A Need for Literature Charles W. Chesnutt

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A Need For Literature

When an author is thought of names such as Maya Angelo, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin are spoken of. The thought never come to people's mind who may have started it all and made a way for modern day authors. Charles Chesnutt broke new ground in American literature with exploration if identity, use of African American speech, and his love of writing. He was a lawyer, author, and social reformer, who was considered one of the pioneers in writing racial themes (C.D. Merriman 2006). Charles spoke out against disfranchment, lynching, and legal underpinnings of segregation, laying bare the deep contradictions at the heart of American attitudes toward race and history. He witnessed and wrote about the social, cultural, and racial things taking place in the North during American history (Wilson and William, 1989). Charles was the first African American writer to use the white controlled mass media in the service of serious fiction on the behalf of the black community (Andrews, 1999).

Charles Chesnutt was born June 20, 1858 to Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (son of a slave owner) and Ann Maria (Sampson) a housekeeper in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the first child of five. By this time blacks were freed from slavery. Chesnutt heard of many blacks that lived their life as a white man because the color of their skin was so light, he could of also but he knew who he was and learned that a family's blood is very important in determining a person's economic and social prospects (The Editors of Salam Press, 2001). Chesnutt felt as though he still bore the burden of a mixed racial heritage. In

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The Need For Literature

1860, his brother Lewis Chesnutt was born. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, his family left Cleveland because of racial problems and settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina, there home state (Kirk, 2009). While in North Carolina his family ran a grocery store in which Charles worked in shocking shelves and making deliveries. When Chesnutt was eight years old he started a school founded by the Freedom Bureau named State Colored Normal School. He was an avid reader and keen observer of people and the socio-political times, which was reflected in his future writing (C.D. Merriman, 2006). In 1877, Chesnutt sister Lillian was born and his mother passed away. Shortly after the passing of his mother, he got his first short story published in a Fayetteville newspaper. Cheanutt always had a love for writing but he always felt like as though he could not do it because of this age and the level of his education, He Quotes…"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 cannot resist calling me to the task…."(C.D. Merriman). Charles grew up very family oriented, and after the passing of his mother and the closing of his father's store, he had to support his family financially. Andrew Chesnutt's store closed because of poor business practice and the struggling economy (Wikipedia). Robert Charles believed in Charles's abilities and asked the elder to allow him to become a teacher. Charles dropped out of school and became a teacher at the school he was attending. During the time of teaching, Chesnutt self educated himself, studying French, German, rhetoric, and learning stenography, while teaching at various black schools. Because of the color of his skin,

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The Need For Literature

the other black children never accepted him and he felt as if he did not have a position in society "…I occupy here a position similar to that of Mahomet's Coffin. I am neither fish, flesh, nor fowl-neither "nigger," white, nor "buckrah." Too "stuck up" for the colored folks, and, of course, not recognized by the whites."(Pmccray.n.d.).

In 1877, Charles was appointed the first assistant principal at the State Colored Normal School, which is known as Fayetteville State University today. There he was able to pursue his dream of becoming an author, while working to change racial bigotry. In his own words, "I will live down the prejudice, I will crush it out. I will show to the world that a many may spring from a race of slaves, and yet far excel many of the boasted ruling race." Here he met his soul mate and future wife, Susan Perry, a schoolteacher and a daughter of a barber. Charles traveled to Washington, D.C. looking for a job; because of the color of his skin it was hard for him to get a job. He had been studying stenography and wanted a job at a newspaper