Norfolk, Va. Press of the Guide Publishing Co., Inc., 1917.
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Softcover. First edition. 12mo. 23pp. Flexible cloth over card wrappers. "Key of Pass Word" tipped in. Modest creases and wear, about very good. Kelley founded the Grand Temple Daughters of Elks as an auxiliary to The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, a fraternal organization founded by Pullman porter Arthur James Riggs and Benjamin Franklin Howard, who were both members of another fraternal organization who discovered that they shared a dream of forming an Elks organization for people of color. The Elks is the largest predominately black fraternal organization in the world.
Whether Emma V. Kelley is related to the novelist Emma Dunham Kelley, whom for years was thought to have written two of the earliest novels by an African-American woman (*Megda* in 1891 and *Four Girls at Cottage City* in 1895), is undetermined but an important question. Little is known about the latter Kelley, who has recently been the subject of much speculation as to her true race. Long thought to be a light-skinned African-American author, new (and from what we've read, not entirely convincing) research has attempted to remove her from the pantheon of black writers. If the novelist and this namesake who founded a black women's fraternal organization were determined to be the same person, or even merely related, it would have enormous bearing on the debate. At any rate, rare in its own right: *OCLC* locates no copies; we've located a 1926 history of the movement by the same author, also published in Norfolk.
Item #342701
