RPW to Kenneth Clark letter 3/6/1964 searchable text

2495 Redding Road, Fairfield, Connecticut, March 6, 1964

Dr. Kenneth Clark,

Department of Psychology,

City College,

New York City.

Dear Dr Clark:

          I am about to ask you a great favor.  But first let me introduce myself.  I am a writer, and a professor at Yale.  Among my novels are All the King’s Men, World Enough and Time, and The Cave.  I have also done other things, including, now and then a bit of journalism.  And it is a bit of journalism that brings me to the favor.

          I am under contract with Look Magazine and Random House, my regular publishers, to do a series of interviews with Negro leaders in various parts of the country.  I am not trying to newspaper interviews.  I want, if possible, to get something like a portrait, an impression of a man’s way of thinking and feeling, his attitudes on a variety of questions.  I wonder if I can persuade you to see me for a couple of hours?  I should be enormously grateful.

          Except for the period from March 19 to April 3, and the day of April 8, I am free.  Or rather, no dates are yet firm in that period, up till May 1.  Would you find it possible to see me?  I could come in at any time in the day or evening.  I know that this is an imposition, but perhaps you can be persuaded to think that some good can come of the project.

          Very sincerely yours,

Robert Penn Warren