Frederick Douglass Center

Title

Frederick Douglass Center

Creator

Woolley, Celia Parker, 1848-1918

Identifier

CS104

Date

No date

Description

Pamphlet about Frederick Douglass Center’s social justice work.

Source

Library of Congress
Wilson Papers, Series 4, 152A Reel 231, Manuscript Division

Publisher

Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum

Subject

United States--Illinois--Chicago
African-Americans--segregation

Contributor

Althea Cupo
Maria Matlock

Language

English

Provenance

Digital copy acquired from federal archives by previous WWPL Archivist, Heidi Hackford.

Text

Frederick Douglass Center
3032 Wabash Avenue
Telephone Douglas 267

Objects

To promote a just and amicable relation between white and colored people.

To remove the disabilities from which the latter suffer in their civil, political and industrial life.

To encourage equal opportunity, irrespective of race, color or other arbitrary distinctions.

To establish a center of friendly helpfulness and influences, in which to gather needful information, and for mutual co-operation to the ends of right living and higher citizenship.

You Are Cordially Invited to Join

Annual Fee, $1.00

Board of Directors:
CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY, President
DR. GEORGE C. HALL, Treasurer
B. C. WENTWORTH, Chairman of Board of Directors
S. LAING WILLIAMS Secretary
MISS SAMUELLA CROSBY
Mrs. HOMER S. TAYLOR
F. L. BARNETT

Organization

The Frederick Douglass Center was organized in April 1904, by Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley, as a practical expression of years of deep interest in the colored people and a desire to ameliorate conditions arising from color prejudice in this country.

The Center purchased its present abode and went into residence March 2, 1905. The house cost $5,500.00 and is paid for. The colored people paid nearly one-third of this sum. The Center is incorporated and governed by a board of seven directors. Every one paying the annual fee of $1.00 or more is entitled to vote.

Activities

Among the activities is a Woman's Club, which meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays in the month, at 2:30 p. m. Mrs. J. T. Jenifer, president. This work consists of papers and discussions on topics of general interest, sewing for the School Children's Aid Society and other institutions and co-operating with the charitable organizations of the city.

Regular Sunday Afternoon Meetings are held at 4 p. m., with simply religious services followed by an address on some topic of the day. Mrs. Antionette Crump Cope, in charge.

The Boys' Club, Mrs. Edna Johnson, leader, meets Tuesday and Friday evenings for games and physical exercise. With a little more money we could enlarge this work. Some books suitable for boys are greatly needed.

Two Domestic Sciences classes are in operation. The cooking class meets Saturday, 10 a. m. The Sewing Class follows at 11. The children are taught different stitches, then put to work on simple garments with mending day once a month. The ladies of the Unity Church, Oak Park, equipped the kitchen with a new range and necessary utensils.

For five years the Douglass Center Athletic Association could command no better quarters than were supplied in the basement. Their new home is at 2319 State Street, where the Club has the entire floor in the third story, Samuel Alston is president.

Though forced for lack of room to give up our Employment Association the Center is glad to assist those seeking employment or needing help.

Ways and Means

Perhaps no work of similar aim is maintained at smaller expense. Dr. and Mrs. Woolley headed the subscription for the purchase of the house with a liberal sum and placed their entire stock of household goods at the service of the Center.

Mrs. Woolley gives all of her time to the work. She is ably seconded by Miss Lillian Chapman, private secretary and general assistant. Miss Ellen Snyder, an experienced social worker, is also a resident. No salaries are paid beyond a small wage to the assistant, the leaders of classes, housekeeper and janitor.

Propaganda

The work of the Douglass Center is two-fold. It is a radiating center for the dissemination of more humane and intelligent views on the color question. It stands for equal opportunity, preaching the gospel of justice and good will to the whites and of increased efficiency to the blacks. Appeals for help to adjust cases of unfair discrimination arising from race enmity are constantly presented to us. A few examples will illustrate this side of our work.

Case of a discharged employe at the Bridewell, appeal being first made to the superintendent, then to the mayor, and a satisfactory settlement secured.

