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The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays By: Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) |
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Charles W. Chesnutt 1899
INTRODUCTION
Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858 1932) African American educator,
lawyer, and activist was the most prominent black prose author of
his day. In both his fiction and his essays, he addressed the thorny
issues of the "color line" and racism in an outspoken way. Despite
the critical acclaim resulting from several works of fiction and
non fiction published between 1898 and 1905, he was unable to make a
living as an author. He kept writing, however, and several works
which were not published during his lifetime have been rediscovered
(and published) in recent years. He was awarded the Springarn Medal
for distinguished literary achievement by the NAACP in 1928. The
library at Fayetteville State University, in North Carolina, is
named after him. The Wife of His Youth (1899) was Chesnutt's second collection of
short stories, drawing upon his mixed race heritage. These deal
largely with race relations, the far reaching effects of Jim
Crow laws, and color prejudice among African Americans toward
darker skinned blacks. Eric J. Sundquist wrote: "Chesnutt's
color line stories, like his conjure tales, are at their best
haunting, psychologically and philosophically astute studies of the
nation's betrayal of the promise of racial equality and its descent
into a brutal world of segregation. [He] made the family a means of
delineating America's racial crisis, during slavery and afterward."
For our PG edition, I have added three of Chesnutt's essays on the
"color line" in an Appendix to this collection. Suzanne Shell, CONTENTS The Wife of His Youth Her Virginia Mammy The Sheriff's Children A Matter of Principle Cicely's Dream The Passing of Grandison Uncle Wellington's Wives The Bouquet The Web of Circumstance APPENDIX Three Essays on the Color Line: What is a White Man? (1889) The Future American (1900) The Disfranchisement of the Negro (1903) The Wife of His Youth I
Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There were several reasons why this
was an opportune time for such an event. Mr. Ryder might aptly be called the dean of the Blue Veins. The original
Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons organized in a
certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose was to
establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose
social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement. By
accident, combined perhaps with some natural affinity, the society
consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than
black. Some envious outsider made the suggestion that no one was
eligible for membership who was not white enough to show blue veins. The
suggestion was readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few,
and since that time the society, though possessing a longer and more
pretentious name, had been known far and wide as the "Blue Vein
Society," and its members as the "Blue Veins." The Blue Veins did not allow that any such requirement existed for
admission to their circle, but, on the contrary, declared that character
and culture were the only things considered; and that if most of their
members were light colored, it was because such persons, as a rule, had
had better opportunities to qualify themselves for membership. Opinions
differed, too, as to the usefulness of the society. There were those who
had been known to assail it violently as a glaring example of the very
prejudice from which the colored race had suffered most; and later, when
such critics had succeeded in getting on the inside, they had been heard
to maintain with zeal and earnestness that the society was a lifeboat,
an anchor, a bulwark and a shield, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire
by night, to guide their people through the social wilderness. Another
alleged prerequisite for Blue Vein membership was that of free birth;
and while there was really no such requirement, it is doubtless true
that very few of the members would have been unable to meet it if there
had been... Continue reading book >>
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