Examination committee, 1950 August

Boxes 1-28

The correspondence in this series consists of 10 sub-series. The first sub-series is Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA). The dates of correspondence are arranged from Frank Smith Horne's arrival to the HHFA in 1945 to 1968 when he maintained intermittent contact with some old associates. The earliest correspondence in this section is to Lena Horne, Frank Smith Horne's niece. Lester Granger, Executive Director of the National Urban League, often used Horne as a liaison through which he elicited support from the famed star of stage and screen for Urban League financial drives. In another instance, a Mary C. McGuire, who was Executive Director of Housing Authority of the City of San Antonio, Texas, used her contact with Horne to inform his niece that the City of San Antonio had decided to honor her by naming a street in their public housing project after her. From time to time, Arna Bontemps, the famed African American poet, wrote to Horne asking for new poems and offered comments on his old work, always with the aim of encouraging Horne to write more poetry.

In another part of this early correspondence are the 200 or so letters to and from Floyd Covington, a World War I veteran and personal friend of Frank Horne's who had found himself entangled in bureaucratic red tape in his attempts to pursue his claim with the Veterans' Administration. Covington maintained that he had sustained a back injury in the line of duty during World War I and that he was entitled to compensation. Covington also suspected that his efforts were being thwarted because of racism, and asked Horne for help. Included in this section of the collection is correspondence from Robert Weaver of the Public Housing Administration (PHA) and National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH), and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.

There are hundreds of letters from Horne's associates in the HHFA and the PHA. Clarence R. Johnson, a Racial Relations Officer with the PHA, wrote often about the progress of HHFA's housing programs. DeHart Hubbard, District Director of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in Cleveland, kept Horne informed about conditions of African Americans in Ohio. Edward Rutledge, a Racial Relations advisor in New York, wrote often to discuss the day-to-day progress in the city. Albert Thompson, the FHA State Director in Atlanta, Georgia, alerted Horne to developments in the South. A. Maceo Smith, the District Director of the Dallas, Texas branch of the FHA, was writing Horne regularly in 1948 about race relations and housing in Texas. Madison S. Jones, an Administrative Assistant for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and later Racial Relations Advisor for FHA, wrote Horne often about housing conditions in New York City.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Horne was constantly in touch with African American educators in the South. Mary McLeod Bethune, President of Bethune-Cookman College, wrote often about various subjects including her work to help re-elect Harry Truman in 1948, fund raising for Bethune-Cookman College, and politics and race relations in general in the 1940s. Charles Spurgeon Johnson, President of Fisk University in 1952, wrote about the progress of race relations in Tennessee. Frederick Douglass Patterson, the President of Tuskegee Institute, wrote about HHFA work in Georgia and Alabama. Horace Mann Bond, president of Lincoln University, told of the problem of finding housing for returning African American veterans in and around Lincoln, Pennsylvania.

Besides keeping in touch with members of the academic community, Horne attempted to seek out and to maintain a "contact" in unions, civil rights organizations, civic organizations, as well as with politicians, editors and judges. Among them were George Leon Paul Weaver, the Director of the National Committee to Abolish Discrimination in the 1940s; Henry Lee Moon, Director of Public Relations for the NAACP; Asa Philip Randolph, Co-Chairman (with Grant Reynolds) of the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training of the American Council on Race Relations in 1947; William Henry Hastie, federal judge and one time Governor of the Virgin Islands; Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., New York Congressman; William Dawson, Illinois Congressman and Chairman of the National Citizens Committee for the re-election of President Truman; Louis Martin, editor in chief of the Chicago Defender; Thurgood Marshall, Special Counsel to the NAACP from 1950-1954; and Constance Baker Motley, Assistant Special Counsel to the NAACP and plaintiff in the NAACP Detroit housing suits.

In both 1948 and 1954, the Civil Service Loyalty Board questioned Horne's activities in several leftist committees. In both cases, he defended himself and his wife and was cleared. With the return of the Republicans to power in the Executive branch of government, Horne, an ardent Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat, came under attack in early 1953. From an attempt to kick Horne "upstairs," Albert Cole, Administrator of the HHFA, promoted Horne to a newly created post with vague powers, and gave Joseph Ray, an African American from Kentucky and registered Republican, Horne's old position. Horne charged that this was a deliberate attempt to render his work ineffective and appealed to have the decision reversed.

