Charles Chesnutt: a Literary Pioneer of the 19th Century

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Charles Chesnutt: A Literary Pioneer of the 19th Century Charles Chesnutt was born in Cleveland, Ohio and at the age of nine moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Chesnutt was a mix of African American and European ancestry but chose to identify with the African American heritage. He never acknowledged himself to be white however he was light skinned enough that he could have passed for a white man. Charles Chesnutt was a considered literary pioneer for his time. His stories were about the trials and tribulations of characters dealing with difficult issues of being identified as mixed race, ”passing”, illegitimacy, racial identities and social place throughout his career. Chesnutt wrote in a time of the “Jim Crow” era which is known as a highly volatile time in the Reconstruction. The “Jim Crow” laws were laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. The laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the Southern state of the former Confederacy. The African Americans were given a separate but equal status. Charles Chesnutt’s writing spoke out against any form of disfranchisement and legal under pinning’s of segregation. Chesnutt was what is known as a local color writer. Local color refers to fiction that focuses on specific features. These features include dialects, customs, history or landscapes of a particular region. Chesnutt’s short stories brought forth a deeper understanding of the racial issues that the country was facing. His stories were written with humor and sometimes sadness. Of his works he stated, “The object of my writing would be not so much the elevation of the colored people as the elevation of the whites-for consider the unjust spirit of caste which is so insidious as to pervade a whole nation***a barrier to the moral progress of the American people.” (McGraw-Hill, 41). Chesnutt used his writings as a way of

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