Postal Service to Unveil Charles W. Chesnutt Stamp Monday

Latest in Black Heritage Series Available Jan. 31

ST. PAUL, MN — On Monday, Jan. 21, St. Paul Postmaster Mike Larson and Minneapolis Postmaster Cynthia Larson will unveil an image of the Charles W. Chesnutt Black Heritage commemorative stamp. The unveiling will be part of the program at the Martin Luther King Day Celebration at Concordia University’s Gangelhoff Auditorium, beginning at 11 a.m.

With the 31st stamp in the Black Heritage Series, the U.S. Postal Service honors Charles W. Chesnutt, a pioneering writer whose work addressed a broad range of African-American experience during the Reconstruction Era.

Charles W. Chesnutt was born June 20, 1858 in Cleveland, OH, the eldest son of free blacks who had been forced to move to Ohio because of the increasing social turmoil which preceded the Civil War. When he was eight, the family moved to Fayetteville, NC, which eventually became the primary setting for Chesnutt’s fiction.

His first book, a collection of short stories entitled The Conjure Woman, was published in 1889. While his works met with great critical acclaim, poor sales doomed his literary career. He instead devoted his attention to his successful stenography business and became absorbed in social and political activities. The tenor of his writing changed to politically charged speeches and articles defending his race. In 1928, Chesnutt was awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his “pioneer work as a literary artist depicting the life and struggle of Americans of Negro descent, and for his long and useful career as scholar, worker, and freeman of one of America’s greatest cities,” the presentation read.

Chesnutt died at his home in Cleveland in 1932. Today he is recognized as a major innovator and singular voice among turn-of-the-century literary realists who probed the color line in American life.

The Charles W. Chesnutt commemorative stamp will be available nationwide on Jan. 31.