Contributions in Black Studies A Journal of African and Afro-American Studies Volume 1 Inaugural Issue Article 3 January 1977 Charles W. Chestnutt: Victim of the Color Line Eugene Terry Hampshire College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cibs Recommended Citation Terry, Eugene (1977) "Charles W. Chestnutt: Victim of the Color Line," Contributions in Black Studies: Vol. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cibs/vol1/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Afro-American Studies at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Contributions in Black Studies by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Terry: Charles W. Chestnutt: Victim of the Color Line Eugene Terry CHARLES W. CHESNUTT: VICTIM OF THE COLOR LINE At twenty-one years old, having taught school, been principal of the North Carolina Normal School at Fayetteville (later Fayette ville College), and created for himself a curriculum of largely self-taught courses that amounted to a liberal arts education which would eventually lead him to reading law and passing the Ohio Bar, Charles W. Chesnutt determined to become a writer. Even at this time, one can detect, in his journal entries, keys to his aesthetic. From the beginning he saw the value of lives of Afro Americans as material, for his experience of life looms large as a major aspect of this preparation for writing. Having read Albion W. Tourgee's A Fool's Errand and more impressed by the $20,000 Tourgee received than the book, he rhetorically asks if Tourgee, with his limited knowledge and experience of black life, could write such books, Could not a colored man, who had lived among colored peo ple all his life, who is familiar with their habits, their ruling passions, their prejudices, their whole moral and social con dition, their public and private ambitions, their religious tendencies and habits ..