Oct 16, 2008

The Passing of Grandison | Biography

Charles Waddell Chesnutt was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1858, the son of two free African Americans. Both of his grandfathers were white, and his grandmothers were probably of mixed racial ancestry as well. Although his own physical appearance seemed more “white” than “black,” Chesnutt self-identified as black and bore the stigma of race as a result. For these reasons, many of Chesnutt’s short stories dealt with characters of mixed racial heritage and the issue of “passing,” where a person of African American descent would live under the identity of a white.

In 1866,...