In 1954, Edward Rutledge, a PHA Racial Relations Advisor and personal friend of Frank Horne, was suspended from his job pending an investigation of his past activities with allegedly "leftist" organizations. The correspondence for this period records the fight of Rutledge and his friends to clear his name. Their efforts were eventually successful.

The next year, HHFA Administrator Albert Cole was successful in removing Horne from the HHFA. Although Horne fought the action, which was ostensibly based on a general "reduction in force" because of budgetary cutbacks, he was unsuccessful and left the HHFA in 1955. Horne's Administrative Assistant, Corienne R. Morrow, was also fired but eventually reinstated. The so-called "Bobbie Case", the investigation of Corienne R. Morrow's past affiliations with several "leftist" organizations, had just preceded this action. This investigation in 1955 was the third examination of her past activities.

When Frank Smith Horne joined the New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations (COIR) in 1956, he left the federal government and Washington, D.C., permanently and made his home and career in New York. The correspondence generated from this city-employment period is the most voluminous in the collection. The COIR correspondence begins with the organization of the Commission and the work of the first Chairman, Herbert Bayard Swope. There is considerable correspondence between Swope and Horne before the former decided to resign in favor of his business commitments. Alfred J. Marrow, a prominent New York businessman and acting Vice Chairman of COIR, replaced Swope in 1956. The correspondence concerning this early period consists of around 300 items.

Controversy raged in the new City Commission, and although the documentation is sketchy, there is a good deal of material that points to the disagreements over power, responsibility, methodology, and personality. There are over 300 pieces of correspondence that includes a petition for Chairman Alfred J. Marrow to resign. In 1960, Stanley H. Lowell replaced Marrow as the COIR Chairman. Correspondents in this period include notables such as Edward Dudley, President of the Borough of Manhattan, and Robert Wagner, Mayor of New York City. There is, unfortunately, scanty material on the day-to-day operation of the Commission, and it is, therefore, difficult to determine the Commission's effectiveness under Horne's direction.

In 1962, Horne accepted an appointment as "Consultant on Human Relations" with the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board (HRB). The purpose of the HRB was to manage the vast home building program of the city and federal government in New York City, and the specific function of the Department of Human Relations was to insure there would be no discriminatory hiring practices among the private contractors and sub-contractors that worked for the city. Especially useful in this regard are the 800 items of correspondence dealing with "contract compliance." The HRB was empowered to withdraw contracts from corporations that did not meet the required quotas of African American employees, and the Department of Human Relations often invoked this power. Another responsibility of the Human Relations Department was to see that all City-owned or funded housing was integrated. As a result, there are approximately 200 items of correspondence from individuals who applied for housing or who claimed they had been discriminated against when they applied. Horne also worked with building trade unions. Since a contractor usually had to work with both the HRB and a union when he won the bid for a city contract, Horne's office was often the clearinghouse that ensured there were African Americans in the unions that supplied workers for the jobs.

Horne's subordinates in the HRB were required to submit weekly activity reports, which are found throughout this section of the collection and are helpful in determining the day-to-day activities of this office. Correspondents include Milton Mollen, Chairman of HRB; Jason Nathan, Chairman of the Housing and Development Administration (HDA); Milton Frankfort, Chief of HRB Project Services; L.L.L. Golden, Bureau of Equal Opportunity; Sidney Rivkin, Chairman of the Housing Committee of the New York Urban League; Robert Jones, private consultant on housing financing; Joseph Robison, Director of the American Jewish Congress; Norman Johnson, Chairman of the Housing Committee of the New York State NAACP; Jack Greenburg, Chief Counsel of NAACP; Barbara Reach, Staff Associate for Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Peter Straus of station WMCA; Dr. Eugene Callender, Executive Director of the New York Urban League; Robert Rubinstein, HRB Assistant General Counsel; Herbert Evans, Chairman of HRB; Walter Fried, Chairman of HRB; Samuel Ratensky, HRB Project Development Director; Dorothy Height, President of the National Council of Negro Women; Betty Hoeber, Director of Operation Open City of New York Urban League; Edward Rutledge, Executive Director of the NCDH; William Valentine, Director of Intergroup Relations of the New York City Housing Authority; Simeon Golar, Deputy City Administrator; John Lindsay, Mayor of New York City; Laila Long, of the HRB Bureau of Equal Opportunity; Alphonso DiMeo, Chief of HRB Bureau of Project Services; and frank Lichtensteiger, of the HRB Bureau of Equal Opportunity.

