A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912-1936

Chapter Ten: In the Interest of the Race

169 CHAPTER TEN In the Interest of the Race Have many battles here to fight but somehow come out on top. I try to keep my hand in His and “dare every peril, save to disobey.” — Beatrice Cannady to Walter White, March 10, 1925, NAACP Portland Branch files In the middle of February 1919, W. E. B. Du Bois convened a Pan-African Congress in Paris. The location and timing were no accident: the Versailles Peace Conference was under way at nearby locations and Du Bois hoped to use his meeting to draw attention to the “connection between the fate of Afro-Americans and other oppressed races living under the colonial rule of white Europeans.”1 Subsequent Congresses in 1921 and 1923 continued to bring together representatives from the French West Indies, Haiti, Liberia, France, Nigeria, Jamaica, the United States, and other countries to discuss “relations of the black and white races … to the end that greater harmony may ensue.”2 The Fourth Pan-African Congress was scheduled to be held in New York City in August 1927. Many people, including Cannady, “expected” that the gathering there would “be the most important ever held,” and she pledged the Advocate’s “support” and extended “the use of its columns free of charge.”3 Then came the exciting announcement that she was one of fifty American women chosen to “act as hostesses” at the Congress.4 The news sent ripples of excitement through Portland’s black community. In the months leading up to her departure, white and black friends held a series of interracial “silver teas” to honor Cannady and raise money to help “underwrite the Congress.”5 Alice Handsaker hosted a tea for one hundred people in March.6 Shirley McCanns sang “Negro melodies”; Millie Trumbull talked about Langston Hughes; Gwendolyn Hooker read some of James Weldon Johnson’s poems; and teacher Blanche Thurston shared information about Countee Cullen’s “life and works.” Several guests also gave “brief addresses” during the afternoon tea, including Reed College mathematics professor Frank L. Griffin, the Reverend E. C. Dyer, and Cannady, the guest of honor.7 More than a hundred guests also dropped by Elise Reynolds’ home on Roselawn Avenue in mid-April for a program featuring talks by Trumbull, poet Ken Nakazawa, author of The Weaver of the Frost, and many A Force for Change 170 others representing organizations ranging from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to the Portland Board of Education. McCanns and Clara Bell, a white woman, helped Reynolds with the pink-themed “affair.”8 The teas were covered in the white press, which made note of Cannady’s selection as Oregon’s representative by the sponsoring organization, the Circle for Peace and Foreign Relations, the “fund-raising arm” of the PanAfrican Congress.9 Its president was Addie Hunton, “a legend among feminists and civil rights leaders,” who had stayed with the Cannadys the previous fall during a speaking tour of the West Coast.10 Other members of the executive committee included Nina G. Du Bois, the Crisis editor’s first wife, and Minnie Pickens, who was married to NAACP Field Secretary William Pickens.11 Six weeks before the Congress, Cannady and the other hostesses were informed that “the outlook for the attendance of delegates from foreign countries” was “very great.”12 The final update appeared in the Advocate fifteen days before the opening session onAugust 21st.Among other things, the article mentioned the activities of six hostesses—including Cannady— who had been “working very hard to arouse the interest of the United States in the conference and to make the Fourth Pan-African Congress a financial possibility.”13 Cannady contributed $75—more than $900 today—a 171 chapter ten: In the Interest of the Race sum collected at the interracial teas that was said to be the “second largest amount paid in to the Congress by any of the Hostesses.”14 Meanwhile, local department stores reportedly were vying “with each other to outfit her for her journey.” Cannady told the Chicago Defender that her entire wardrobe had been donated “with the compliments of Portland.”15 Meier & Frank or other merchants may have given her clothes for her New York trip, but Cannady also made much of her apparel, including a beautiful embroidered Spanish shawl that was exhibited in the “show windows” of a store at 6th and Morrison in 1926. Cannady was offered $250 for the drape—more...