Postal Service previews Black Heritage stamp

USPS paid tribute to Charles Waddell Chesnutt — the 2008 Black Heritage stamp honoree — by preview­ing his stamp during the 92nd convention of the Association for the Study of African American Life and His­tory (ASALH) recently held at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Charlotte.

Essayist, folklorist and novelist Chesnutt is the 31st honoree in the popular commemorative stamp series. He was the first African-American fiction writer to earn national acclaim and is best known for his depictions of the African-American experience before and after the Civil War.

Chesnutt was born in Cleveland, OH, in 1858. The son of free blacks, he was raised in Fayetteville, NC, which became a major setting of Chesnutt’s fiction. The pioneer­ing writer is recognized as a major innovator and singular voice among turn-of-the-century literary realists who probed the color line in American life.

The stamp goes on sale in January.