Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 264: Charles W. Chesnutt, A Matter of Principle (#264)

Charles W. Chesnutt, A Matter of Principle (1899) from Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, & Essays:

I don’t know how I can say it differently, except maybe to be as explicit as possible: read Chesnutt and be a better human being.

Or maybe the second doesn’t exactly follow from the first. After all, the LoA headnote says that Chesnutt is humorous when he writes about the color line in America and sometimes tragic, whereas it seems a lot more accurate to say that Chesnutt is humorous about a tragic situation that he also emphasizes the tragedy of. 

Which reminds me of Dean Howells's response to Marrow of Tradition. I hate to go back to this (i.e., I love to go back to this), but when Chesnutt writes about a white riot and Dean Howells says that the book is “bitter, bitter,” it feels less like a problem of Chesnutt’s than a problem of Howell’s. (It’s like blaming the whistleblower for the problems of the institution. It IS blaming the whistleblower for the problems of the institution, except here that institution is American racism.)

This story is like the great movie The Women, sold with the tagline, "It’s all about the men." Here’s a story about the black community of Groveland (a disguised Cleveland) which barely mentions white people at all--but the story is really all about white-black relations. And yet, and here’s why I think you should read Chesnutt, he also brings in class awareness and gender awareness: the protagonist is a well-off, light-skinned black man who is interested in marrying off his daughter to someone who is as well-off and light-skinned.

Naturally, this being a Chesnutt story, things don’t go well for the protagonist, whose prejudice against dark-skinned blacks gets in the way of marrying off his daughter to a congressman. (Instead she marries a poor relation who has gotten into the family business, which is to say that the poor relation is marrying up and she’s marrying without moving up. So she’ll still be able to employ a white maid, like her parents do, but she’ll probably not be totally accepted by the whites.)

That praise said, I do have to note that the story does sometimes make a joke and then make sure that we understand it, which feels a little old-fashioned.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 255: Annie Parker, Passages in the Life of a Slave Woman (#255)

Annie Parker, "Passages in the Life of a Slave Woman" (1853) from American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation:

Really, I should tag every blog post with "race" and "class" and "gender" and probably a few other tags as well. For instance: "ability/disability" is an axis of normativity--the often invisible struggle to define what counts as normal, as Other--that I'm really only beginning to become aware of. I mean, we tend to label a story about black people as having to do with race in a way that we wouldn't label a story about white people. And yet, even if it's a story just about white people, there's lots of race involved.

(A: Remember, "white" is a relatively new construct for race, and in the old days, people used to talk about everything from "the Irish race" to "the Alpine race." B: New favorite exemplary quote, from Billy the Kid: talking about a boss named Tunstall, "who was the only man that treated me like I was decent and white." For more fun, Tunstall was Irish and the Lincoln Country War might have had to do with Irish/English immigrant hostility. Totally unrelated but still fun trivia: Billy the Kid was born in NYC.)

Anyway, enough about my general failings to correct my privileged position, let's move on to the story, which is all about privileges:

• the privilege of the white male slave owner to make a mistress of a slave;
• the relative privilege of the slave mistress compared to the other slaves;
• a pretty common trope in slave literature, that of the slave who doesn't fit with the other slaves;
• the privilege of the slave owner to sell away any inconvenient slave, as Mr. Lee does here with his slave son, Jerry, who looks so much like him;
• the privileges of knowledge and ignorance: the narrator who knows all, Mr. Lee who knows--and hushes--all, the kind Northern mistress of the house who knows nothing because it would hurt her too much and no one wants to give the nice lady any pain.

It's also a super Southern Gothic story, about two slave siblings, separated by slavery, who decide to get married; and the narrator's attempts to prevent that incest without letting anyone know. And you know what the solution is to the hurt caused by slavery? Mr. Lee simply sells away the daughter that he kept. Remember: this is also his daughter that he's selling away.

