Charles Waddell Chesnut

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Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an author, essayist and political activist, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity.

Chesnutt was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Andrew Chesnutt and Ann Maria (Sampson) Chesnutt, both "free persons of color" from Fayetteville, North Carolina. His paternal grandfather was a white slaveholder and, based on his appearance, Chesnutt likely had other white ancestors. In fact, he himself claimed to be seven-eighths white, although he self-identified as African-American. Chesnutt could pass with relative ease for a white man, although he never chose to do so. Under the one drop rule in most of the South, Chesnutt was considered "legally" black.

After the Civil War, the family returned to Fayetteville when Charles was nine years old, where they ran a grocery store. It failed because of Andrew Chesnutt's poor business practices and the struggling economy of the South. By age 13 Charles was a pupil-teacher at the Howard School.

Chesnutt continued to study and teach, eventually becoming assistant principal of the normal school in Fayetteville, now known as Fayetteville State University. In 1878, he married Susan Perry and moved to New York City. He hoped to escape the prejudice and poverty of the South and wanted to pursue a literary career. After six months, the Chesnutts moved back to Cleveland, where he studied for and passed the bar exam in 1887. Chesnutt had learned stenography as a young man in North Carolina, and he established what became a lucrative legal stenography business in Cleveland.

Chesnutt began writing stories that were accepted by top-ranked national magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, which published his first short story, The Goophered Grapevine, in August 1887. His first book was a collection of short stories entitled The Conjure Woman, published in 1899. These stories featured black characters who spoke in dialect, as was popular in much southern literature at the time.

Chesnutt's stories were more complex than those of many of his contemporaries. He wrote about characters dealing with difficult issues of miscegenation, "passing", illegitimacy, racial identities and social place throughout his career. The issues were especially pressing in the social volatility of Reconstruction and late 19th century society, as whites in the South tried to press all people with any African ancestry into one lower caste. At the same time, there was often distance and competition between families who had long been free persons of color, especially if educated and property-owning, and newly freed slaves.

Chesnutt continued writing short stories, and also completed a biography of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. He also wrote several novels and appeared on the lecture circuit. Although Chesnutt's stories met with critical acclaim, poor sales of his novels doomed his hopes of a self-supporting literary career. His last novel was published in 1905. In 1906, his play Mrs. Darcy’s Daughter was produced, but it was also a commercial failure. Between 1906 and his death in 1932, Chesnutt wrote and published little, except for a few short stories and essays.

Among the era's literary writers, Chesnutt was well-respected. In 1905, Chesnutt was invited to Mark Twain’s 70th birthday party in New York City.

Starting in 1901, Chesnutt again devoted himself to his stenography business and, increasingly, to social and political activism. He served on the General Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Working with W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, he became one of the early 20th century's most prominent activists and commentators. Chesnutt contributed some short stories and essays to the NAACP's official magazine, The Crisis, founded in 1910. He did not receive compensation for the publication of these pieces. He wrote a strong essay protesting the southern states' moves to disfranchise blacks at the turn of the century.

In 1917, Chesnutt protested and successfully shut down showings in Ohio of the controversial film Birth of a Nation, which the NAACP officially protested across the nation.

Chesnutt died on November 15, 1932 at the age of 74 and was interred in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery.

Dr. Anna Pauline Murray

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The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was an American civil rights advocate, feminist, lawyer, writer, poet, teacher, and ordained priest. 

Pauli Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1910, to William H. and Agnes Georgiana (Fitzgerald) Murray. When Pauli Murray was three years old, her mother died, and she went to live with her aunt and maternal grandparents, the Fitzgeralds, in Durham, North Carolina. Pauli graduated from Hunter College, and in 1938 was denied admission into the University of North Carolina law school because of her race. She later entered Howard University Law School and graduated as valedictorian in 1944. She sought admission to Harvard University for an advanced law degree but was denied admission because she was a woman. She then studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Masters of Law degree. 

A contemporary and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, she was a professor of American studies at Brandeis University from 1968 to 1973 and also taught law in Ghana. She was the author of the 1950 book "States' Laws on Race and Color," which catalogued state statutes discriminating against African Americans, Native Americans, Asians and other groups. 

Murray was one of the founders of the Women's Rights Law Reporter, the first legal periodical to focus exclusively on women's rights. And was the first African-American woman to become an Episcopal priest. 

Pauli Murray contributed to the NAACP's litigation strategy in Brown v. Board of Education and in 1961 she was appointed to the President's Commission on the Status of Women. While serving on the commissions and studying at Yale Law School (where she was the first African-American to earn a J.S.D.) Murray authored a series of papers outlining a legal strategy for challenging sex discrimination by states. These arguments were first published in an article co-authored with Mary Eastwood after the passage of Title VII entitled "Jane Crow and the Law." 

