Chesnutt's views on race relations put him between Du Bois' talented tenth and Booker Washington's separate but equal positions. In 1905, he delivered a speech to the Boston Historical and Literary Association, and later published his speech as an essay titled "Race Prejudice; Its Causes and Its Cure." In the speech, he spoke about dismantling race antagonism "stone by stone" as the Black middle class continued to grow and prosper. As he recounted the history of Black achievements and spoke on poverty, Chesnutt cited many specific numbers and statistics in his speech, and called for full African American rights.
