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Coordinating Committee of Anacostia & Vicinity
                                                                       June 11, 1955
To The Editor
Ebony Magazine
1820 SO Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Ill.

Gentleman,
The picture story on "Negro Shrines" in your July issue of Ebony was mot timely, I am particularly interested in the Frederic Douglass Memory Home here in Washington. The home as stated
in your article is badly in need of repair and upkeep in and out. 
Early this year we began to campaign for funds to paint the home and do minor repairs. We are at present painting the exterior of the shrine. 
Our committee has been interested in doing something for the improvement of the Douglass Home for sometime. In the past three years we have been in contact with the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Society and the National Assoc. of colored Women (NACW) all out of the city, and both charged with its upkeep, to ascertain why nothing has been done to keep the shrine up. Funds have been collected over the years, but no satisfactory answer was received. These two groups are at loggerheads and the shrine thus suffers.
I hope that we Negroe will learn to cherish our heritages-properly account for moneys instructed to them for places like this. As you quoted Mrs. Wannie Burroughs in your article "It is the most valuable thing we have as a race".
Maybe the Federal Government could be induced to help us on the Douglass Shrine.