W. E. Burghardt Du Bois

Shirley Graham

Thirty-one Grace Court

Brooklyn 1, N. Y.

March 31, 1961

Mr. Paul G. Partington
710 Valna Drive
Whittier, California

My dear Mr. Partington:

Answering your recent letters *Dusk of Dawn* was not an autobiography. It had a good many autobiographical notes, but it was distinctly the story of a theory of race and how it had developed in my own life. I have been writing an autobiography which I call "A Soliloquy" on viewing my life from the last decade of its first century. I am planning considerable revision of the finished manuscript. I have as yet no publisher, but several publishers are interested.

I remember the planning of Fortune's "Freeman" but I doubt if it ever was published. He was, at the time, sick, discouraged and about to die. At any rate, I never saw a copy.

I never knew or saw Harry Pace's brother. I should, of course, be delighted to have microfilms of the *Guardian*.

With regard to the *Springfield Daily Republican* I doubt if I wrote more than two or three reports of news from Great Barrington, and those were very short. As I have already said, I remember one telegram concerning a fire on Leavitt's farm. There was very little else of importance.

Broderick did a queer piece of work. He came into my office as a perfect stranger. He mentioned that he was a student and wished to consult my files. He said not a word about writing my life or wanting, in particular, to know about me. I scarcely passed a dozen words with him, and saw very little of him because he worked in an outer office with my secretary. When my wife heard of his work she immediately advised me to stop his use of my files, pointing out that I knew nothing about this man or of his objects. The woman to whom he refers was the wife of George Merriam, the publisher of *Webster's Dictionary*. The husband and I had met and corresponded. I am not

Mr. Paul G. Partington

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March 31, 1961

sure of the name "Marberg". It might have been Wartburg of the Kuhn, Loeb Company.

As to the letter, I know nothing about it and certainly have never written obscene literature. Cooper was a low-class newspaper man with whom I had as few contacts as possible. I never at any time planned to start a paper in Atlanta.

My desire to edit a national Negro periodical antedated the effort to get me to come to Tuskegee and the two things were not connected. Tuskegee never wanted me to edit a journal for them. The Hampton offer arose from the fact that I had been corresponding to various persons about a national journal, and I had been in the habit of attending regularly the Hampton Conferences. At one of these Conferences Bishop McVickar, George Foster Peabody and Walter Hines Page were in attendance, and they, with the principal of Hampton, Dr. Frassel, called me into conference. I had never made any approach to them, except that I had known Page for a long time and he probably knew of my wish to edit a magazine. It was this group which suggested my editing a magazine at Hampton, which I was eager to do, but nothing came of the matter and they never approached me again. This was, undoubtedly, because upon reflection I had written them saying plainly that any magazine which I might edit would express my thought and be under my own editorial control. This, of course, must have been absolutely inconceivable from their point of view. It was later than this, and from the invitation of William Baldwin of New York, that the offer for my coming to Tuskegee was made. The chief reason for my refusing this offer was that never at any time could I get from Mr. Washington or his friends a definite statement as to just what my duties at Tuskegee would be. I and my wife had a feeling that all I was wanted for was to stop my work at Atlanta University and to write Mr. Washington's speeches.

I think this answers all your questions. Now let me put a question to you frankly. This work of yours is of great interest and value to me, but it has taken a great deal of time and has cost a great deal of money. Will you kindly tell me who is paying for your time and meeting these expenses? Are you doing this personally or at the request of some Fund or an institution, and what do you ultimately plan to do with the results? You can see, I am sure, that I am personally very much interested in an answer to this inquiry.