What's really killer to me is the title, as an added layer of misery: this isn't an exceptional story about people selling away their family or what's stolen from people by slavery. This is simply some passages in the life of a slave woman. Check out that indefinite article: "a Slave Woman" could be any slave woman. It could be many slave women. This could be going on all the time, says this story, written in 1853.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 224: Zora Neale Hurston, The Fire and the Cloud (#224)

Zora Neale Hurston, "The Fire and the Cloud" (1934) from Zora Neale Hurston: Novels & Stories:

Just the other day--probably because it was Passover--I thought about how the African-American community during the 19th century adopted both the story of the Exodus (slaves traveling to God-granted freedom) and an inverse American Revolution whereby British Canada became a land of freedom rather than the oppression of taxes).

(And here let's have a timely note about the bullshit "patriotism" of Cliven Bundy: a man who certain conservative forces have raised up because of his denial of the Federal government and his refusal to pay taxes, as if that was all it took to replay the Revolution. Of course, the Founding Fathers revolted against taxation without representation; and we all know how Washington handled the Whiskey Rebellion, where another white guy refused to pay his taxes. (Short version: Washington used the army to intimidate the rebellion.) As someone who has read a bunch of 19th- and 20th-century conservative tracts, I enjoy the repeated trope of "opposing the Feds to uphold the real American government/dream.")

That's all prologue to this piece, where Zora Neale Hurston examines Moses in dialogue with a speaking lizard. (Somewhat reminiscent of her speaking vulture scene from Their Eyes Were Watching God.) But... I'd rather talk prologue since I have nothing much to say about this short piece. Apparently Hurston gave it Dorothy West for the new magazine Challenge and anecdotal evidence reports that West wasn't thrilled with it. (For one thing, a letter from Hurston tells West that she can get another story instead of this one.)

I can't blame West for feeling a little ambivalent about this. You can kind of squint and see it as a commentary on the growing power of African-Americans in America, but you might pull a muscle squinting so hard. Sure, there's talk of the generational shift, but... it's a pretty distant story, with not much to excite the reader.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 215: William WellsBrown, Madison Washington (#215)

William Wells Brown, "Madison Washington" (1862) from William Wells Brown: Clotel & Other Writings:

William Wells Brown was an escaped slave who, after learning to read and write, embarked on a pretty successful (and ground-breaking) writing career: first African-American novel (about Jefferson's black children, so I guess that was never really a secret), first African-American travelogue, first African-American play.

And along the way he wrote a collection of short African-American biographies, including one about the escaped slave and revolt mastermind Madison Washington. (Which is the kind of name that seems to push one into greatness.)

Brown retells Washington's story with a mix of efficiency and feeling. We don't dwell on anything too long; we get told pretty quickly about Washington's escape from slavery, his return to rescue his wife, his plan to take over a ship full of slaves being shipped down south. And at the same time, Brown slows down the story enough to add his two-cents, most of which are appropriately melodramatic: Washington is a paragon of African beauty, his wife is the height of interracial beauty, his rescue of his wife shows his devotion, his rescue of the white slavers from the revenge of the escaped slaves raises him to Christ-like status, etc.

It's done well, and you can see how this book, published in the midst of the Civil War, might have resonated at a time when black soldiers were a topic of debate; and the humanity and equality of black people was also a topic of discussion.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 204: Lucretia Mott, No Greater Joy Than to See These Children Walking in the Anti-Slavery Path (#204)

Lucretia Mott, "No Greater Joy Than to See These Children Walking in the Anti-Slavery Path" (1864) from American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation:

This is Lucretia Mott's speech from an 1863 anti-slavery convention; and we lose a little context in not hearing the other speakers at that convention. At least once, Mott makes a direct reference to something that was said in a speech and the remarks made in answer to that speech. All that is not here. What we do have, however, is a short speech that happens to name-check some very early abolitionists and also extend a welcoming hand to new abolitionists; a speech that recognizes the main task of abolishing slavery, while also nodding at the future quests: equality for blacks and equality for women.

