Perspective: “I thought I was White until I learned my mother’s secret. The census helped me tell my family story.”
. How she and her New Orleans family were designated as “Negro” during the Jim Crow era, how she moved north to Ohio, married my White, bigoted father, and hid her mixed race from him and eventually us. Looking back, there were small clues, like she always wore face makeup, even to bed.
On my drive home, I fumed. Mad at myself for defining my race solely by my DNA. We were no longer living in the Jim Crow era, when race was determined by arbitrary laws such as the one-drop rule, meaning that if a person has any Black DNA at all, they are considered Black. If we were, my DNA would have designated me as Black.And I was mad at the woman for asking me what I was.
At the conclusion of my talk, a Black woman raised her hand. “How do you identify yourself racially, now that you know your mother and her family were mixed-race?” Did I betray my Black ancestry by not fully embracing it? How can I claim a Black identity when I’ve enjoyed White privilege my entire life?
As a child, she wrote to a WWII vet. He carried the letter everywhere, and 12 years later, they finally met. She became a park ranger at 85 to tell her story of segregation. Now 100, she’s the oldest active ranger.
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