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A chosen exile : a history of racial passing in American life / Allyson Hobbs.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2014Description: 382 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 067436810X (alkaline paper)
  • 9780674368101 (alkaline paper)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Prologue. To live a life elsewhere -- White is the color of freedom -- Waiting on a white man's chance -- Lost kin -- Searching for a new soul in Harlem -- Coming home -- Epilogue. On identity.
Summary: It was a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one's own. Hobbs explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It is also a tale of grief, loneliness, and isolation that often accompanied the rewards.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 305.8009 H682 Available 33111007950567
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Countless African Americans have passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and communities. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile. This history of passing explores the possibilities, challenges, and losses that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-363) and index.

Prologue. To live a life elsewhere -- White is the color of freedom -- Waiting on a white man's chance -- Lost kin -- Searching for a new soul in Harlem -- Coming home -- Epilogue. On identity.

It was a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one's own. Hobbs explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It is also a tale of grief, loneliness, and isolation that often accompanied the rewards.

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