Drawing on the 1898 overthrow of the Wilmington, North Carolina, government by white supremacists, Charles W. Chesnutt’s classic novel unmasked the racism of the post-Reconstruction South.

William Miller is an eminent black physician determined to build a practice and advance the cause of reconciliation in his hometown during the Jim Crow era. Major Carteret is a white supremacist newspaperman sowing the seeds of unrest in an already segregated city. With county elections at stake, a murder provides all the fuel that Major Carteret needs to spark a violent revolt, with typically tragic consequences. And justice, when it comes, is only partial and incomplete.

Written to refute the white press’s distorted, propagandistic reporting of the Wilmington coup d’état, and filled with a myriad of rich characters and devastating twists of fate, The Marrow of Tradition is as relevant today as it was more than a century ago.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Marrow of Tradition, this edition of The Marrow of Tradition (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.