White on Black

An White 84-year-old resident of Sawyerville, Alabama except for his 27 years working in the Columbia University Libraries in New York reflects on growing up in the 1940s and 1950s in a racist rural society, describes his own and his family's interactions with Black neighbors over time, ponders his own evolving attitudes concerning racial matters, and reveals his family's recent discovery of a number of mixed-race first and second cousins and how that is dealt with in various ways. Along the way he gives a great deal of information about his community, its past, present, and possible future. Using his community as primary focus he thinks about race in America. His conclusions share both hope and despair. An opinionated old codger, he is not averse to sharing those opinions. He often starts with facts and moves into matters speculative, always trying to clarify wen that occurs.