Kingston, Jamaica,W.I.
April 12, 1915

Dear Doctor Washington:
Some time last year I wrote to you informing you of my proposed visit to America to lecture in the interest of my Association and you were good enough to write to me inviting me to see your great institution.

I am expecting to leave for America between May and June and I shall be calling on you. I intend to do most of my public speaking in the South among the people of our race. I enclose you a manifesto of our Association which will give you an idea of the objects we have in view. I am now asking you to do your best to assist me during my stay in America; as I shall be coming there a stranger to those people.

I need not reacquaint you of the horrible conditions prevailing among our people in the West Indies as you are so well informed of happenings all over Negrodom.

Trusting to be favoured with an early reply with best wishes I remain Your Obedient Servant.

Universal Negro Improvement Association Per
Marcus Garvey

P.S. I take the opportunity of enclosing your Patron's tickets for a concert to which we ask your patronage -- as also envelope.

Booker T. Washington to Marcus Garvey
[Tuskegee Institute, Alabama]
April 27, 1915

My Dear Mr. Garvey:
I have yours of April 12th advising of your proposed tour of this country and of your plan to visit Tuskegee Institute while in the South.

I am very glad indeed that you have decided to come here and it will give us all very great pleasure to make your stay as pleasant and as profitable as we can. Certainly I shall do what I can to help you while in this country.

I thank you for sending me the statement outlining the aim and purpose of the Negro Improvement Association.

Yours very truly.
Booker T. Washington (F)

(The signature is initialed "F," meaning that it was signed for Washington by Charles H. Fearing. Fearing was assistant secretary to the principal of Tuskegee Institute from 1908 until sometime after Washington's death in 1915.)

Excerpts from Robert A. Hill, ed. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume I, 1826 - August 1919. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.