George Washington Lee papers

The papers of prominent Memphis civic leader, politician, and insurance professional George Washington Lee, more commonly known as Lieutenant Lee, reflect his affiliation with the Republican Party for over five decades.

Correspondence includes letters from several Republican United States Presidents from either before or during their presidency, including Calvin Coolidge (1924), Herbert Hoover (1928), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952), and Richard Nixon (1964). Other correspondents include chairmen of the Republican National Committee, John Hamilton, Thruston B. Morton, and William E. Miller, as well as prominent Republican politicians Robert A. Taft Jr., Jacob Javits, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and George Romney, among others. In several of these letters, Lee and his correspondents write about ways in which the Republican Party could better foster the inclusion of African Americans, as well as the increasing significance of the African American voting bloc in presidential elections. Other notable correspondents include W. C. Handy, a friend of Lee, who questions the veracity of Alan Lomax's biography of Jelly Roll Morton in his letter to Lee. Handy includes an enclosure of passages from Mr. Jelly Roll which Handy claims as "false from head to foot" and another enclosure of a letter Handy received from a man who had heard Handy and his band perform in 1898.

In a transcription of an oral history interview conducted with Lee in 1966 as part of the Memphis State University Oral History Research Office's Political Leaders of Memphis project, he describes his life and career as a politician and writer in great detail. Photographs depict Lee meeting Richard Nixon, Pat Nixon, and Jackie Robinson, among other prominent national figures and Republican politicians. Another photograph includes Lee's daughter, Gilda, shaking hands with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Oval Office.

Lee's published writings date from 1928 and include works printed in Memphis Triangle, Journal of Negro Life, Music Forum and Digest, The Knoxville Journal, and Memphis magazine. Topics of these writings range from life on Beale Street, African American World War I veterans, W. C. Handy, and editorial letters. An excerpt from one of Lee's books was published as "The King of Beale Street" in the first issue of Negro Digest in July 1940. His reminiscences on Martin Luther King Jr., in light of his assassination in Memphis, are presented in the May 1968 issue of The Vision, a publication of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, which Lee edited.

Speeches include Lee's speech seconding the nomination of Robert A. Taft at the 1952 Republican National Convention. Other speeches are before the Shelby County Republican Convention and at various Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World gatherings, the latter in his capacity as Grand Commissioner of Education of the Elks. Particularly by the late 1960s, Lee's speeches concern the perceived disregard of the general African American population for the Republican Party. Also included in the collection is the text of Lee's Lincoln-Douglas Address in 1945, as published in the Congressional Record.

The collection also includes two large scrapbooks, primarily newspaper clippings chronicling Lee's involvement in national and local Republican Party politics and his various activities as a prominent Memphis civic leader. Of interest is a newspaper clipping, "Lt. Lee Credited with Ike's Win in Tennessee," from the November 7, 1956, issue of the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Campaign ephemera reflect Lee's own campaigns for State Committeeman and State Executive Republican Committee, and also depict his work as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Volunteer Ticket. Related materials include an endorsement supporting the Nixon/Lodge ticket in 1960 signed by Memphis-area ministers of various denominations.