J.P. Morgan’s Personal Librarian Was A Black Woman. This Is Her Story.

By KAREN GRIGSBY BATES via https://www.bpr.org/

I have a confession: I am not a fan of the passing trope. From Nella Larsen’s 1929 classic, Passing, to the original Imitation of Life (the 1934 movie starred the incomparable Fredi Washington as Peola, the little girl who wanted to be white) to Britt Bennett’s 2020 novel The Vanishing Half, the notion of a Black person posing as white to escape her Blackness just felt … tired.

“Deep down, all Black people want to be white.” I heard that in a social psychology class, repeated as if it were a truism. It’s not. At several points in childhood and as an adult, I’ve loved the notion of being rich, but being white? I…

Read More: J.P. Morgan’s Personal Librarian Was A Black Woman. This Is Her Story.