His parents, Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and Anne Maria Sampson, were both free Blacks in Fayetteville. They moved to Ohio to be with relatives before the Civil War and Chesnutt was born in Cleveland. They returned to Fayetteville after the war when Chesnutt was 8. Chesnutt’s father was the son of a White slave-holding farmer and his Black mistress and later housekeeper. Chesnutt’s mother was the daughter of free mulattos in Fayetteville. “He could have passed as White, but he chose not to do so,” said Craig Tuttle, Fayetteville State University Archivist. Life would probably have been easier for Chesnutt if he had chosen his White heritage. But Tuttle notes that through Chestnutt’s adversity as a Black person, he became stronger. “Charles Chesnutt always involved himself in activities that ameliorated African-Americans. He was a firm believer in education,” Tuttle said.
