21 pages • 42 minutes read
Charles W. ChesnuttPo' Sandy
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1899A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Charles W. Chesnutt
Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932) was born free to parents of mixed heritage. “Free” indicates a Black American who was never enslaved, as opposed to a “freed” Black American, which indicates a person whose enslavement was ended by manumission or emancipation. Chesnutt’s skin was light enough to allow him to “pass” as white, but he chose not to do so.
Chesnutt lived through the Civil War (1860-1865), Reconstruction (1865-1877), and much of the Jim Crow era (1877-1950). He experienced the challenges faced by Black Americans at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Chesnutt was a member of the Ohio Bar, and he established a successful court reporting firm.
Chesnutt was one of the first free Black American authors to gain approval from white publishers and literary critics. He published 65 stories, 28 essays, numerous reviews and poems, and three novels: The House Behind the Cedars (1900), The Marrow of Tradition (1901), and The Colonel’s Dream (1905). All his works deal with the oppression of Black Americans that followed emancipation.
In 1917, Chesnutt participated in a protest over the showing of the Hollywood movie The Birth of a Nation in any theater in Ohio. The movie depicts the Ku Klux Klan in a positive way, and the dialogue reflects the racism of the characters. This protest marked the beginning of Chesnutt’s collaboration with the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP); in 1928, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal for his work for the organization and the merit of his writing.
Sociohistorical Context: Civil Rights
Almost immediately following the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment, Southern states began passing laws to maintain a sociolegal separation between Black and white people. These laws ensured that newly freed Black Americans would not participate fully in any part of Southern life, from earning a living to having a voice in politics. White Americans would continue to dominate and control the lives of Black Americans.
The story of “Po’ Sandy” can be read as a response to the literary representation of African Americans at a specific moment in history. After Reconstruction, many Southern writers participated in developing a mythology of the “Lost Cause.” In this view, slavery was a benevolent institution that served the interests of both Black and white people; the Confederacy fought the Civil War only to preserve states’ rights; the North invaded to capture the property and natural resources of the South; and the South was superior in morality and culture to the greedy, materialistic North. This literature invariably portrayed slaveowners as kind and chivalric and portrayed enslaved individuals as content and grateful. Chesnutt’s story uses conventions of this literature (such as the phonetic spelling of Julius’s speech) to create a counternarrative showing the cruelty of slavery and the skills of Black Americans.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
