{"id":70933,"date":"2025-02-06T06:13:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T06:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/featured-excerpt-a-matter-of-complexion-by-tess-chakkalakal\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T06:13:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T06:13:00","slug":"featured-excerpt-a-matter-of-complexion-by-tess-chakkalakal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=70933","title":{"rendered":"Featured Excerpt: A Matter of Complexion by Tess Chakkalakal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nCharles W. Chesnutt. (Public domain, Wikimedia Images.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
On October 7, 1880, <\/span>The Raleigh Signal<\/span><\/i>, a Republican newspaper published by the Republican State Committee of North Carolina, introduced Chesnutt to the public. Hailing Chesnutt\u2019s \u201crare accomplishments\u201d as \u201ca thorough English scholar\u201d and his ability to speak French and German fluently, the editors also called readers\u2019 attention to his mastery \u201cwithout assistance\u201d of \u201cthe Pittman [<\/span>sic<\/span><\/i>] system of phonography.\u201d These credentials, according to the paper\u2019s editors, qualified Chesnutt to report \u201c<\/span>verbatim et literatum<\/span><\/i>\u201d\u2014word for word and letter for letter\u2014on Frederick Douglass\u2019s speech delivered on October 1. Douglass\u2019s 1880 speech in support of James A. Garfield\u2019s presidential campaign was part of the second annual Industrial Exhibition, organized by a group of North Carolina\u2019s most prominent Black businessmen and held at the state capital\u2019s Metropolitan Hall. Chesnutt\u2019s skills in shorthand had become so well known in the state that he was invited by the organizers to share the podium with the great orator.<\/span><\/p>\n
Chesnutt would have traveled to Raleigh from Fayetteville by train on the Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railway. It was an important trip. This would have been the first time Chesnutt could apply and get paid for the shorthand and literary skills he had been practicing for months. He had already published a couple of short sketches in the school\u2019s newspaper and delivered several speeches for the school\u2019s literary society. Reporting on Douglass\u2019s 1880 speech marked Chesnutt\u2019s entry into the public sphere as a literary man. We don\u2019t know how much Chesnutt was paid for reporting Douglass\u2019s speech or if he was paid at all. Perhaps seeing his name and biography in print, coupled with the name \u201cFred. Douglass,\u201d was sufficient remuneration for his labor. Douglass\u2019s speech, like so many the former slave delivered in his lifetime, is a work of literary genius. Entitled \u201cWhy Should the South Be Solidly Democratic?\u201d Douglass\u2019s speech opened with a quote from, in his words, the \u201cgod-like\u201d Daniel Webster:<\/span><\/p>\n
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The right to canvass the policy of public men and public measures,\u00a0<\/span>is a homebred right, a fireside privilege; that it belongs to private\u00a0<\/span>life as a right, but it belongs to public life as a duty. Aiming to exercise\u00a0<\/span>it calmly and temperately, except when the right itself is questioned,\u00a0<\/span>then, said he, I will step to the verge of my right and hurl\u00a0<\/span>defiance to any power that would move me from my place. Living,\u00a0<\/span>I shall assert it; dying, I shall assert it; and, if I leave no other heritage\u00a0<\/span>to my children, it shall be a manly defence of free principles.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Like Webster, speaking publicly was Douglass\u2019s way of exercising the \u201cfree principles\u201d he championed throughout his life. Printed on the second page of the four-page newspaper, Douglass\u2019s speech took up three and a half of its six columns. Chesnutt reported the speech in its entirety, including the moments when the audience broke into \u201c[Applause]\u201d and \u201c[Laughter].\u201d The purpose of the speech was to provide a resounding endorsement of Garfield for president. Douglass claimed that Garfield was \u201ca good man . . . because he is like me . . . a self-made man.\u201d Midway through the speech, written almost entirely in standard English, Douglass quoted from \u201ca colored brother of mine.\u201d In quoting from this \u201ccolored brother,\u201d Douglass switched to Black dialect. Chesnutt reported Douglass\u2019s words this way:<\/span><\/p>\n
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\u201cWell,\u201d said the preacher, \u201cI should like to preach the Gospel to de\u00a0<\/span>people here, but I cannot consent to preach on dem terms. Why,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>said he, \u201cdo you know dat one word on dat subject would throw a\u00a0<\/span>dampness and coldness over de whole congregation?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Well known for his antislavery speeches and powerfully written autobiographies, Douglass was not known for his use of Black dialect. He almost never employed it in his writings, and there are few, if any, examples of it in his published speeches. Even in his only published work of literary fiction, <\/span>The Heroic Slave<\/span><\/i>, an 1853 novella that dramatized the life of Madison Washington, a slave who led a successful rebellion on a slave ship in 1841, Douglass presented his hero speaking in a highly literate, even poetic, form of English. But in Chesnutt\u2019s report, Douglass can be heard speaking in Black dialect. In doing so, the audience (and readers) of the speech got a better sense of Douglass\u2019s literary range and sense of humor. Here was a man who can quote from Webster and an unnamed colored preacher in the same breath, giving both men equal status on the podium.<\/span><\/p>\n
In reporting on Douglass\u2019s speech, Chesnutt absorbed more than just his words. He also absorbed Douglass\u2019s literary style, a style that integrated both Black and white voices that spoke to both Black and white audiences. It was a lesson he would not forget. Recalling in vivid detail the experience a couple of years later in one of his speeches to the literary society entitled \u201cSelf-Made Men,\u201d Chesnutt described how Douglass \u201cheld the audience spell-bound for several hours. He had lost none of his old-time power, and the audience were alternately moved to laughter by his wit, or tears by his pathos. My heart swelled with pride and happiness as I saw the veteran abolitionist stand before an audience, half of former slave-holders, in a State where he once would have been hunted by bloodhounds or sold on the auction block.\u201d As the nation\u2019s preeminent self-made man and Chesnutt\u2019s personal role model, Douglass was nothing short of an inspiration for Chesnutt. Chesnutt\u2019s 1882 speech would serve as a first take of his only book-length work of nonfiction. Published less than a decade later, Chesnutt would write the first full-length biography of the former slave, orator, and political figure that would set off a revival of Douglass\u2019s work in the twentieth century. Though other biographies of Douglass would surpass Chesnutt\u2019s in length and popularity, his was the only one written by someone who had seen, heard, and transcribed Douglass\u2019s speech as it was being spoken.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Tess Chakkalakal<\/strong> teaches African-American and American Literature at Bowdoin College. Her writing has appeared in The New England Quarterly<\/i>,\u00a0J19<\/i>,\u00a0American Literary History<\/i>, and many others. She is the author of\u00a0Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century American\u00a0<\/i>(Illinois UP, 2011) and co-editor of\u00a0Jim Crow, Literature, and the Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs\u00a0<\/i>(University of Georgia Press, 2013) and\u00a0Imperium in Imperio: A Critical Edition\u00a0<\/i>(West Virginia UP, 2022) She lives in Brunswick, Maine.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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