My mother decided to seek out the rector at Grace Church down the street. She’d gone to the services there once before and been impressed by his sermon. Seated in his office, she presented her problem: she’d recently learned that the man she was due to marry in a few weeks might be a Negro, although he was very light-skinned, and she was concerned about the possibility of having a dark baby. The rector smiled, laid a hand on her arm, and told her not to worry. It wasn’t possible for her to bear a child any darker in color than the darker one of the two of them. Recounting this later, my mother
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