Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 29 October 1900
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not answ'd11/1. 169 Co 64 Brenton St., Cleveland, O. Oct. 29, 1900 My dear Mr. Washington,-
Your favor of recent date, inviting me to visit Tuskegee in February next, was duly received.1 I think I can safely accept your invitation, with the proviso that if I should come before that time, I would not be unwelcome. I am writing a novel which may require me to visit the South sooner than February, in which event I might visit Tuskegee & kill two birds with one stone.2 If I decide to come earlier, I will
let you know, & try to time my visit so as to catch you there. I am sure I shall enjoy the visit.
I hope you will see my new novel, "The House Behind the Cedars", which runs along the "color line."3 My next book on the subject will be square up to date, & will deal with the negro's right to live rather than his right to love.4
Mrs. Chesnutt5 joins me in regards to you, & I remain,
Cordially yours, Chas. W. Chesnutt. Mr. Booker T. Washington Tuskegee, Ala.Correspondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia; in 1881, he became the principal of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1. The Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, evolved from the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, founded in 1881, with Booker T. Washington as its principal. It became a leading educational institution for Blacks in the South, emphasizing teacher training and industrial education. Chesnutt, who had himself been the principal of a Black normal school in the early 1880s, first visited Tuskegee in February 1901, and remained well-informed about and personally connected with the institution all his life.[back]
2. Chesnutt visited Wilmington, North Carolina, to research the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, a White supremacist uprising that targeted Black elected officials in the city government of Wilmington, NC and resulted in an estimated 60 to possibly 300 Black citizens being killed, in order to write his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Although he seems to have conceived of this trip in the fall of 1900, he did not begin his journey until February 6, 1901, and combined it with a series of readings across the South.[back]
3. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton Mifflin, 1900) was Chesnutt’s first published novel. It evolved over more than a decade from a short story, "Rena Walden," first drafted in the late 1880s.[back]
4. This is probably a reference to The Marrow of Tradition.[back]
5. Susan Perry Chesnutt (1861–1940) was from a well-established Black family in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and worked as a teacher at Fayetteville's Howard School before marrying Chesnutt. They were married from 1878 until his death in 1932 and had four children: Ethel, Helen, Edwin, and Dorothy. Susan led an active life in Cleveland.[back]