In fact, I thought Mott dealt with the issue of women very generously, noting

• Women may have some special understanding of those who are denied their natural rights
• "We might, as women, dwell somewhat upon our own restrictions, as connected with this Anti-Slavery movement.";
• That those rights are not replaceable with chivalrous attention, as when some abolitionist women went to an anti-slavery convention in London and learned that "persons" did not include women; and where they received "flattery in lieu of our rights";
• But that she would pass on without delving too deeply into the woman question.

Classic Mott, am I right?

But the overwhelming message here is that there's so much more still to do: "we should keep on our armor." Which also gives us part of the title of this piece: the old-time abolitionists have done some of the work, but the future struggles are for the new activists. And what about those johnny-come-latelys--the people who used to make fun of or not join in with the "radical" abolitionists, who have now come over? In 1863, with the Civil War on, this seems like a sightly hopeful question to ask. But Mott's answer is also very hopeful: we should "welcome them at this eleventh hour" and give them all the praise that's due to them--if they pitch in and do their work.

Now, the LoA page notes that Mott was a little too optimistic and that the abolitionist movement would splinter over many issues (including the issue of equality for women); but I don't know if I can fault Mott for her optimism, which seems measured against the enormity of the struggles to come.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 187: Howard Zinn, Finishing School for Pickets (#31)

Howard Zinn, "Finishing School for Pickets" (1960) from Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941–1963:

Howard Zinn, history professor at Spelman College, reports on how the girls are becoming more political and less interested in simply being nice. Whereas Spelman girls were once known for their niceness--polite, graceful when serving tea, respectable--they are (says Zinn) getting a new reputation for joining the struggle on the frontlines: organizing demonstrations, being thrown in jail, riding in the front of the bus. "You can always tell a Spelman girl--she's under arrest." That's Zinn's idea of a joke and of progress.

Curiously, I never got the feeling that Zinn was attacking the conservative leadership of Spelman for being less active in protests in the past. So when one mother tells her daughter that she's got two strikes against her already--she's black and a woman--so she can't afford to act-up, there's no finger-waving at this mother's prudential advice. When, even in Zinn's day, one Spelman girl gets threatened with a knife for riding at the front of the bus, it's hard to tell someone from the less equitable past that they should've put themselves in harm's way more often.

And there's also no attempt to hold up these Spelman protestors as sui generis saints of progress. As Zinn notes, this is all part of a national and international current towards equality. For Zinn, protest here is part of the increased worldliness of the women that were formerly sheltered by the college. Now that these girls have seen (a) what the rest of Atlanta is like and (b) what the rest of the world could be like, there's no way to keep them from the pickets.

Finally, I love that the governor's response to a student-written protest was the usual defense of the status quo: these complaints are the un-American works of outside agitators! Seriously, we should add that as the central square of bigot bingo--it always turns up.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 179: Charles W. Chesnutt, The Wife of His Youth (#164)

Charles W. Chesnutt, "The Wife of His Youth" (1899) from Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, & Essays:

This is the very last Chesnutt story that is currently up at the Library of America's Story of the Week site, so this is my last chance to get you to read Chesnutt if you haven't before. (Maybe I should write in and suggest another Chesnutt story for this feature. Hmm...) Now, if you weren't interested by the cynical humor of "Baxter's Procrustes" or the problematic sentimentality of "The Bouquet," then you still might want to look at today's entry, which is a sweet and underplayed story about devotion and doing the right thing. Or, if you take the long view, it's a deeply affecting meditation on the intricacies of the color line in America.

"The color line" is so obviously a part of this story that the collection it's in mentions that: The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line. The story doesn't pussyfoot around that issue, but jumps in to a discussion of Mr. Ryder and the Blue Vein club that he's a part of. "Blue Vein" is a comment about how white the members need to be: white enough to see the blue of their veins; and while the members will note that they don't have any requirements that necessitate their members be born free and white-looking, well, that's just the way it shakes out in the end. Mr. Ryder is especially telling on this in his description--

While he was not as white as some of the Blue Veins, his appearance was such as to confer distinction upon them. His features were of a refined type, his hair was almost straight; he was always neatly dressed; his manners were irreproachable, and his morals above suspicion.

