The Marrow of Tradition
An emotional tour de force, Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (1901) unfolds against the backdrop of the only successful coup d’état in US history—the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. The novel combines domestic dramas, political scheming, and social commentary as it documents white supremacists’ violent “redemption” of a majority Black city. By following two interrelated…