
Charles W. Chesnutt
About this book
The 77 works included in this volume comprise all of Chesnutt's known works of nonfiction, 38 of which are reprinted here for the first time. They reveal an ardent and often outraged spokesman for the African American whose militancy increased to such a degree that, by 1903, he had more in common with W. E. B. Du Bois than Booker T. Washington.
He was, however, a lifelong integrationist and even an advocate of "race amalgamation," seeing interracial marriage as the ultimate means of solving "the Negro Problem," as it was termed at the end of the century. That he championed the African American during the Jim Crow era while opposing Black Nationalism and other "race pride" movements attests to the way Chesnutt defined himself as a controversial figure, in his time and ours.
Subjects
African Americans in literatureRace relationsIntellectual lifeCivil rightsHistory and criticismAmerican literatureAfrican American authorsSocial conditionsAfrican AmericansAfrican americans, civil rightsAfrican americans, social conditionsUnited states, race relationsAmerican literature, african american authors, history and criticismNoirs américainsDroitsConditions socialesRelations racialesLITERARY COLLECTIONSEssaysAfro-American authors