In 1967, the HDA absorbed the HRB, and Horne's title became Assistant Administrator of the Office of Equal Opportunity. In the new organization, Horne had responsibilities similar to his old HRB position, and most of his correspondence for the period 1969-1973 involves his attempts to achieve "contract compliance" with trade unions and contractors. There is also considerable correspondence dealing with the application of the so-called "Philadelphia Plan" to New York City.

Among the HDA correspondents for the six year period of Horne's work are Jason R. Nathan, HDA Administrator; Eugene Callender, HDA Program Supervisor; Arthur Spiegel, HDA Programs and Policy Agent; Samuel Ratensky, HDA Planning and Design Research; Joseph Polser, HDA Public Affairs; Shirley Spiegel, HDA Legal Affairs; Charles Rodriguez, HDA Community Affairs; Walter Fried, Housing Program Supervisor; Robert Hazen, HDA Administrator of Housing; Alfred DiMeo, HDA Housing Processing and Construction Supervisor; Louis Reiter, HDA Municipal Loans; Major Reid, HDA Housing services; David Olinger, HDA Community Development Program Supervisor; Eli Post, HDA Planning and Technical Services; Frances Levenson, HDA Housing Sponsorship; Bruce Llewellyn, HDA Special Improvements program Supervision; Robert K. Bodrick, Manhattan Borough Coordinator of HDA Equal Opportunity Office; Maurice Callender, Elizabeth Sargeant, and Lillian Morales, Urban Renewal Agents; Harold Wallace, Frank Lichtenstegier, Nancy Stedman, Edward Harrison, Margaret Douglas, and Jerry Sanders, Economic Development Agents; Marie Richardson and John Harrison, Tenant Selection Agents; Delores Elverson, HDA Administrative Associate; Laila Long, Deputy Assistant Administrator of HDA Office of Equal Opportunity; Charles Kirnon, Dorothy Plummer and Leonard Linder, Evaluation and Training Agents. There is also 300 items of HDA correspondence recording the weekly accomplishments of the Office of Equal Opportunity.

From the organization of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) in 1950 until the removal of its offices from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 1970, Frank Horne played a leading role in the work of this civil rights organization. The correspondence in the collection, however, is somewhat incomplete. Consisting of less than 500 items, the NCDH correspondence in the Horne collection covers only the peaks of the great activity or crisis within the organization. Among the correspondents are Charles Abrams, NCDH President; Algeron Black, Chairman of the Board; Jack Conway, Charlotte Meacham, Loren Miller, William Oliver, and Boris Shiskin, NCDH Vice Presidents; Roland Sawyer, NCDH Secretary; John Heyman, NCDH Treasurer; Joseph Robison, NCDH General Counsel; Edward Rutledge, NCDH Executive Director; Jack E. Wood, NCSH Associate Executive Director; Margaret Fisher, NCDH Director of Information and Publications; and Barbara Chirse, NCDH Administrative Assistant.

During his tenure with NCDH, Horne served on the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and as a consultant on race relations. Among the members of the NCDH Board of Directors he corresponded with were Paget Alves, Chester Bowles, Hortense Gabel, Dorothy Height, Madison Jones, Philip Klutznick, Frances Levenson, Will Maslow, George Metcalf, Constance Baker Motley, Sol Rabkin, A. Phillip Randolph, Lenerte Roberts, William Valentine, John Waties Waring, George Leon, Paul Weaver, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young.

One large category of NCDH correspondence deals with the proposed move of the NCDH offices to Washington, D.C., more or less at the direction of the Ford Foundation. Horne opposed the move from New York City and fought to prevent it. The 200 items of correspondence dealing with this issue, perhaps more than any other group of letters in the collection, reveal the race relations philosophies of many of the prominent members of NCDH.

