if
you do not have any plans or intentions of coming back to the
United States just at this time you will go in and talk with the
Consul General at Marseilles while Mr. Carr's letter is fresh in
his mind, in order that you may lay the ground for approaching
him at any subsequent time when you might want to approach him
about coming back to the United States.

I hope that you are quite well and that you are doing
some work.

With kind regards, I am

Mr. Claude McKay
c/o Thomas Cook & Sons
Marseilles
France

Nineteenth Annual Conference—Los Angeles, California—June 27—July 3, 1928

NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

VICE-PRESIDENTS
ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKÉ
REV. JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
BISHOP JOHN HURST
ARTHUR B. SPINGARN
OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON,
SECRETARY

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. Du Bois,
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

April 12, 1928

My dear Mr. McKay:

I have both your letters.

Harper & Brothers asked me to do a little sketch of you and I did include the incident about the restaurant, drawing as best I could on my memory from what you at one time related to me. Since, however, the facts as I set them down were not precisely correct, I am very glad that that portion was not used by the publishers. I am sure you have had copies of the book before this time, and you have seen such part of the sketch as they did use on the jacket.

The publishers were good enough to send me copies of the book. I think you have written a wonderful book. You doubtless know what a reception it has been given. I do not know whether you have received clippings of the reviews or not, but I am sure that the references in the colored papers will be quite interesting to you.

I hope that you will go to see the Consul-General at Marseille and take with you the copy of the letter from the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Carr, which I sent you. I know Mr. Carr very well. I have known him from the time that I myself was in the United States Foreign Service, and I took advantage of my friendship with him to do all I could to facilitate your coming back to the United States if you wish to come. From the fact that Mr. Carr himself wrote to the Consul General at Marseille you can know that the attitude of the Department is favorable; and I think that the Consul General, reading between the lines of the Secretary's letter, will understand that the State Department wants him to take as favorable action as is possible,

I hope you will arrange to come back and thus reestablish your residence. That would, of course, allow you to leave the country again temporarily without being subjected to any inconvenience. If there is anything further that I can do, do not hesitate to call upon me.

With kind regards,

Mr. Claude McKay
Chez Thomas Cook & fils
67 La Canebiere
Marseille, (BOdu-Rhone)

NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

VICE-PRESIDENTS

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE'S

69 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

(AT FOURTEENTH STREET)

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. DUBOIS,
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

May 19, 1928

My dear Claude:

I have your letter of April 30.

I do not think, if I were you, that I would hesitate
about seeing the Consul General at Marseille. I think you
ought to have with you a copy of the letter which was written
by Mr. Carr, the Assistant Secretary of State with whom I
talked, and should call to the Consul General's attention
that he did receive such a letter from Mr. Carr. The Consul
General would be sure to read in between the lines that the
State Department is undoubtedly interested in your case,
and that means a great deal.

I hope you will get information from the Immigration
authorities at Charleston that will enable you to establish
your record of arrival.

I shall try and get the information from Mrs. Markhoff.
If I succeed, I will send it on to you.

In talking with Mr. Carr I touched lightly on your
going to Russia. I do not think that will count against you
at this time. If that element in the question should arise I
shall do all I can personally to have it set aside.

I am sending you a few clippings of reviews of
"Home to Harlem." Some of these you have doubtless seen.
However, the duplicates may come in andy even so.

With kind regards,

ENDORSED BY THE NATIONAL INFORMATION BUREAU 215 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. Du BOIS,
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

HERBERT J. SELIGMANN
DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY

May 14, 1929

My dear Claude:

I have your most interesting letter of March 25.

I am glad that the check for the Harmon Award reached you safely. I have your medal in my safe deposit box. It is subject to any orders you may give me about it. I could send it on to you by express if you so desire. It is quite a beautiful little medal and I believe you would like to have it. Let me know.

The Ira Aldridge Memorial fund is not yet completed, so I would be very glad to have your contribution. I am sure it is the sort of thing you would want to have a hand in.

