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922 G Place, N.W. Washington, D.C. March 31, 1947 Letter sent to Tomlinson D. Todd, President of Institute On Race Relations and Director of Americans All Radio Program by Mrs. Helen Dortch Longstreet, widow of Confederate General James Longstreet of Marietta, Georgia. This missive is a reply to an invitation for Mrs. Longstreet to appear in parson to receive a citation at the Statler Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Monday, March 31, 1947. The occasion is the celebration of the Americans All Radio Program. Award received for Mrs. Longstreet by Mrs. Lily A. Perry of Alabama, who is President of the National Industrial Justice Association. Dear Mr. Todd:- It would give me much happiness to receive the award with your organization proposes to bestow upon me. I would it among my cherished possessions to be turned over to the Congressional Library at my death. I consider our racial problem the most vital domestic issue now before Americans. More just and generous relations must be rooted in confidence and goodwill between the races, if the great nation we love so well is to move forward to fulfillment of its highest possible destiny. As I journey down the hill, in these, my last days on earth, it would give me profound satisfaction to know that I have contributed, even in a small degree, to nobler racial relations. Could the award be accepted by some one for me and mailed me? Thomas Jefferson long ago warned the ages to come, that the roots of the great tree of Liberty must be nourished and then, by the rich blood of men and women who love freedom better than they love life. In two world wars the roots of the tree of Liberty have been nourished by the rich blood of black men, fighting under the flag of a country that fails to give them the protection of the Bill of Rights of the American people, which are eternally the rights of all mankind. We cannot continue this scurrilous course towards the colored citizens of our country without branding ourselves before the world as a nation of arrant braggarts and hypocrits. Small caliber politicians; who, for the purpose of holding power and office for themselves, glibly prate of white supremacy, should be told that long before Columbus sailed the seas to discover a new world, the Negro kingdoms of Ghana, Mellestine and Songhai, were vieing with European civilization of that day and exchanging professors with the highest educational institutions in the world. " Darkest Africa" was holding aloft the torch of culture, while the boastful Nordic race was struggling in the jungles. Celebrated historians have reached the conclusion that civilization was handed down from Negroland to Egypt. In our opinion, the late Henry Grady was the greatest Editor the South has produced. Sixty-one years ago, Mr. Grady set up