She testified on discrimination against women before the 91st Congress of the United States. She was the first African-American woman Episcopal priest and a co-founder of NOW, the National Organization for Women. 

Pauli Murray died of cancer on July 1, 1985 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her autobiography Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage was published posthumously in 1987. In 1990, the Pauli Murray Human Relations Award was established in her honor to commemorate her life work.

Robert F. Williams, the Revolutionary

Within the coming days there will be a slew of new faces to post. Today's is Robert F. Williams, as some called him - the 'Negro Che Guevara'. After reading his bio and watching the many videos of him on YouTube, I made it a point to put him in red - not because of his politics, but because of his personality. To say the man was colorful is an epic understatement.

Robert F. Williams (click to enlarge)

Robert F. Williams was a militant civil rights leader whose open advocacy of armed self-defense anticipated the movement for "black power" in the late 1960s and helped inspire groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Panther Party.

Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina in 1925, the grandson of former slaves. He migrated to Detroit during World War II where he worked in an auto factory, organized for the United Auto Workers (UAW), and fought in the race riot that rocked Detroit in the summer of 1943. After a stint in the Marines, Williams returned to Monroe in 1955.

Elected president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Williams set out to build a membership in his own image: working class, militant, and armed–a far cry from the moderate, middle-class make-up of the national organization. He soon made international headlines for his role in the so-called "Kissing Case," in which two black children were jailed for kissing a young white girl.  In 1957, after an attempt to desegregate the town's public swimming pool met with stiff resistance from local whites and the Ku Klux Klan, Williams began stockpiling guns in anticipation of an attack by the Klan. Vowing to "meet violence with violence," Williams was rebuked by the national office of the NAACP and suspended from his leadership post. In 1959 he began publishing his own newsletter, the Crusader.

In 1961 Williams and his supporters again tried to integrate the community pool. This time he wound up in an armed standoff with local police and a mob of white citizens. Later that year when the Freedom Rides came to Monroe, Williams organized self-defense groups to protect the riders. As white mobs stormed the black community in the wake of the rides, Williams and his wife left town, but only after allowing a white couple to take refuge in their home. Authorities indicted Williams for kidnapping the couple, forcing him to flee the country and take up residence in Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro.

From exile in Cuba, Williams continued to circulate the Crusader throughout the South. With Castro's support, he also began broadcasting a weekly radio program, "Radio Free Dixie," that reached thousands of black listeners in the United States despite US government efforts to scramble the signal. In 1966 Williams moved to China where he became a friend and advisor to Mao Zedong. Over the next few years he traveled extensively throughout Asia and Africa, speaking out against racism, colonialism, and the war in Vietnam.

Williams returned to the United States in 1969 and settled in Michigan. Partly as a result of changes in his own political position and partly in order to avoid extradition to North Carolina, where kidnapping charges were still pending, he distanced himself from the Black Power movement and even began advising the State Department on its relations with China. In 1976 all charges against him were dropped. Williams lived the remainder of his life in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1996.

Here's an interesting video on Mr. Williams:

Project Runway

As a former scripted television writer and a member of the Writer's Guild I must admit that I loathe reality television (most require the use of eye bleach after watching). However, in a mind boggling reversal, my one guilty pleasure is Lifetime's Project Runway. I mention this because I feel as though I am a member of the cast and the venerable co-host and creative advisor/critic Tim Gunn has just entered the workroom and asked everyone to 'gather round'. As anyone who frequents the show know, this usually indicates that he has a bombshell pronouncement that will fold the already short time allowed on each project before telling them to 'make it work' on his way out the door. I am about to receive one such bombshell announcement from the SOG.

It seems that there is another person that needs to be added to the painting. Her name is Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Columbia University School of Law as well as the first African-American lawyer and judge in the state of North Carolina. I would say that qualifies her for inclusion. The painting is definitely male dominated, so the inclusion of another woman is a welcomed sight. Now all I have to do is figure out where to place her. I'm doing this in advance of any official notification as the bulk of the historians have yet to weigh in, but I anticipate their approval. It shouldn't be that much of a problem. It's actually quite a challenge to tell you the truth. I have to readjust my thinking and layout in a few areas but I will make room for her in such a way that it looks as though she was not a last minute addendum. I couldn't stomach that. The only real problem with the judge is the lack of photographs of her. You would think that there would be an abundance of images with her in them, but I have found only two on the web and the State Archives in Raleigh has none! I sent them the best image of her I had for their records and Ann Simpson at the SOG will be looking in UNC's archives for any other images that I can use.

Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston

The painting will be stronger with her incorporation. I'm going to stay up late tonight and work with the image I have and see if I can sketch out a body on which to place her head that works for different locations in the painting. Give me a couple weeks and I'll post her painting for your approval. "Make it work!"

Second set of eyes

Regardless of how prepared you think you are, there is always something you overlooked. Perfect example, this painting. After the awarding of the commission, I scouted the walls of the School of Government building as though there was gold hidden within and they said I could keep what I found. I finally settled on the ground level wall opposite the cafeteria and after meticulous measuring and a pile of photographs from every angle, I thought that I had every contingency accounted for. Hardly.

My last post included an image of a lynching scene and I wrote about the reasons why it will be included. After that post I received an email from one of the staff members of the SOG whom agreed with the reasoning, but questioned the potential discomfort that may be created by having that particular segment of the painting in direct view of the entrance into the cafeteria. After all, who wants to enjoy a meal with that scene staring back at you! I agreed wholeheartedly with his concern and asked that he measure the entrance in relation to the wall where the painting will be mounted. He did so and I calculated the distance and photoshopped what portion of the painting would be visible from the entrance. It so happens that the lynching scene will be located about 15 feet farther down the hall. Thank goodness. I was prepared to move the scene to a different segment if it turned out to be aligned within sight of diners.

This is one of those moments where some asshole of an artist would have stood on the pious grounds of 'artistic and compositional integrity' and opted to create controversy where none was needed or necessary to supposedly get one's point across. 15 years ago, I might have done that, but the kinder, gentler Quashie has grown and come to the sad realization that he doesn't know everything. :-( . I was actually surprised that I had never considered this while working on the layout and thanked the gentleman for pointing this out to me. As I stated in the email, "The goal here is to commemorate and not offend or cause unwarranted controversy that would overshadow both mine and the SOG's efforts to make this a successful venture."

Once again, sir - thank you for the heads up.

The painting as will be seen from the interior of the cafeteria

A question also arose about the chef's attire worn by the Greensboro Four in the painting. The rationale behind this is in direct correlation to the location and the layout of the painting. My first concern when approaching this commission was setting. After receiving a list of names and events important to North Carolina history, the first question that popped into my head was, 'what setting is appropriate to congregate 30+ people from disparate era's that would make visual sense to the viewer?' Two events immediately peaked my interest - the Sommerset Plantation reunion and the sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter. Since I had my eye on the long blank wall opposite the cafeteria, the food oriented connection between the lunch counter and cafeteria was obvious. This decision was strengthened by the fact that students often line up in the hallway and would have to walk the length of the painting before entering the cafeteria.

The physical structure of the wall (8' x 53') dictated the length of the painting which fell in line with the extended length of many lunch counters. Anyone who has eaten in a diner or at a lunch counter know it's the perfect location to find yourself sitting next to a stranger. Pure synchronicity. This easily connected the final dot - the Greensboro Four as chefs at the lunch counter.

I contend that the moment the four brave souls decided to sit at that counter and demand service, they were, by extension, demanding service for the greater African-American community. By refusing to leave they took proverbial ownership of the establishment, hence the chef's uniforms. The official title of the painting is 'Service,' which is what they demanded and in so doing 'served' a cause greater than themselves. Get it?

Break out the Golden Spike

For those unaware of the obscure reference, the Golden Spike was the last one driven on the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah that connected the nation by rail. I should hit that proverbial point in my painting by Friday (yee-haw!) with the bodies of Golden Frinks and Charlotte Brown. Next week I will fill in the faces and Phase 1 of this beast will be completed! I'll have to figure out a way to celebrate - maybe take the day off and sleep.

After that - it starts all over again. With all of the color filled in, I will have to go back and readjust shadows and highlights to increase contrast where necessary, then on to the counter top and the food which will take me into the month of May. By May 15th the background will make itself known. I've taken some shots and am in the process of using Photoshop to figure out just what images will be placed in the background panels. The painting is separated into 8 - 6' panels. Each panel is actually a window segment of my fictional diner and will give an exterior view of the world that existed during the lifetimes of the individuals.

Some of the scenes will no doubt cause some discomfort, but they are necessary to showcase the many trials and tribulations that motivated and shaped the lives of the participants. Visions of joyous remembrance must be tempered by and reflected upon through the prism of painful and sobering truth. These people were deemed extraordinary - even by today's standards - and the background is meant to illustrate to the viewer what they have had to endure on their march toward immortality. For many, that journey was a literal one, and as the artist I would do a great disservice to their collective memory and our perception of them were I to allow political correctness to diminish their accomplishments by refusing to place their contributions in context. Lest anyone forget, it was such attitudes in the past that made this present painting necessary.  

