Viewing page 2 of 4

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Dr. Qualls        2        January 21, 1955

So now in December some one has sent in the articles a little less severe than in the 1951 articles in Afro-American paper.

If these newspaper articles have aroused the public and the two organizations, I am glad because with your group, our two organizations, and the Afro-American Newspaper, maybe we can get work done at the Douglass Home.

I have all sorts of plans, ideas etc. of my own besides the splendid ideas from you, Mrs. Gaines and the Afro-American paper. These plans are on paper but we need to work out some of them very soon.

I spent a day visiting Mount Vernon. I bought almost all of their books that they had to sell. I even went into the office there and asked many questions on how to get started. The very thing that I had already done, was the advice given me by the head man in the office.

I have their very fine Handbook. We had studied it in 1949 where Mrs. Sallie Stewart called a Douglass meeting in September of the Douglass Trustee Board, The Douglass Committee of N. A. C. W. and its Douglass Advisory Board together in Washington at out old headquarters.

This is the one thing that I most wish for, the Handbook for Douglass, but before this can be done, we must have money to make the much needed restorations of the Douglass Home. Another important phase must be done is to charge a fee for the visitors. This is the very thing done at Mount Vernon for its upkeep. We can not do this at the Douglass Home until it is made beautiful inside, outside of the house and grounds.

It was and is still my very own idea that we should have citizens Committees or an organization such as yours to help us with our financial problems at the Home. I have had quite a number of citizens well wishes in St. Louis who have helped me with Douglass' work before I was president and since. Among them I may name a few, my own pastor, Rev. T. E. Huntley of Central Baptist Church and Attorney Ellis Outlaw, a life member of the F. D. Association is both my friend and the legal advisor for the Douglass, with his nephew Atty. John Spencer there in Washington, Rev. Herman Dreer of Kingsway Baptist Church, who is a professor at the Harris Teachers College, is also a life member. His good wife, a member of the N. A. C. W. is my ardent well wisher and worker since 1945. Mrs. Bessie Buckner is a life member and is also my N. A. C. W. worker for Douglass Home. I have one of our city federated clubs who took out a life membership. I am a life member also.