Charles Chesnutt on Racial Tensions

 


Charles Waddell Chesnutt, an African American lawyer, author and social reformer, was born on June 20, 1859 in Cleveland, Ohio to Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and Ann Maria Sampson. Chesnutt published more than one

When Chesnutt was growing up, his parents were freed blacks. Chesnutt’s grandfather was white, which influenced why many of Chesnutt’s stories dealt with the issue of legally black people “passing” themselves as white because of the lightness of their skin. Chesnutt’s physical appearance was close enough to a white man even though he still carried himself with a mixed racial heritage.

In a quote by Charles Chesnutt, he discusses how race relations influenced his writing:

"I think I must write a book. I am almost afraid to undertake a book so early and with so little experience in composition. But it has been a cherished dream, and I feel an influence that I cannot resist calling me to the task. . . . The object of my writing would not be so much the elevation of the colored people as the elevation of the whites--for I consider the unjust spirit of caste which is so insidious as to pervade a whole nation, and so powerful as to subject a whole race and all connected with it to scorn and social ostracism--I consider this a barrier to the moral progress of the American people: and I would be one of the first to head a determined, organized crusade against it.

--Charles W. Chesnutt, written May 1880 in his journal at age 22

Racial issues impacted Charles Chesnutt’s life even though his physical features made him look closer to a white person. Chesnutt’s chances of success were minimal in the South, where he was teaching, because of the deep prejudice. His mixed racial heritage was a burden that always haunted him in the South.

In Charles Chesnutt’s essay titled “What is a White Man”, he discusses the division between the races and questions who the white man is and why black people had no say during this time period. Chesnutt felt strongly about the racial division and about equal rights and opportunities because he also was a victim of the racial tensions. He talks about the “one-drop rule” and figuring out what race and class you belong to. I think that idea is representative in Chesnutt’s life and in his writing because “passing” and figuring out where you belong appears in a lot of his writing and in The House Behind the Cedars. Chesnutt also discusses that being an American citizen is so prized in the white community, but black people don’t get to be in that “charmed circle”, which includes wealth, education and many of the privileges that white people had.

In most of the Southern states, African Americans were divided into two classes, the Negroes and the mulattos. If you had less than one-fourth of African blood, then you were considered white. Throughout the essay, Chesnutt questions why everything is compared to the white blood and why court cases, compare black blood to white blood and how white blood sets the standards for being American. Why does the white race equal purity?

Chesnutt sums up his argument in “What is a White Man” by saying that times change and over half of the colored population is of mixed breed, therefore there should not be a division between blacks and whites. Through Chesnutt’s writing, I think he does a great job of addressing these problems and showing that class distinctions are unjust. 

http://faculty.berea.edu/browners/chesnutt/ 

How a Mayville man impacted Charles Chesnutt's life



On June 20th, 1958, Charles Chesnutt was born to Andrew Chesnutt and Ann Marie Chesnutt, both free persons of color in Cleveland Ohio. Chesnutt, whose outward appearance would suggest that he is a white man, was in fact only 7/8 white, according to his own description. Despite his outward appearance, Chesnutt, much like his characters in The House Behind the Cedars, was subject to the "one drop rule" which stated that one drop of African-American blood was enough to classify someone as black. Though Chesnutt could have kept his African-American heritage to himself and passed as white almost everywhere he went, he identified with his African-American background and used his heritage to help promote and advocate for African-American rights and equality.

Chesnutt and his family moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina postbellum in order to open up a grocery store. Though the grocery store failed due to a slumping economy in Reconstruction America, Chesnutt was able to attain an education at Howard, an all black college established by the Freedman's Bureau after the Civil War. In 1883, Chesnutt left Fayetteville to return to Cleveland, where he would pass the bar exam in 1887 and open and maintain a successful stenography business. He continued to live and thrive in Cleveland until his death in 1932.

Chesnutt's views on race relations were very well defined. Chesnutt believed and advocated for full equality for all citizens of the United States. He promoted this idea in a speech he made in 1905:

"Looking down the vista of time I see an epoch in our nation's history, not in my time or yours, but in the not distant future, when there shall be in the United States but one people, moulded by the same culture, swayed by the same patriotic ideals, holding their citizenship in such high esteem that for another to share it is of itself to entitle him to fraternal regard; when men will be esteemed and honored for their character and talents. When hand in hand and heart with heart all the people of this nation will join to preserve to all and to each of them for all future time that ideal of human liberty which the fathers of the republic set out in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that 'all men are created equal', the ideal for which [William Lloyd] Garrison and [Wendell] Phillips and [Sen. Charles] Sumner lived and worked; the ideal for which [Abraham] Lincoln died, the ideal embodied in the words of the Book [Bible] which the slave mother learned by stealth to read, with slow-moving finger and faltering speech, and which I fear that some of us have forgotten to read at all-the Book which declares that "God is no respecter of persons, and that of one blood hath he made all the nations of the earth."

Albion Tourgee, who was born outside of Cleveland, Ohio, was not only one of the first and only pure whites advocating for the equality of people of all races and colors, but was the attorney who defended Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson. Though Tourgee lost, and America subsequently adopted a separate but equal policy, he refused to relinquish his aspirations for equality in America. Tourgee was a pioneer of sorts, as he was the first person to advocate for "color-blind justice" and the notion of "whiteness as a privilege." The notion that whiteness should be seen as a privilege, since a white man in his time was intrinsically more successful than his minority counterparts, and therefore those minorities should be granted compensation to help them attain the same level as their white counterparts.

Tourgee moved to Mayville, New York in 1881, where he settled down and write many novels about his ideal of race equality, his most notable being Button's Inn. Tourgee and Chesnutt were both very important to race relations in the late 19th century because of their outspoken view of how minorities were treated in their times, as well as both of their antipathy for the "one drop rule." Had Tourgee been successful in defending Plessy in 1896, perhaps Chesnutt would never have had to write The House Behind the Cedars. In response to the decision by the supreme court in Plessy v. Ferguson, where the supreme court decided that separate facilities for black men and women was not derogatory to their race, Chesnutt responded, "I presume that hanging might be pleasant if a man could only convince himself that it would not be painful, nor disgraceful, nor terminate his earthly career."

Though Chesnutt and Tourgee would never meet, their lives and beliefs were wonderfully intertwined and amalgamated for the benefit of the minorities of America in the late 19th century. Chesnutt was never fully lionized for his literary work during his life, however in contemporary times, he has been recognized for his work in race relations by the U.S. Government and was rewarded with his face on a U.S. Stamp in 2008. He went on to be a founding member of the NAACP in 1910, and his works have helped a modern America better understand the struggles of minorities in postbellum America, whether full blooded African-American or six generations removed.

http://www.loa.org/chesnutt/contexts.jsp

http://www.loa.org/chesnutt/bio.jsp

http://www.loa.org/chesnutt/career.jsp

http://www.mcclurgmuseum.org/