The four smallest sections of correspondence in the collection: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Municipal Association for Management and Administration (MAMA) are related to the larger preceding sections. They expose the variety of Frank Horne's activities in other organizations, although for the most part this correspondence is relatively insignificant. The ACLU correspondence deals primarily with Horne's work on the Equality Committee. There are 200 items dealing with court cases involving the right of minorities to decent housing. The 150 items of correspondence for MARC is fragmentary and primarily deals with Horne's appointment as an advisor to the center. The 200 items of HUD correspondence consists mainly of photocopies of departmental memoranda from Booker T. McGraw to HUD Secretary Robert Clifton Weaver on policy decisions for the office. The 20 or so items of correspondence for MAMA deal with publicity for the organization.

The general correspondence contains material on various subjects. Usually the correspondence for each subject fills only a single folder and is composed of no more than 30 items. In 1930, James Weldon Johnson, the famed African American author, wrote Frank Horne to discuss his poetry. There are only two letters remaining of that exchange, but both are from Johnson and give some idea of his opinion on Horne's work. In July of 1936, Mary McLeod Bethune telegraphed Horne asking him to come to Washington, D.C., as her Administrative Assistant in the National Youth Administration. The letters concerning this change in Horne's career from schoolmaster to racial relations advisor number approximately 30 items, which include correspondence with Mary McLeod Bethune, Aubrey Williams, Howard A. Hunt, F.I.A. Bennett, Richard R. Brown, Robert C. Weaver, Robert W. Patton, and George Foster Peabody. There are 50 items of correspondence between Horne and Reginald A. Johnson, the Director for Field Services for the National Urban League, concerning housing legislation from 1946-1955. In addition, there is around 30 items of correspondence between Horne and Robert Weaver, Secretary of HUD, recording the events leading to Weaver's appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Cabinet in 1966.

One of the most useful sections of the Horne correspondence is the 300 items of "Notes to key People" in which Horne speaks candidly to his friends on current issues. Among people who received these notes were A. Maceo Smith, Clarence Johnson, Joseph Coles, Albert Thompson, Booker T. McGraw, Edward Rutledge, William Hill, Jack Wood, and Robert Weaver. There are also several folders of correspondence amounting in 200 items dealing with "permission requests" for Horne's poetry from various New York publishers. Among the "non-New York" editors, requesting permission is Ralph R. Busick of Wayne State University Press who supervised the American printing of Rosey E. Pool's "ik ben de Nieuwe Neger" in 1966.

The general correspondence section also contains folders on the State Commission for Human Rights, the Notre Dame Race Relations Conference of 1965, the American Jewish Committee, Co-op Housing, the New York City Relocation Department, public relations material for Randolph Institute in 1966, National Association of Housing Officials, Veterans Administration, National Urban League, the Hines Housing Project in 1942, Catholic Interracial Council, Harlem Housing Study, Harlem Unemployment Center, Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, Phelps-Stokes Fund, Fort Valley College, Potomac Institute, National Housing Research Council, and the Urban Development Corporation.

The final section of correspondence contains 500 items labeled "General Correspondence". This section contains letters that have been arranged chronologically because they would not easily have fit into a subject category. Usually there is only a single incoming letter and a single letter in reply. Among this correspondence may be found: a letter from Charles Spurgeon Johnson in 1927, when he was editor of Opportunity, telling the young poet, Frank Horne, of his selection for several of the magazine's prizes for prose and poetry; a group of letters from Mercedes, Horne's second wife, on various items of interest in Washington, D.C., in the 1950's; letters from Herbert Bayard Swope, Chairman of the Commission of Intergroup Relations (COIR), regarding the selection of an Assistant Director of COIR; letters to and from Roland M. Sawyer, Housing Consultant to the United Steelworkers of America, on Sawyer's appointment to President John F. Kennedy's Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing; a letter from Rosey E. Pool telling of the BBC's use of Horne's poem, "Kidstuff," in its Christmas broadcast in 1963; a letter to James Meredith at the University of Mississippi congratulating him for his courage in breaking the university's segregation barrier; a letter from Langston Hughes congratulating Horne on the publication of a book of his poetry, Haverstraw; a letter to A. Phillip Randolph on the occasion of his receipt of the "President's Award" in New York City; several letters to and from Paul Breman of London, the editor who in 1964 first published Haverstraw; a considerable volume of correspondence to and from Louis Martin, Deputy Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1964 and 1965; letters to and from "Ted" Horne, Lena Horne's father, discussing family affairs; memoranda to and from Edward L. Holmgren, Executive Director of NCDH; and correspondence with George Leon, Paul Weaver, Special Assistant to the Director-General of the International Labor Office.