To Roxy

[A letter from Charles W. Chestnutt to Roxy]

Dear Roxy,

I’m writing to you in response to an account in the newspaper I read today about your son, Chambers/Tom and the mess that occurred several years ago. It caused me pain and anger to learn why this happened, why you and your son were driven to do what you both did. Your natural motherly instinct drove you to protect your son but at what cost? The life of another man? I suppose you knew from the beginning that it was either Tom’s life or Chambers’ life that would be saved in the end. Because of one small portion of you that society decided to make your most defining characteristic, you felt that if you did not perpetuate a great lie, your son might be sold into a terrible fortune.

            Perhaps situations like yours are what the law was hoping to prevent with their definitions of “whiteness” and “blackness” and being “mixed.” How did it feel to be a woman who looks like her white owners, to be “for all intents and purposes… as white as anybody” (Twain 7) and yet who lives in constant fear of being torn away from everything you know simply because the “one-sixteenth of [you] which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made [you] a negro” (Twain 7)—a fact of yourself that was given not chosen. In most states now you would be considered white, under the various state definitional laws. These arbitrary rulings seem destined to always leave someone out and force them to make a decision such as you had to do. Do you think the laws help matters in general? How do you feel about states such as South Carolina that state, “The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood," (Chestnutt 1)? Do you believe the nurturing of a person is more important than the nature? If you were to be granted status as a white woman, how do you think you would react?

            It seems as though we are gradually moving toward a re-imaging of color lines, but taking into consideration how long it has taken our nation to get to the point at which it is today, I will not retain false hope that true change will be seen in my lifetime.

Sincerely yours,

Charles