Dates set!

I travelled to Raleigh yesterday to meet with the donors (Local Government Federal Credit Union) and the staff of the UNC's School of Government. We met to discuss various scenarios for unveiling the piece. It was decided that we would shoot for July 26. Why that date? It is the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. The actual lunch counter was turned into a Civil Rights Museum on February 1 of this year. Many recognize that date as the start of the sit-in but few know that the tactic was not deemed successful until 6 months later after much turmoil. We had initially planned to unveil the mural on February 1, but funding wasn't put in place in time so we had to decide on a later date and lo and behold, this one made itself known after some research. It actually works better for us on a couple fronts. Because the sit-in's were in Greensboro, the main focus was understandably centered there with the opening of the museum. Our little contribution would have been little more than a footnote on the events schedule. This way, we have a date unto ourselves and can extend the year long celebration. The date also fits better with the actual subject matter displayed in the painting which is based on the event but takes it in a slightly different direction and expands the theme to cover nearly 200 years of North Carolina history and the contributions made to it by more than just the Greensboro Four.

There was also further discussion on how to garner some media attention to the unveiling and whom to invite. I didn't know that Joseph McNeill (one of the Greensboro Four) lived in Wilmington, NC. The SOG plans on reaching out to him to see if he can attend the ceremony. I really hope he can attend as I would love to meet him. He is only one of three living people in the mural. They will also reach out to relatives of some of the subjects in the mural as well.

After the meeting I went to Chapel Hill to take a look at the space one more time and verify some measurements for the carpenter. We went over over the lighting plans and I decided on a final wall color which will be a dark shade of a purplish - brownish - plum color. I selected a color swatch and will put that in the mail to the SOG tomorrow. Below is a little Photoshop mock up with the selected color.

So that's about it. I have 3 months to complete this beast since I told them that I plan on having this painting hung over the July 4th holiday. Deadlines are a good thing for artists - without them we procrastinate! 


I took the day off today from painting. I felt a cold coming on starting on Sunday and tried to fight it off yesterday to no avail. I had a nasty cough and remembered that I still had a bottle of prescription cough medicine from my doctor. This was the good shit with codeine, not that flavored cough syrup crap off the shelf. Needless to say, the instructions called for a teaspoon every twelve hours but I took a NyQuil styled swig and found myself barely able to stand after a half hour. I spent the next 6 hours in a daze with my voice modulating in and out like a kid going through puberty. Thank God I wasn't driving. I'm going to take another hit (only a teaspoon this time) and shut down for the night. I hope the painting isn't pissed at me and I can get some work done tomorrow. In the past when I've left for two days there's been hell to pay. 

The Doctors

Dr. Milton Douglas Quigless, Sr.          (select to see larger image)         Dr. Charles DeWitt Watts

How much difference can one person make? Dr. Milton Douglas Quigless defied the odds and the conventions of his time to make medical care available to African Americans in Edgecombe County.

In 1936, just out of medical school, he arrived in the small town of Tarboro with $7 in his pocket and a desire to care for people. The need was certainly there. Tarboro’s only hospital was restricted to whites. Local white doctors did not usually treat African Americans, and the town’s only black physician had died years earlier. 

Denied privileges at the hospital, Dr. Quigless set up an office in an abandoned fish market. He struggled to provide adequate care and perform surgery, not only in his meager office but also in patients’ homes. Many were tenant farmers with no electricity and poor sanitary conditions that bred typhoid, dysentery and tuberculosis. To give the best care possible, Quigless consulted with specialists around the state. And, as most country doctors did in the days before penicillin, he improvised and occasionally used folk medical treatments he’d learned.

But local prejudices and segregation laws continued to frustrate Quigless.

In 1947, with his life savings and a $37,000 loan, he purchased and converted his office building into a 25-bed clinic. “All the patients I’d been seeing out in the country, a lot of them died, you know, before I built the place here,” he recalled. “From the day I started, it was filled up.”

The Quigless Hospital developed an excellent reputation. During the 1950s, white patients began to come for treatment, too. Breaking tradition with most Southern hospitals of that time, Quigless provided one door and one waiting room for all patients, white and black.

In 1974, the hospital closed when Dr. Quigless joined the staff of the new Edgecombe County General Hospital and moved his patients there. But he maintained an office in the old hospital until shortly before his death in 1997. Today his son, Dr. Milton Quigless, Jr., is a well-known surgeon in Raleigh, keeping the Quigless name very much a part of North Carolina health care.

