William Calvin Chase

William Calvin Chase
Born 1854
Died 1921 (aged 66–67)
Nationality American
Known for

William Calvin Chase (1854–1921) was an African-American lawyer and newspaper editor. A native of Washington, D.C., he attended Howard University. As well as gaining admission to the bar, he edited the Washington Bee, a weekly newspaper, from 1882 until his death.[1]

Biography

Chase was born to free African-American parents in Washington, D.C. in 1854. His Maryland-born father, an expert blacksmith, died in 1863, and young Chase was raised by his Virginia-born mother, Lucinda. A boy during the administration of Abraham Lincoln, he became a lifelong member of the Republican Party. Within the first year of the founding of the Washington Bee, in 1882, he became its editor and remained in that role until his death in 1921. Chase married Arabella McCabe in 1883, and the couple had children.[1]

Soon after taking up editorship of the Bee, Chase also attended classes at Howard University Law School in 1883-1884. Continuing his editorial duties, Chase did not take a law degree and maintained his legal studies privately. He was admitted to the bar in Virginia and in Washington, D.C., in 1889, and practiced law thereafter in Washington. His standing as a lawyer and editor made Chase a Republican Party leader in Washington, and Chase was named as a District of Columbia delegate to the Republican national conventions held in 1900 and 1912.[1][2]

As editor

Chase's 1882–1921 editorial leadership of the Washington Bee was "superb ... [and] eventually turned the Bee into one of the most influential African American newspapers in the country."[1] However, this service coincided with a dark period in the history of African-Americans in the United States. Post-Civil War Redeemers acquired political control over many U.S. states; with the goal of reversing many of the limited desegregation gains that had been made during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Redeemers proclaimed a policy of Jim Crow and implicit support for lynching. The Bee attempted to crusade against these trends, leveraging its support base in the comparatively well-educated African-American community of Washington, D.C. For several years, Chase editorialized against lynching and against the Atlanta compromise positions taken by fellow African-American leader Booker T. Washington.[1]

Chase's 1912 support for the re-election of President William Howard Taft was not successful, as the Southern-born Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson was elected.[3] Wilson's entry into the White House marked the extension of Redeemer policy to Washington, D.C. and the federal government, with the new administration ruthlessly re-segregating Washington offices and other places of life and work.[4] The newspaper's financial troubles continued and worsened.[1]

Death and honors

Chase attempted to respond to these dismal trends by building an editorial alliance with the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His time as a second-wave civil rights activist was, however, short. On January 3, 1921 the editor was found dead in his newspaper office; he had literally died at his desk.[5] The struggling newspaper survived him by little more than a year.[1]

William Calvin Chase was posthumously honored by memorial resolution 16-187 of the Council of the District of Columbia, adopted on February 7, 2006. The resolution cited Chase's historical significance as one of the first journalistic champions of Frederick Douglass in the African-American press, and Chase's organization of the movement to achieve the historic preservation of Douglass's later-life home, Cedar Hill.[6]

Further study

A scholarly biography of Chase, Honey for Friends, Stings for Enemies, appeared in 1973. Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, the examination of the fighting editor's life is an expanded Ph.D dissertation.[7] A second dissertation, which also focuses closely on Chase's life, work, and standing in Washington, D.C., is Marya Annette McQuirter's Claiming the City: African Americans, Urbanization and Leisure in Washington, D.C., 1902–1954 (2000).[8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "About the Washington bee (Washington, D.C.) 1884–1922". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  2. ↑ Taylor, Quintard. "Chase, William Calvin (1854–1921)". blackpast.org. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  3. ↑ Gleason (ed.), Lafayette B. (1912). Official Report of the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Republican National Convention, held in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago: General Secretary, 1912 Republican National Convention. pp. 87, 403. Retrieved November 12, 2012.
  4. ↑ Patler, Nicholas (2007). Jim Crow and the Wilson Administration: Protesting Federal Segregation in the Early Twentieth Century. Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0870818646.
  5. ↑ Finkelman (ed.), Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present.... (Vol. 1)(2009 edition). New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 352. ISBN 978-0195167795. Retrieved November 12, 2012.
  6. ↑ "A Ceremonial Resolution 16-187: In the Council of the District of Columbia" (PDF). Council of the District of Columbia. Retrieved 2012-11-12.
  7. ↑ Chase, Hal Scripps. 'Honey for Friends, Stings for Enemies': William Calvin Chase and the Washington Bee, 1882–1921. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  8. ↑ "Washington Bee Newspaper Office Site/W. Calvin Chase". African American Heritage Trail. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
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