I hope, too, you are going to get the matter of your return to the United States adjusted. It would be worth the while for you to arrange to return if only to re-establish your right to enter and leave the United States as you wish. I believe it would be a very good thing for you to spend a few months in Harlem again, although I have my doubts that you will want to live in the United States for good again. However, it needs no argument to prove that the right to come and go is a valuable one.

I have a vague dream about making another trip to Europe some time within the reasonable future. It may be that I shall see you in the United States, however, before that time. If not, I hope I shall see you there.

Mr. Claude McKay
C/O American Express Company
11 Rue Scribe
Paris, France

Twentieth Annual Conference — Cleveland, Ohio — June 26-July 2, 1929

NATIONAL OFFICERS

PRESIDENT
MOORFIELD STOREY

69 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

(AT FOURTEENTH STREET)

TELEPHONE ALGONQUIN 6548

September 19, 1929

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

J. E. SPINGARN, TREASURER

DR. W. E. B. DUBois,
EDITOR OF THE CRISIS

ROBERT W. BAGNALL
DIRECTOR OF BRANCHES

Mr. Claude McKay
5 Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Isle
Paris, France

My dear McKay:

I have your letter of the 5th. I am glad that
you took up the matter of your return to the
United States with the Consulate. I hope you
had a copy of the letter from Mr. Carr, Assis-
tant Secretary of State, and that you showed
it to the Vice Consul.

Yes, I was awarded a fellowship which will give
me a year in which to write anything that I
feel like doing. There is a probability that
I shall be in Europe for a while next Spring
or Summer. If I come, I hope that I shall
have the chance of seeing you. If I do come,
would you want me to bring your Harmon Medal?

I am getting away at the end of this month for a trip. I am going to Japan, and will be gone for about three months. I am looking forward to it with a great deal of curiosity.

I read Walter the paragraph in your letter on
his review of "Banjo".

JWJ: CA

Fisk University
Nashville, Tennessee

Mr. Claude McKay
Apartado 27
Correo Espanol
Tanger, Morocco

January 9, 1934

My dear Claude:

I was in New York during the holidays and went in and had a talk with Mr. Moe regarding you and a Guggenheim scholarship. I talked with Mr. Moe at considerable length and pressed your case as strongly as I could. Mr. Moe seemed to be quite inclined to grant a scholarship to you and he promised me that he would bring your name up before the directors at the next meeting of the Foundation; and so I have some hope for you on this point, but still, as you know, you can never tell.

If this scholarship is awarded to you, it will make the matter of your return to America quite simple, for the rules of the Foundation have been so altered as to allow the recipients to remain in the United States and do their work. The award of the scholarship would not only solve the question of funds, but would also solve the immigration question. I earnestly hope that it will come to pass. I hope, too, that you are quite well and doing some work. I recently published the book *Along This Way - An Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson*. It received an astonishingly good press. In fact, some of the reviews of the book seem to be too good to believe.

If there anything more that I can do to facilitate your getting back to the United States and to help in securing a Guggenheim award for you, you can believe that I shall be glad to do it.

With best wishes, I am

JWJ:fmm

C
O
P
Y

January 9, 1934

My dear Claude:

If this scholarship is awarded to you, it will make the matter of your return to American quite simple, for the rules of the Foundation have been so altered as to allow the recipients to remain in the United States and do their work. The award of the scholarship would not only solve the question of funds, but would also solve the immigrant question. I earnestly hope that it will come to pass. I hope, too, that you are quite well and doing some work. I recently published the book *Along This Way* - An Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson. It received an astonishingly good press. In fact, some of the reviews of the book seem to be too good to believe.

If there anything more than I can do to facilitate your getting back to the United States and to help in securing a Guggenheim award for you, you can believe that I shall be glad to do it.

With best wishes, I am

JWJ:fmm

James Weldon Johnson

Fisk University

NASHVILLE, TENN

Mr. Claude McKay,

214 West 63rd Street,
New York City.

May 3
1955

214 West 63rd Street
New York City

Dear JWJ.