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Dr. Charles DeWitt Watts was born in 1917. He was an African-American physician, surgeon, and activist for the poor.

From Atlanta, Georgia, Charles DeWitt Watts received a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College in 1939. He received his medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in 1943 and completed his surgical residency in 1949 at the former Freedman's Hospital, under the tutelage of Dr. Charles Drew, who was the department head. From 1948 to 1950, Dr. Watts served as instructor of surgery at Howard. Dr. Watts and his wife Constance Merrick Watts left Howard in 1950 and moved to her home town of Durham.

He set up a private practice and became the director of student health at North Carolina Central University. He later was vice president and medical director for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. In 1965, Dr. Watts became chief of surgery at the city's 150-bed Lincoln Hospital, one of the few American hospitals then that granted surgical privileges to black doctors. He also helped prepare the hospital's interns and residents for board certification. When Lincoln Hospital was slated to be closed in the 1970s, Dr. Watts led the effort to turn it into a community health center serving people regardless of their income.

In a 1986 Washington Post interview, Dr. Watts noted that in 1950, two-thirds of the certified black surgeons in the country had been trained at Howard and influenced by Dr. Drew, who pioneered blood collection and plasma processing. "He wanted black doctors to go out and establish themselves around the country," Watts said of Drew. "He succeeded far beyond his dream. We can point them out across the country this goes to California and back again. It was a trailblazing effort that really succeeded." In 1992, his daughter, Deborah Chase Watts Hill, died.

During his career, Dr. Watts also was on the surgical staff at Durham Regional Hospital and an adjunct clinical professor of surgery at Duke University Medical School. Dr. Watts was a member of Howard's Board of Trustees for 19 years, before retiring in 1993. He was then elected a trustee emeritus. In 2002, the Duke School of Medicine created the Charles Watts Travel Award, which funds student and faculty travel to study culturally specific medical issues.

North Carolina's First African American Surgeon Dr. Charles DeWitt Watts died on Jul. 12, 2004 in Durham, North Carolina addition to his wife survivors includes two other children, Winifred A. Watts Hemphill of Atlanta and Charles D. Watts Jr. of Durham; and nine grandchildren.

Anonymous

As promised - here are the 'Anonymous Couple' who represent the scores of the unnamed and forgotten contributors to North Carolina history.

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Harriet Jacobs and Anonymous Slave Woman

While meeting with the historians during the planning phase of the mural, Joseph Jordan, the Director of the Stone Center on the campus of UNC and an Associate Professor of History, made the point that he felt it was necessary to find a way to pay tribute to the many anonymous individuals (mostly slaves) that may have played a pivotal role throughout North Carolina history. It was decided amongst the assembled that we should make a symbolic reference to these unsung heroes by including an unnamed man and woman to represent them. I thought that this was a brilliant idea and immediately set about adding them to the assembled cast. I found an old picture of a slave woman, but needing a more detailed face, I actually photographed my mother and used her instead. Regardless of that fact, she will forever be labeled as 'anonymous' in homage to those who gave more than anyone should ever have had to give. I will complete her companion to the left tomorrow and post his image.

In some way I feel as though these two 'anonymous' images are the most important in the whole piece and wanted to ensure that their presence was seen as special. When the counter is completed, they will be the only seated people that will have a formal place setting in front of them along with a small display of Forget-me-not flowers to underscore their presence. 

Anonymous Slave Woman and Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina in 1815. She was the daughter of slaves, Delilah and Daniel Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs is best known for her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, edited by white abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, and published in 1852. Using the pseudonym “Linda Brent,” Jacobs tells the story of her life as a slave of a “Dr. Flint,” to whom she was willed as a young girl after her mistress died.  At this point in her young life, Harriet encountered unceasing sexual advances from Flint. She escaped Flint’s household in 1835, but remained nearby, living in an attic for several years in order to stay near her son. She made her final escape in 1842 and was able to reunite with her children. She settled in Rochester, New York, where she joined the network of abolitionists. At the urging of white abolitionist Amy Post, Jacobs wrote her autobiography. Still pursued by slave catchers, Jacobs fled to Massachusetts.

During the Civil War, Jacobs and her daughter, Louisa, worked with the New England Freedman’s Aid society, which supported her effort to travel to Virginia to provide emergency health care and establish a school for black children.

While living in Boston, Jacobs joined the New England women’s club movement and supported herself by running a boarding house for Harvard students and faculty. She and Louisa later moved to Washington, D.C., where she died in 1897. She was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.