--which mixes the cultured/educational issues (manners, dress, morals) with the physical (refined feature, straight hair). Ryder also hilariously begins a monologue on race with the phrase, "I have no race prejudice"--which is always what people say when they are about to launch into really prejudiced remarks.

In Ryder's case, he sees two possible fates for the lighter-skinned blacks: they can continue to fight against white prejudice and be absorbed in the white world; or they can fall back into the black world, which is clearly a step back, according to him. (Though, let's remember: he has no race prejudice.) Ryder is about to cement his social status by marrying a young, light-skinned black woman when an old black woman comes in to say that she's looking for her husband from when she was a slave.

Now, the story is titled "The Wife of His Youth," so we know that Ryder is that husband who said he would be back for her and who she has been searching for now for 25 years. And yet, when this old woman comes and says that she would know her husband anywhere, we never get an explicit note about Ryder being that man--until the very end, when he is ready to admit his past to the whole community by bringing out the very, very black and uneducated wife of his youth.

We'll never know how the wife of his youth adapted to the world that Ryder made for himself; I can imagine the drama going on with this woman trying to fit herself into a social station that is new and bewildering to her. But that end is so sweet and understated, that after all those years of searching, this old woman has a home; that after all those years of denying his past--probably denying it so hard that he had to set up extra guards and prejudices--Ryder can now acknowledge both who he was (a free black man in the South who experienced some effects of slavery) and who he is now (a pillar of the community)--and can join those two not as a regress, but as a story of devotion and progress.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 172: Louisa May Alcott, An Hour (#144)

Louisa May Alcott, "An Hour" (1864) from American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation:

First, a note: I generally think that abolitionism not only had better politics, but also better writers. That the Library of America puts out collections of Slave Narratives and this collection of Antislavery Writings is great. And yet, I almost wish we saw a similar collection of pro-slave writings. Wait, what--why?

Because reading Uncle Tom's Cabin is only part of the story; the other part is the anxious response of pro-slave "anti-Tom" books, like The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz. In that book, a Northern woman comes to see that slavery is actually good for the blacks and that all the rebellion is stirred up by foreigners (at least, foreigners to the South). It's not a good book, either artistically or politically: it doesn't have any of the humor or humanity of Stowe and it too clearly shows off the corners that Hentz has to cut to make the book come out the pro-slave way she wants it to. And that's one reason why I want people to read it and other pro-slave writings more. Put it this way: there are lots of people who will cheerfully tell you that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery... even though many of the secessionists helpfully wrote declarations of secession citing slavery as their reason for seceding. That's why I sometimes wonder if a pro-slavery collection might be a good idea: to shine a light on our bigoted, asshole-rich past.

Which brings us to Alcott's piece, a rich stew of melodrama and action, with a strong abolitionist message, and a can't-call-it-subtext of interracial love. And I love it. Young Gabriel has returned from the North because his mean, slave-owning father is dying, leaving a step-mother and two half-sisters, which complicates Gabriel's plan to free all the slaves, since that would leave his family destitute. (Which is a big deal because they're all women of a certain class.) Gabriel is also in love with Milly, a beautiful slave that was bought for him to, basically, rape; but since he always treated her as a woman rather than as an object, Milly loves him too. Which complicates her plan to help a slave uprising to kill all the white folk on this island. So now Gabriel is conscious of his own guilt in not freeing the slaves earlier and wants to do something to protect his family (although, it should be said, that his step-mother fulfills the "awful slaveowning matriarch" character).

