By 1866,Charles worked part time in the family while regulary
attending Cleveland's School for blacks.
In 1872 Charles was forced to end his formal education at the age of fourteen because he had to help support his parents.The school's
principal invited him to stay at the school as a distinguished pupil-teacher and
turn his modest salary over to his daddy.
By sixteen,Charles was employed in Charlotte,North Carolina as a full-time
teacher and in 1877,returned to Fayetteville,
North Carolina as the assistant principal of Howard School.In 1880 Charles became the school's principal.In search of more lucrative employment,Charles resigned his school administrator post in 1883 and moved to New York City where he worked as a
stenographer and journalist on Wall Street.By 1887,Charles returned to Cleveland and was admitted to the Ohio Bar.As a teacher,lawyer,businessman and writer,Charles was a prominent member of Cleveland's African American elite.By 1900,Charles gave up his business and
professional life to write and lecture full-time.
Charles one of the first African Americans fiction writers to received serious critical
attention and acclaim for portraying African Americans realistically sensitively.
In 1899 he wrote his first major novel,The Conjure Woman.Other books
followed including the The Wife of his Youth and Other stories of the Color Line
published also in 1899,as well as a biography of Frederick Douglass first
released in that year.Another publication of Charles was a
novel entitled The House Behind the Cedars that he published in 1900.
Many of his publications reffected a similar and district shunning of
condescending characterizations of African Americans and challenging of the
usual sympathetic portrayals of slavery.
He died in Cleveland.
No comments:
Post a Comment