You may recall that a few months back I mentioned Brent Staples' review of Daniel Sharfstein's The Invisible Line in the New York Review of Books. I want to circle back around to Sharfstein's epic book, which opens in seventeenth century Virginia and moves down through the middle of the twentieth century and in some ways right up to the present. Sharfstein focuses on three families who lived their lives near the color line; some crossed it and in one case their descendants became leading citizens of the South — one was even a Confederate General. In other cases, families did not cross the line or delayed the crossing for many generations.
There is a lot that should be said about this book, in terms of its contribution to historical method (it is narrative history of the kind rarely seen these days) and also in terms of the questions it asks: what can we learn about the color line from those who lived close to the border on either side. What, for instance, do we make of the family that was sued for starting a rumor that their neighbors were black and then were sued by those neighbors for defamation?
I now have a brief essay about The Invisible Line out in the on-line companion to the Vanderbilt Law Review, which touches on a few of these themes. I titled it, rather provocatively, "Go White Young Man," as a way of tapping into the question of why people would choose to cross the color line. As Brent Staples highlighted, that was a decision that helped some families but left others worse off, as upper-class African American families sometimes lost status in the move across the color line (at least this is what Sharfstein found for the early twentieth century). While my review focuses on the question of how many people could make that journey, in some ways the numbers who made the trip are less important than what was necessary to cross — and why some chose to cross and others did not. This is a very important book, which invites serious thought on a lot of levels.
We're going to be working through Sharfstein's insights for many years. And in the near term, I am certain that Sharfstein's beautiful prose, breadth of time, and scope of analysis will put him on the short list for many important prizes this spring. I'll be on the lookout as the major prizes are announced over the next few months.
It really is an excellent book.
The topic of "passing" was addressed in "Pinky" (1949), a film included in "Advocacy to Zealousness." Ironically, the protagonist was played by Jeanne Crain, a white actress; the part was one that Lena Horne had wanted (and probably deserved) to play. Of course, this film wasn't the first or only one in this genre (the two versions of "Imitation of Life" immediately come to mind), and the topic was the subject of the Twain classic, "Pudd'nhead Wilson." It is interesting to see that it is beginning to seriously transition into the legal realm in the form of great scholarship. I will certainly make a point to look for this title, along with your essay.