So he goes down to the sugar mill, where the mob has just finished killing the cruel overseer. And there his story pauses for a moment so that the old, blind, Christ-loving slave can tell the mob that killing isn't the right way to do this. And after a relatively long interlude of listening to this discussion/monologue, Gabriel busts in, blows his (metaphorical) horn and gives them all their freedom. No mention is made of the dead white oversser these slaves have tortured and killed.

Now, it's not a perfect story in its plotting, but Alcott throws so many pieces into the mix that there are moments where it's easier to imagine some terrible outcome than a successful one. There are so many conflicting desires among these characters that we expect someone to be disappointed. And there is something dream-like and set-apart in this story, so that we might wonder what will happen after this one "Hour" is up. Will someone come to inquire as to the death of this white overseer? Will Gabriel's step-mother recant her momentary, fear-motivated kind words to Milly and try to re-enslave the slaves? And while Milly and some of the other slaves might have some kind thoughts for the white people and some skills to help them, what of the rest?

So, as I said, it's not perfect, but that's almost part of the charm here: with so many pieces floating in this stew of revenge and sentimentality, the story is easy to sink into.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 169: Lydia Maria Francis Child, Slavery’s Pleasant Homes (#196)

Lydia Maria Francis Child, "Slavery’s Pleasant Homes" (1843) from American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation:

Whenever I find myself discussing the culture and morals of dead people, I often hear the back-handed defense that so-and-so was no worse than the majority at that time. Yes, X said bad things about Indians, but he didn't really say anything out of the ordinary for that time; yes, Y was an anti-Semite, but he could've been much worse--he was really a middle-of-the-road anti-Semite for that time; etc.

While that might be true, it's always nice to find someone historical who is not only advanced for their time, but pretty advanced for our time too. So Lydia Maria Francis Child was an abolitionist; but she also supported interracial marriage and full citizenship for African Americans. Imagine that: at a time when many abolitionists start off their tracts by conceding that blacks aren't really ready now (or ever) for citizenship, Child in the 1820s takes a position more progressive than certain state governments of the 1960s.

The anti-slavery position finds its way into this story of Child's, which nicely lays out a bunch of terrible issues with slavery: the difficulty of slaves forming families; the weirdness of whites owning their black siblings; the effect of rape both on the slaves and on the white families who have to deal with that; the rivalries of slaves; and the untold stories of heroism and love that get elided by the newspapers that focus only on the white people.

It is, in other words, a microcosm of what Harriet Beecher Stowe will put in Uncle Tom's Cabin. (Well, it's a microcosm of many of the issues.) The main differences are that Child tells the story in summary, at a bit of a remove, whereas Stowe dramatizes her story (and adds more characters and plots); it's easy to imagine Child's story as an important example in an essay decrying slavery. Which in a sense it is: this story was published in an anti-slavery book, as one of the many examples of reasons to support abolition.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 163: Clifton Johnson, The Colored Cooper (#154)

Clifton Johnson, "The Colored Cooper" (1915) from The Civil War: The Second Year Told by Those Who Lived It:

This is an interview with Joseph Lawson (born 1831), who is only identified as "The Colored Cooper" in Clifton Johnson's interview with him. Which is weird on one level--surely the guy's name should be in here somewhere?--but it seems to be the way Clifton Johnson identified his interviewees in his oral history of the Civil War, Battleground Adventures, with such titles as "The Slave Blacksmith" and "The Farmer's Son." Maybe Johnson wanted us to understand Lawson's position in society as a free black artisan and so gave us his race and occupation.

One of the big reasons why I like to talk about the Civil War and race is because of the school of congratulatory history that says that the South was simply fighting for rights in an abstract way; and that we can see this in the ways that black slaves loved their masters--or even (as the old lie goes) fought for the South. And this isn't just dead history, but connects up with the way that people today often talk about "states' rights" when what they really mean is they hold some principle higher than human health and happiness--at least, when it comes to other people's health and happiness. Do opponents of Roe v. Wade really care about states' rights or do they just not like abortion? Did defenders of DOMA really feel that the federal law should be more respected than states' rights or did they just find gay marriage to be icky? Etc.

