Items

• Correspondence for Bill Leslie
  Bill Leslie’s urgent letter to members provided a small glimpse into the Clef Club’s money matters. To dig deeper into its financial history, one would have to search the archives at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts 2013).
• Letter, Charlie Hall Jr. to Miss Anderson, May 5, 1939
  A letter from Charlie Hall Jr., a 16-year-old African American farmer and 10th-grade student from Lawndale, North Carolina, to singer Marian Anderson, dated May 5, 1939. Written shortly after Anderson’s historic Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial, the letter conveys Hall’s admiration for her artistry and resilience, as well as parallels to his own life. Weeks earlier, Charlie had heard Anderson’s voice—maybe through the radio, maybe from news of her historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial and called it “beautiful”.
• Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School
  The Bethel AME Church in Pennington was built in 1816 by a small group of free African Americans who purchased the land as an empty lot, as well as nearby lots for homes (Katmann 2014, 6). This photograph of the church’s Sunday School features nineteen children, some siblings. Patricia (née True) Payne has identified all of the children in the picture. (See reverse)
• Wooden collection boxes (two)
  Original to Bethel AME Church. A booklet printed in 1966 in honor of the church’s 150th anniversary says: “Two of the original collection boxes are prize possessions of the church and are still used on special occasions.” On loan from the members of Bethel AME Church in Pennington, NJ