Charles Waddell Chesnutt was born this day, 20 July 1858. African American lawyer, author and social reformer, friend of Booker T. Washington, considered one of the pioneers in writing on racial themes. Among his works, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro",
The Conjure Woman (1899), and
The House Behind The Cedars (1900). Chesnutt
also wrote a biography of Frederick
Douglass (1818-1895), American author, abolitionist, and lecturer, author of
A Narrative on the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845),
My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).
"The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image. Sandy, having thus escaped from the Mr. Hyde of the mob, now received the benediction of its Dr. Jekyll. Being no cynical philosopher, and realizing how nearly the jaws of death had closed upon him, he was profoundly grateful for his escape, and felt not the slightest desire to investigate or criticise any man's motives."--
ch. 27, The Marrow of Tradition
