The more I think about the color problem, the more I realize I am in quite a peculiar dilemma. When I speak of colored folk, I do not quite see myself as one of them. Yet when I speak of white folk, I feel I cannot comfortably place myself among them either. I am, to… View More

It wuz a hot day in da Souf and I wuz makin my way to de plantation. I jus had to stop n catch sum shade unda a tree. The sun want playin wid us terday. I’m leanin on de tree wen I hear, “You know. Slavery really wasn’t half bad for them niggers.” I… View More

My dear, dear sister Mabel, what a poor, young thing! She has just broken things off with her young man — the man she is utterly in love with — and will not stop crying! After writing to Mabel about my loneliness in my new home, she and Malcolm, decided to come visit me and… View More

One afternoon I was baking some bread in my new kitchen, when Julius knocked on the kitchen door. I had been [privately] pressing him on his stories, asking him what is real and what is not. I was also fascinated with his memory — how could he possibly remember all of these stories, with such… View More

One morning I asked my husband to build me a kitchen, and after much discussion over the erection of the kitchen, he finally agreed. Despite my husband’s disagreement, I felt we needed to honor the traditions of the South, and have a kitchen that was separate from our home. Also, the hands and I are… View More

You know I loves to tell me a good story. But dis is one I don’t care to tell often. It was a long time ago when I first learned to read and write. c128I found some old copy books that had already been wrote over. But even still, I learned it from writin’ the… View More

Oh my goodness, what an evening I’m coming home from. The flurry of its spirits circulates like warm blood in my head, and so, like a digestif, I’ve taken to pen to tame it. It was my extraordinarily good fortune to secure two tickets to the 70th birthday fête of the inimitable Mark Twain. A… View More

It has been a taxing affair watching Chestnutt navigate the waters of Houghton, Mifflin, and Co. As mentioned before, the initial reaction by the editorial staff was not the warmest. All this said, I think the most was made of that situation. We most certainly turned around the Rena Walden manuscript, and despite the lacking… View More

On my trip to town this week I saw Julius on the road. It was a hot one and he seemed to be trudging along with an older colored woman. I wondered if it was his wife or a sister. She was grey and lively-seeming just like him. Later that night I had a dream… View More

Later on, I came to hear that he had submitted another short story manuscript entitled “Rena Walden” to the offices of Houghton Mifflin, where I then worked, along with the respectable Francis J. Garrison – a true son of his abolitionist father, William Lloyd! – and George H. Mifflin himself. This work was good, but… View More