ENPages
p. 3
For release in newspapers Monday, March 13, 1939
Howard University Washington, D.C.
The Board of Education of the District of Columbia Franklin Administration Building Washington, D.C.
Gentlemen:
We have received from Mrs. Elizabeth K. Peeples, Director of the Community Center Department, an official notification that the Board of Education has granted the use of the Central High School Auditorium for a concert by Miss Marian Anderson on Sunday, April 9, 1939, and another application to be completed for use of the auditorium.
We thank the Board of Education for reconsidering the application, and for rescindin it's former action. The Committee is grateful for the wide, public support given it's request, both in the District of Columbia and throughout the nation.
The letter from Mrs. Peeples, dated March 6, states, "As you are undoubtedly aware, at the special meeting of the Board of Education held March 3, the Board voted to authoriize the use of the Central High School Auditorium for a concert, to be given by Miss Marian Anderson under the sponsorship of the School of Music of Howard University." It seems to us from this statement that we are also presumed to be aware of the conditions which the Board set forth in it's action of March 3, as follows:
"...To grant this request now before us will require a waiver of our existing rule, which prohibits the use of school buildings for private purposes and private profit. Such waiver should not be made without positive and complete understanding and agreement, between all interested parties and the Board of Education, that this request or similar requests will not again be pressed upon the Board for it's approval..."
The Board has further stipulated that the Central High School may be used "only under positive and definite assurance and agreement that the concession will not be taken as a precedent and that the Board of Education will not in the future be asked to depart from the principle of the dual system of schools and schools facilities."
As to the above conditions our position is:
(1). The Howard Univeristy Concert Series Committee cannot concede that the presentation of Miss Marian Anderson is a private profit venture or that the financial interest is of significance. Howard University makes no profit on it's concert series, never has, and in fact, operates at a loss. The Committee seeks to present celebrated and distinguished artists to the public in Washington, where all citizens may be culturally benefited, even that
p. 5
The Board of Education of the District of Columbia
-2- March 9, 1939
group which is denied cultural and artistic advantages in the District of Columbia by virtue of discriminatory policies. Further, the Board of Education is inconsistent in singling out such a community project as is the presentation of Miss Marion Anderson and requesting its sponsors to agree never to ask a similar use of public buildings, when it has repeatedly allowed athletic, and other unquestionable financial or profit-making ventures to use these same public buildings, without exacting any such promises or agreements.
(2). Howard University requested the use of the Central High School in an emergency. The word, "emergency," implies unexpectedness and the hope that a condition may not recur. Howard University cannot, however, by acceptance of the use of the public school, become surety to the Board of Education that another emergency may never occur. Howard University cannot be expected to agree that it will never again ask public officials of the District of Columbia for the use of a public building for an educational and cultural community effort. The right of petition for redress of grievances is the basis of American democracy, and no institution should be compelled to relinquish that right in order merely to use a public building for one occasion.
(3). Howard University gratefully accepts the use of the Central High School Auditorium for its presentation of Miss Anderson on April 9, but wishes it plainly understood that it in no wise by acceptance of the use of the building agrees to the conditions or implications contained in the statement of the Board of Education on March 3.
Having stated the position of Howard University in reference to this entire matter, which has become a public question, the Howard University Concert Series Committee, in keeping with this statement, is completing the formal application blank submitted to the Committee by Mrs. Peoples, of the Community Center, and returning it to her today.
Because of the wide, public interest in this question outside of the City of Washington, as well as in the city, copies of this letter setting out the position of Howard University with reference to the conditions prescribed by the Board of Education, are given to each member of the Board of Education, to the public press, and to the members of the Marion Anderson Citizens Committe who appeared before the Board of Education at the hearings.
Respectfully, The Howard University Concert Series Committee
(Signed) Lulu Vore Childers, Director
(Signed) Madeline V. Coleman
(Signed) Charles Cecil Cohen, Chairman
(See reverse side.)