I am enclosing a copy of Mr. Eubree's letter, which, as you will see, is not so very favorable, although it does not definitely close the door. I wonder if you would mind writing an urgent word to him about me, as that might help. I so much want to get right down to the writing of that book. There is a false idea current among the left intellectuals, that I went to Russia as a Communist and later went back on my principles. And I'd like to devote a chapter to show that I worked my way across to Europe in 1922 and went to Russia voluntarily, through the help of an English friend who was a go-between and interpreter for the Russian Communists in Berlin. In Russia the American Communists did everything in their power to prevent my making contacts and attending conferences (for I was not a party member) and it was only through Sen Katayama (who knew me on the Liberator) going over their heads to the big shots, that I did get on the inside. The fact is that my color intrigued for me, the colored American delegate was light-skinned and the Moscow propagandists wanted a real Negro type to put over. The people were excited about me in the streets long before the Bolshevik leaders became aware, it was the popular interest that irresistibly pushed me forward. But in the Soviet records I am listed as a non-partisan. I went into Russia as a writer and a free spirit and left the same, because I was always convinced that however far I was advanced in social

in social ideas, if I could do something significantly creative as a Negro, it would mean more to my group and the world than being merely a social agitator.

I want to show that my travelling in Europe and thru Spain and over to Africa were logical steps in my pilgrimage. I am ready to admit that I had profound experiences in Europe and in Africa that made me less cocksure about radical theories, especially as related to propaganda among Negroes, but there is nothing in that to be ashamed of.

A couple up at Harmon on the Hudson has offered me a barn and some lumber to fix it up, so I could stay up there for a few months and write. But I am in such a tight fix, I can't even take advantage of the offer. And so, anything you can do by way of exerting your influence to help will be much appreciated. I owe so much to you considering all you did to bring me back again, that I do hate the idea of giving you further trouble. But I know you don't consider it that.

Yours Sincerely

May 16

1935

214 West 63rd St
New York City

Dear JWJ

I found your book at the big library, taken off
the new-book list and read it at one sitting. I considered it
healthy and sane advice, although I thought that you might have
been more positive about two items at least. First, Communism:
it seems to me that if Negroes are not to embrace Communism blind-
ly, they will have to be deterred by something stronger than the
fear of proscriptions, especially if the Communists continue to
make determined efforts to win them over, by putting into prac-
tice unconditional fraternity and equality between white and col-
ored and by solidarizing with them against social injustice. Racial
In view of the fact that the Communist programme fundamentally
makes a direct appeal to the most primitive human wants, it is not
impossible that the Negro's emotional and religious instinct might
be grooved into a Communist channel. Perhaps only a radical coun-
ter movement sponsored by Negroes themselves will prevent the
Communists winning the Negroes eventually, or to a lesser degree
one engineered by a group of whites with a radical programme of
social amelioration in opposition to the Communists.

Second, Labor: I thought you might have said some-
thing more definite: whether separate unions are not justifiable, or
what method the Negro should pursue to become integrated in the
labor movement, as that is the class which the mass of Negroes
might be more easily integrated. It is obvious that we are living
in a new era, in which Labor has come to be the most important
class standing up before the Capital-controlling class. The ren-

tier and investing class is being squeezed out of existence by competing Corporations and Government inflationary and tax measures and thus limiting the operation of the social machinery to the forces of Capital and Labor. It seems to me that if the Negro people xxx cannot group themselves into one of these forces (and Labor appears the likelier one) they will be caught and perhaps crushed or starved out between the two.

After reading your book I got the Crisis and looked up Dr. DuBois's famous controversial article, and wondered after reading it, if both of your views could not be reconciled in the interest of Negro unity and for a working programme. Certainly Dr DuBois makes it clear that he is opposed to Segregation, where it means Discrimination. And I can't see anything wrong in the idea of Negro communities as such getting some of this New Deal money while the getting is good, since we already have such communities. I mean if white communities are getting appropriations as such, Negroes should not just wall against Segregation and not take theirs. They should take and use the profit to fight Segregation, for money is Power and good under all circumstances.