So it gives me some pleasure when Lawson opens up his story of the battle of Fredericksburg with the note that, "As soon as the Yankees got hyar the slaves began to run away from their mistresses and masters."

But the rest of the piece is pretty much like most accounts of war from civilians caught in the crossfire: Lawson and his neighbors hid in the cellar to avoid the shelling; there are stories of narrow escape; and descriptions of the aftermath. For instance, Lawson gives the story of a doomed Federal attack that ended at a wall and how:

That wall still stands, and when there comes a rain they say the blood stains show on it even yet.

Which sounds like a mix between Civil War reportage and local color/Southern gothic fiction from the 1890s. There's actually quite a bit of war and violence here that Lawson sees and remarks on, as in his comparison of the dead men who look just like they're sleeping to the dead men who have been hit directly by shells and are scattered so finely over the battlefield that you'd never guess they once were living men. Still, by the time Johnson is gathering these oral histories, we can see how some of the story has been crafted, refined by the years, until we get some funny little remarks like--

We had rough times hyar. I don’t want any mo’ of that bumbarding in this world. I don’t want it in the next world either, if I’m ever able to git there.

--which were probably not what Lawson was thinking anytime in the 1860s, when the war was still fresh in his mind.

Library of America Story of the Week Read-Along 146: Kate Chopin, Désireé’s Baby (#38)

Kate Chopin, "Désireé’s Baby" (1893) from Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories:

Currently, Chopin is second only to Twain--and tied with Hawthorne--for most Stories of the Week at five, making this the last of her stories I had left to read. (And right after I read another story of hers. Isn't randomness fun?) And in many ways, this last story is the one that fits in best with our idea of Chopin as a Louisiana regionalist writer interested in domestic issues.

Here's the story: Désireé is a child of mysterious parentage, adopted by the Valmondé family and married by Armand Aubigny, who has the Aubigny habit of falling in love "as if struck by a pistol shot." They marry and have a child--who turns out to be dark-skinned. With this evidence that Désireé isn't totally white, Armand rejects her, and Désireé takes her baby to walk to the Valmondé estate and disappears. In the final moment, we learn from a letter from Armand's mother that she isn't totally white--which means that he isn't totally white either. (So, Armand, just like his dad, fell in love quickly, without really considering race.)

You'll notice I keep saying "isn't totally white" rather than black because Louisiana society historically had a more nuanced view of race than we get later with Plessy v. Ferguson (1896); and that's one historical fact that this story keeps going in the background: it's not just black and white, but black, quadroon, octoroon, yellow, fair, white. So both Désireé and Armand can pass for white without necessarily knowing for certain that they aren't. (And even the ending doesn't really tell us about Désireé, who may still have African heritage.)

If you read for any length of time in the 19th century--and even some in the 20th--this plot will come up: someone's racial makeup exposed by their child. Chopin plays with this convention by noting that, if you will, it takes two to tango; and occasionally rubbing our noses in some markers that may or may not tell us what's going on. For instance, trying to prove that she's white enough, Désireé notes how she's paler than Armand. Normally that would show us the idiocy of thinking that appearance tells us all we need to know about someone; but here, maybe it points to Armand's mixed race background--as well as the idiocy of judging race by sight.

Chopin also nicely leads us through this story by expanding on or summarizing different parts: We hear in detail how Armand is made happy by his marriage, but we only get in summary the story of how he turns unhappy when he "realizes" the truth of Désireé. So we can focus on what Désireé loses more than on the vehicle of that loss.

The ending also opens up a big question: Did Armand know about his past when he married? Did he drive Désireé out as a way to hide his race? Or does he only find out after Désireé has disappeared into the swamp? Or does he still not know? (We can imagine a quasi-Bluebeard ending here, where Armand goes on to marry and reject a series of women because of his own unknown racial background.)