Correspondence to Anna Melissa Graves from Julio H. Velàzquez and Julia M. Velàzquez

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Correspondence to Anna Melissa Graves from Julio H. Velàzquez and Julia M. Velàzquez

• 1959-1963 (Vervaardig)

"Contains a collection of fourteen letters on 31 leaves, both autograph and typescript, by Puerto Rican Nationalist Julio H. Velàzquez and his mother Julia, all addressed to benefactor and friend Anna Melissa Graves (1875-1964).

Julio Hector Velàzquez was still a minor in high school in 1937 when he, his father Luis F. Velàzquez, Pedro Albizu Campos, President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, and five others, were convicted and imprisoned for conspiracy to overthrow the United States government. Julio would spend several years in prison (we have been unable to ascertain how long, though a newspaper article from 1941 indicates he was in prison in that year), and the present collection, though dating from more than twenty years after his trial, indicate the enduringly crippling effect his youthful imprisonment had on his life, his family, and his career.

The recipient of all correspondence, Anna Melissa Graves, was a prominent American internationalist, civil rights advocate, peace activist, and author who held a long-time leadership position in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Much of the present correspondence relates to Julio's attempts to become, like his grandfather before him, an independently operating printer in the Bronx, with Graves his primary patron (indeed, a search for anything printed by Velàzquez in OCLC only shows two pamphlets, both by Graves: 'The Necessity for a Struggle to Abolish Colonialism' (ca. 1953) and 'Please Listen, Mr. President: A Letter to President Eisenhower' (ca. 1960). The letters from Julio's mother Julia portray a family struggling for decades with family calamity, the last few letters from her explicitly describing terrible bouts of depression and anxiety for the well-being of her son. The final letter, written by Julio in January 1963, about eighteen months before Graves' death at the age of 89, shows desperation on his part for Graves' patronage, his having just received a letter from her (not seen) in which she appears to have canceled a print job he was working on due to the poor quality of the proofs. To this Julio begs her, 'Please, please, Miss Graves I am about finished in setting the whole copy in type which is actually the heavy part of the work in printing the book and I won't feel well if after so much work I will not complete the actual printing job of the booklet. I promise you that you will like the finished printing job of the booklet.' Whether the pamphlet was ever finished is unclear. A valuable portrait of a struggling Puerto Rican Nationalist family and the adverse effects of juvenile imprisonment." –Description from Lorne Bair Rare Books, Inc.