When White Is Black

by John A. Martin

This memoir describes the social aspects of a young boy and his family growing up in an America where the shade of your skin can determine your fate and where the one-drop rule of Black blood you may hold within your lineage has far-reaching ramifications

Genres: Race

191 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

Reviews

[Kathleen Huben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does the actual color of your skin determine your racial identity? Not according to the One-drop Rule. John Martin Jr. in his family history/memoir When White is Black writes of his mother, a woman who in all physical appearances would seem to be white, "she was defined by living in a society where black was so broadly and rigidly defined that it legally and socially obliterated her physical whiteness."
Until around 1930 a distinction was drawn between persons identified as Negro and those identified as mulatto (a combination of Negro and white ancestry). In 1930 the One-drop Rule became official U.S. policy when the Bureau of the Census instructed, "A person of mixed white and Negro blood should be returned (identified) as a Negro, no matter how small the percentage of Negro blood."
Mr. Martin, of black, white, and Seminole Indian ancestry, writes a fascinating and moving account of the impact this "rule" had on the lives of many of his family members, including his grandmother. His grandmother spent the first 16 years of her life in a family identified as white only to have her world totally changed when the identification of a black ancestor changes her whole family's identity from white to black.
I found this to be a fascinating, well-written book and would highly recommend it.

[Ryan James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating, but I think he shifted from generation to generation too often, making it confusing. Still, I intend to use it for my Race and Ethnicity course.