Infinite's 2016 Fall Auction

Presented is a one-page typewritten letter on Booker T. Washington’s personal Tuskegee Institute letterhead, dated February 21, 1910, and signed at the conclusion in black ink. Addressed to Professor S.H. Vick, Washington explains he is reaching out to friends to ask them to contribute $5 each to help eliminate a $4,300 debt on property once owned by African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass. Washington writes in part, “I have been trying to assist the Trustees in clearing off the indebtedness of the property owned by the late Hon. Frederick Douglass located in the District of Columbia known as Cedar Hill, in order that this whole property might be used in the future as a kind of Mecca for the race.” Douglass lived in his home, called Cedar Hill, from 1877 until his death in 1895. In 1988 the estate became part of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service. Accompanied by a JSA LOA.