Library in Mass offers up rare invite to W.E.B. Du Bois Wedding
A Massachusetts library that owns an invitation to W.E.B. Du Bois‘ 1951 wedding is offering to send it to Queens to help landmark the home where the ceremony was held.
W.E.B. Du Bois weds activist Shirley Graham in Queens on Feb. 27, 1951.
Randy Weinstein, founder of the Du Bois Center in Great Barrington, Mass., figured a display of the note – handwritten by Du Bois‘ wife, Shirley Graham – might aid a push to save the posh Addisleigh Park house.
“That’s what the mission of the center is – to share,” said Weinstein, adding he’s “up for almost everything” that will achieve landmark status for the home, at 173-19 113th Ave.
The two-page penciled invite – sent by Graham to black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier – asks him to “stay over after the dinner, and be with us for our marriage” on Feb. 27, 1951.
Graham wrote that invitations were sent to “only our immediate families and a few cherished friends.”
Weinstein said he’d give the historic papers to the Queens chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, an African-American sorority that is urging elected officials to save the Du Bois home from destruction.
“That would be very helpful,” said Merle Capello, the sorority’s president in Queens.
She proposed using the invitation as part of a photo op to gain momentum for landmarking.
Delta Sigma Theta began its campaign after reading a Queens News profile of the Du Bois wedding home in March.