A young girl who with aid of influential white friends at last secured admission to the Crippled Children's Home.

Admission of colored applicants to other institutions at first denied, in spite of the law, and through color prejudice of officials.

The F. D. C. interested itself actively in urging young colored women to take the examination for probation officers and helped to secure some excellent appointments.

Meetings at one of the white churches in Hyde Park with marked good results in allaying popular excitement arising from the murder of a white woman by a colored burglar.

Helping to avoid a color line in a recreation center in the city.

Meetings in the interest of colored residents in white neighborhoods.

Securing a Vacation School in Keith School, 90 per cent of colored pupils.

Large gift of books for Keith Library and assistance in purchasing a plane.

Organization of a monthly Parents Meeting in the school building.

Money assistance and legal redress in the case of Mrs. Morgan of Congress Park, whose newly built house was torn down by residents who did not want colored neighbors, with other cases of assistance before the courts.

Securing the abolition of the color line in a summer encampment.

Many cases of legal redress and the reinstatement of a number of colored children suspended from school where the motive of race enmity was plainly revealed.

Investigation of the jail school securing the attendance of colored inmates which had been allowed to lapse.

Inquiries into the status of colored pupils in the public schools, of colored inmates in charitable institutions and into reports of race riots usually greatly exaggerated and the work of a sensational press.

Securing entrance of a young man into the Young Men's Christian Association for a three year course in Physical Culture, who acquitted himself with great credit and graduated with honors.

Attempts to secure admission of a colored man from the south in two Veterinary Colleges which failed through fear on the part of the officials of loss of white students.

Efforts to induce the Chicago Union Hospital to abandon an enterprise to raise money from the proceeds of a lecture by Benjamin E. Tillman. The lecture was given but met with little approval from press or public. It was of the speaker's most virulent type and injured himself more than any one else.

Letters to President Roosevelt asking a word of condemnation of Springfield riots; to Senator Cullom concerning his alleged approval of Negro disfranchisement; to Senator Root, thanking him for calling attention to the possible effect of Popular Election of Senators on the Negro vote of the South, and many others of similar import.

Letters of inquiry and protest in many lynching cases.

Investigation of housing conditions in the colored district.

The Center is constantly working to secure the appointment of colored speakers on the programs of all important public conferences and annual conventions. Prof. H. T. Kealing was thus placed on the program of the International Peace Society; Prof. Du Bois on the platform of the Ethical Culture Society and other speakers before the Chicago Woman's Club and similar bodies. Two representatives from the F. D. C. addressed the body of students at the School of Civics and Philanthropy, with promise that a colored speaker should appear regularly every year on its platform. This work is very important. There is no question of social welfare which does not concern the Negro. His voice should be heard on all occasions of public interest. He should be allowed to state his own case in his own way. The head resident of the Center is continually speaking before clubs and other societies, writing newspaper articles and pamphlets, in aid of the cause of race reconciliation. This Propaganda work is done in as quiet a manner as possible, avoiding newspaper notoriety and seeking the aid of personal friends who have influence in the particular case in hand. An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of noisy agitation in the correction of public abuses.

Auxiliary Committee

Mrs. Katherine Ware Smith, Mrs. Harold L. Ickes, Miss Laura Beasley, Rev. M. Rowena Morse, Mrs. Geo. C. Hall, Mrs. C. C. Samuels, Miss Ellen Snyder, Mrs. E. L. Lobdell, Mrs. Jessie E. Shears, Mrs. J. H. Harris, Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams, Miss Sophonisba Breckenridge, Mrs. E. L. Davis, Miss Jean Masson, Mrs. Wm. B. Mason, Mrs. Melida Pappe, Mrs. Annie W. Fitts, Mrs. J. S. Tandy, Dr. Mary F. Waring.

Original Format

Pamphlet

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CS104.pdf

Citation

Woolley, Celia Parker, 1848-1918, “Frederick Douglass Center,” No date, CS104, Race and Segregation Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.