Traveling with Twain

Before visiting Yale University in 1888 for an honorary master of arts degree and in 1901 for an honorary doctor of literature Twain spoke in 1885 to the Kent Club, a student group that debated the issues of the day. Twain was introduced by Warner McGuinn, a black Lincoln University graduate in his first year at Yale Law School. McGuinn was paying his way by working several jobs, including waiter and bill collector. Twain quietly covered McGuinn’s board for the remainder of his time at Yale. Twain wrote to the law school dean: “I do not believe I would very cheerfully help a white student who would ask a benevolence of a stranger, but I do not feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, & the shame is ours, not theirs, & we should pay for it.” McGuinn would later establish a law office in Baltimore, help start the local branch of the NAACP and mentor a young attorney, Thurgood Marshall, who would become the first African-American justice to the United States Supreme Court.

October 14-October 17