Belle da Costa Greene, original name in full Belle Marion Greener, (born December 13, 1883, Washington, D.C., U.S. died May 10, 1950, New York, New York), American librarian and bibliographer, the moving force in organizing and expanding the collection of J.P. Morgan as the Morgan Library. Greene was the daughter of lawyer Richard T. Greener, the first African American to graduate from Harvard and the first librarian of colour at the University of South Carolina, and Genevieve Fleet, both of whom were of mixed-race families. Although Belle had been listed as “Colored” on her birth certificate, she was light-skinned, as were
Berkley
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 cannot imagine it. I wouldn t be me.
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