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 families—the white Carterets and the Black Millers—through these harrowing events, The Marrow of Tradition offers intimate insights into the complexities of life on the color line. Equal parts comedic, romantic, political, and tragic, the novel probes the depths and artifice of race relations in the US.

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 families—the white Carterets and the Black Millers—through these harrowing events, The Marrow of Tradition offers intimate insights into the complexities of life on the color line. Equal parts comedic, romantic, political, and tragic, the novel probes the depths and artifice of race relations in the US.