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Family Matters in the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt

Family Matters in the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt Family Matters in the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt by William M. Ramsey Writing Þction one hundred years ago, Charles W. Chesnutt believed that AmericaÕs racial future was best embodied in himself, a mixed-race American. A light-skinned mulatto living on the color line, he argued that racial amalgamation, through passing and miscegenation, would slowly erode the rigid white-black dichotomy of AmericaÕs caste system. Eventually, he foresaw, America would become one race, as his stories of light-skinned protagonists on the color line seemed to predict. Unfortunately for his literary reputation, this racial prescription for a New America was premature. By the time of his death in 1932, the Harlem Renaissance had celebrated a New Negro who was no light- skinned assimilationist, but one who, like Langston Hughes, stood on the racial mountaintop of a proud, culturally distinct, dark-skinned self. It is now a century after ChesnuttÕs Þrst book publications, and Amer- ica is changing. Racial amalgamation, according to federal statistics, oc- curs at a more rapid pace than ever before. From 1970 to 1990, marriages between blacks and whites rose from two percent of all marriages to six percent. The number jumped to over twelve percent by 1993 (ÒWith This http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Southern Literary Journal University of North Carolina Press

Family Matters in the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt

Ramsey, William M.
The Southern Literary Journal , Volume 33 (2) – Jun 1, 2001
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Department of English of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
ISSN
1534-1461

Abstract

Family Matters in the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt by William M. Ramsey Writing Þction one hundred years ago, Charles W. Chesnutt believed that AmericaÕs racial future was best embodied in himself, a mixed-race American. A light-skinned mulatto living on the color line, he argued that racial amalgamation, through passing and miscegenation, would slowly erode the rigid white-black dichotomy of AmericaÕs caste system. Eventually, he foresaw, America would become one race, as his stories of light-skinned protagonists on the color line seemed to predict. Unfortunately for his literary reputation, this racial prescription for a New America was premature. By the time of his death in 1932, the Harlem Renaissance had celebrated a New Negro who was no light- skinned assimilationist, but one who, like Langston Hughes, stood on the racial mountaintop of a proud, culturally distinct, dark-skinned self. It is now a century after ChesnuttÕs Þrst book publications, and Amer- ica is changing. Racial amalgamation, according to federal statistics, oc- curs at a more rapid pace than ever before. From 1970 to 1990, marriages between blacks and whites rose from two percent of all marriages to six percent. The number jumped to over twelve percent by 1993 (ÒWith This

Journal

The Southern Literary Journal – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jun 1, 2001

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