FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO P. B. S. PINCHBACK

Washington[,] D.C. 16 July 1875[.]

HON P. B. S. PINCHBACK

MY DEAR SIR:

Your letter from Hot Springs¹Hot Springs is located in Garland County in west-central Arkansas. In 1832, Hot Springs was designated the first federal reserve, to prevent exploitation of its natural springs. Because of the supposed healing properties of natural hot springs, entrepreneurs nonetheless established bathhouses and hotels for visitors. By 1873, a sizable tourist economy was thriving: six bathhouses and twentyfour hotels on Bathhouse Row were located near the springs. By 1875, a rail line running directly to the town had been constructed, further increasing tourism. John C. Paige and Laura Woulliere Harrison, Out of the Vapors: A Social and Architectural History of Bathhouse Row, Hot Springs National Park (Washington, D.C., 1987); Robert Bauer, “Gilded Age Gladiators: Hot Springs and the First Major League Baseball Spring Training,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 77: 1–20 (Spring 2018).—July 1st²This letter apparently has not survived. is before me. I think the suggestion by Mr Clark³Peter Humphries Clark (c. 1829–1925) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but he was not, as tradition maintained, the grandson of the explorer William Clark. Recent scholarship has established that his grandfather was instead a Virginia-born planter named John Clarke, who settled in Harrison County, Kentucky, in 1798. Clark’s family was manumitted in 1814 in accordance with John Clarke’s will, and they moved in 1816 to Cincinnati, where they altered the spelling of their surname. Clark was educated in a school for black children founded by the Reverend Hiram S. Gilmore. In 1849, he became a teacher in the first black public school in Cincinnati. In addition to teaching, Clark helped edit two Free Soil party papers in the Cincinnati area: the Wilmington Herald of Freedom, which he launched, and the Newport News. For a brief time in 1856 he worked as an assistant editor on Frederick Douglass’ Paper. In 1857, Clark returned to Cincinnati, where he became both a teacher and the principal at a black elementary school. He remained there until 1866, when he became principal of the city’s segregated high school. While serving in this role, Clark attempted to organize black teachers for the National Labor Union. Unlike Douglass, who remained a steadfast Republican, Clark embraced radical positions and jumped party lines throughout his life. Disappointment with Republicans’ failure to protect black civil rights led him to campaign for Cincinnati’s socialist Workingmen’s party in 1877. In later years he joined the Democratic party. Falling out of favor with Cincinnati’s African American community because of his opposition to desegregation, in addition to charges that he had bribed a witness in a political corruption case in an effort to save political allies from jail, Clark was fired from his job in 1886. After a brief tenure as principal of the segregated State Normal and Industrial School at Huntsville, Alabama, Clark settled in St. Louis, where he taught in segregated public schools until retiring in 1908. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3: 134–35; Cleveland Gazette, 19 April 1884, 19 June 1886; Nikki M. Taylor, America’s First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark (Lexington, Ky., 2013); Herbert G. Gutman, “Peter H. Clark: Pioneer Negro Socialist, 1877,” Journal of Negro Education, 34: 413–18 (Fall 1965); ANB, 4: 943–45. a wise one. A meeting of Editors exclusively⁴The Convention of Colored Newspapermen was held on 4–5 August 1875 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was presided over by the Louisiana Republican P. B. S. Pinchback. During the meeting, participants elected Peter H. Clark president of the newly formed organization. The convention had several goals: to make African American newspapers financially sustainable; to ensure proper reporting on African Americans in the press, particularly in the South; and to secure representation at the Centennial Exposition to be held in Philadelphia the following year. To this end, the participants planned for the publication of a “Centennial Tribute to the Negro,” an eighteen-volume history of African Americans; the project never came to fruition. Savannah (Ga.) Colored Tribune, 8 April 1876; Convention of Colored Newspaper Men, August 4th, 1875, Wednesday A. M. (Cincinnati, 1874); Philip S. Foner, “Black Participation in the Centennial of 1876,” Negro History Bulletin, 39: 533–38 (February 1976). would

simply be an advertisement of our destitution—while if the bases were
enlarged by the bringing in of good men from all parts of the country, a
valuable influence may be exerted. I think however that the whole meeting
should regard itself, and be regarded by others, as simply preliminary to a
general national convention to take place early in the Month of May 1876.⁵Although Douglass refers to a national convention to be held in May, the Colored National Convention was held on 5–7 April 1876 in Nashville, Tennessee. The convention had been planned for April as early as August 1875. Nashville Union and American, 19 August 1875; Nashville Tennessean, 5 April 1876.
It is not at all, probable that I shall attend the convention in Cincinnati on
the 2d of August next, but should that convention, after due deliberation
decide to call a national convention either in May or in the earlier part of
next year, I will endeavor to be one of its members.

With the immense political power now in our hands, if wisely exercised, the colored people of this country need not fail to have all their
rights respected—nor fail to secure a respectable and proportional representation both in the states and in the nation.

My best wishes for your deliberations at Cincinnati.

Yours Very Truly

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Frederick Douglass Manuscripts, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.