The Negro Problem is classic collection of essays, edited by Booker T. Washington and with contributions from many of post-Civil War America's other prominent African-American thinkers, sought to redefine the role of Black persons in the new Jim Crow era and beat back white supremacy through racial uplift. Seven essays include Charles Chesnutt's "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", W. E. B. DuBois "The Talented Tenth", and Wilford Horace Smith's "The Negro and the Law" .
Chesnutt at his essay The Disfranchisement of the Negro argues that the disfranchisement of African Americans is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, and goes into depth examining various laws promoting this disfranchisement, calling for political action.