Jefferson asks: At what cost to black women come these scraps of joy? The idea of a truly equal feminism gives her hope.Upon the publication of Lawrence Otis Graham’s Our Kind of People in 1999, the New York Times asked, “ Is There a Black Upper Class?” On the surface, it was a foolhardy question-of course there was, and is, a black upper class-but if you were to peel back its exterior, as Graham did in his book, underneath revealed a world of race leaders: men and women and children who were in a constant “state of self-enhancement.” Here was a place, a land, very few Americans knew about. This curious chapter seems to interrogate seminal moments in black women’s writing: the scene in “Beloved’’ when Baby Suggs clutches a patch of pink and the image of Celie seeking solace in the color purple.

Though why she ultimately chooses journalism over drama is not made clear.Īt one point this supremely balanced woman questions her mental state, meditating on Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.’’ Only for Jefferson the rainbow is no longer enough. She absorbs the running commentary on black people around the house and in magazines like Ebony, Look, and Life. And above all achievement, not for its own sake, of course, but for the goal of winning the right, light mate to perpetuate the third race.įrom childhood on Jefferson participates in dramatic productions like “The King and I,’’ “My Fair Lady,’’ and “Iolanthe.’’ While simultaneously, the mind of the critic evolves. The mother’s goal for the daughters was culture and cultivation, beauty and feminine grace.

This glamorous couple raised their children in the better black neighborhoods, enrolling them in enriched programs at overwhelmingly white schools and in extracurricular activities like drama, music, and dance. (Privilege is a word that crops up again and again.) Jefferson was born in Chicago in 1947 to the head of pediatrics at the nation’s oldest black hospital and his socialite wife. This arch tone eventually gives way to a jazzy bebop line that conveys the sweet security of a happy, privileged childhood.

Negroland book summary