It seems logical to me that a minority people should use every form of group pressure and organization to wrest privileges from the majority. That is precisely what the Jews, Italians, Germans and Irish in this country have done. The Irish would not be so powerful in N. Y. City's civic life if they did not have such a unique social group unity. But I am sure we are in agreement about this.... I hope youx are working onxthe launching of a practical programme, the Negro youth groups are certainly hoping for something. I have met a few of them from various parts of the country in Harlem. Some were from Fisk University. I was surprised at their radical social point of view.

With highest regards: Sincerely

James Weldon Johnson

Fisk University

NASHVILLE, TENN.

<table><tr><td>BUY U.S. SA</td></tr><tr><td>BOND</td></tr><tr><td>ASK YOUR POST</td></tr></table>

Mr Claude McKay
205 West 115 Street
New York City

James Weldon Johnson

Hisk University
NASHVILLE, TENN.

Mr. Claude McKay
Care of Lee Furman Inc. Publishers
New York City
55 West 129th St.
New York City

107 M

FIVE ACRES
SEEKONK ROAD
GREAT BARRINGTON, MASS.

September 10th.

My dear Claude:

I didn't get down to the
City during this, Labor Day week. How-
ever, I do expect to come down next
week. I shall probably get there Thursday.
Friday will be a free night for me. Can't
we get together then? See if you can get
Cullen to join us.

This will be my last full
week-end here at Five Acres. I am sorry
you could not arrange to come up before
we closed for the season. Mrs. Johnson
will begin packing in earnest next week.
She and I would have enjoyed very much
a visit from you. I hope you may be able
to come next summer.

Let me hear from you the
first part of the week, if possible. If
we cannot meet Friday night of next week,
we can get together some time before the
month has passed. I shall be in New York
constantly after the 23rd.

With all best wishes, I am

Always cordially yours,

CLAUDE MCKAY

By James Weldon Johnson

Claude McKey, although a young man, has had a remarkable, varied career. He was born in 1890 back in the hills on the island of Jamaica, British West Indies. In his teens he came to live in the city of Kingston, and enlisted in the constabulary. He began as a boy to write verses in the native dialect. In 1912, *Songs of Jamaica* was published at Kingston, and, in the same year, *Constabulary Ballads* was brought out in London. McKay became a sort of poet laureate of the Colony. His songs and poems in the soft folk speech of the Jamaican Negro became very popular. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the best of his folk poems are not incomparable with the dialect poems of Robert Burns. In the same year in which these two volumes of poems were published Mr. McKay was awarded the medal of the Institute of Arts and Sciences, being the first Negro to receive the medal. It was also in 1912 that he became the recipient of a considerable sum of money to enable him to study in the United States. He came to this country and entered Tuskegee Institute, where he planned to fit himself to go back home and help his people. But the routine and discipline of that institution were not to his liking, and, after a few months, he left and went to the State Agricultural College of Kansas. The two years spent at the Kansas school taught him, at least, that he did not want to be a farmer or to teach farming, so he took the balance of his scholarship fund and made his way to New York. 1914 found Mr. McKay the proprietor of a restaurant in West 53rd Street, which was still a center of New York Negro life. In a few months his business venture failed and all his money was lost. He then took to earning his living by work in the kitchens of summer hotels and boarding houses in New England and by running as a waiter on dining-cars.

this period he turned again to poetry. In 1917 two sonnets appeared in The Seven Arts under the rather unpoetic name of Eli Edwards. The two poems attracted a good deal of attention; the editors themselves were curious to know who the writer was; he was found to be Claude McKay. Mr. McKay's work began to appear in other magazines. He became an associate editor of The Liberator. In 1920, *Spring in New Hampshire*, a volume of poems, was published in London, and in 1922, *Harlem Shadows*, another volume of poems, was published in New York. Late in 1922, Mr. McKay went to Russia. He has not lived in this country since. For the past four or five years he has lived in France. Recently he has again been writing, mostly prose - and what a strong and racy prose it is!

Claude McKay was one of the great forces in bringing about what is now called the "Negro literary renaissance". Those who know him and his powers feel that his comparative silence for the past four or five years has meant a great loss to that movement. He is a poet and writer of genius. It is fortunate for Negro and American literature that he is writing again.

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON