TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 11, Handy Brothers Music Co. Inc. letterhead, November 26, 1952. Lengthy and politically charged letter from Handy to an admirer. In part: “During the political campaign we published a song, ‘Hike With Ike,’ (Eisenhower and Nixon) which went all over the nation with five thousand letters stating why we published this song, and at my personal expense…I took part in many memorable programs…I thought the Race newspapers of Harlem would have made a news item of this…When Senator Nixon, now Vice President—elect appeared on television, I was an invited guest and we were photographed together…I thought that would have been a story for the race papers, but No. The Press forgets this famous quotation—’I care not who makes the Nation’s Laws, if I can write the Nation’s Songs.’ They discriminate in so many ways, because I wrote the ‘Saint Louis Blues,’ but, forget that I wrote the Anthem ‘They That Sow In Tears Shall Reap In Joy’ and hundreds of other sacred compositions that could be sung in choirs of the Nation…So, for ‘Rank Discrimination’ I wonder at times who is most to blame—’The Opponents of the Civil Rights Bill, or some of My Folks.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. In fine condition. RRAuction COA.
