My Family's American Secret

I pushed through the glass door and asked the hostess if the DeGrange party had arrived. Yes, she said, they are seated. I scanned the room, and my eyes locked on three women whose eyes were already locked on me.

It was a fall day in Chicago, and we had arranged to talk about something that in the best-case scenario would be uncomfortable; at worst, combustible.

The three women were Midwestern and white, and I am Southern and Black. I intended to tell them some information that I had only recently learned in detail — that our grandfathers had been together in the 1910s as children at the Lafon Orphan Asylum for Colored Boys, a bygone institution in New Orleans. They were brothers: George and Edward DeGrange. And they were Black.

In sepia-toned photos, George and Edward bear the resemblance of siblings, but they grew to be men a few shades apart in skin tone. George was copper brown; Edward, more of a sandy beige. This slight contrast would make a world of difference as they aged out of the orphanage into the reality of segregation, stunted opportunity and endless humiliation for poor Black people.

The two young men faced a bleak existence together until one day in the early 1920s, when Edward boarded a train to Chicago. Upon arrival, he presented himself as white. Edward eventually married and had children in Chicago — white children — who had children. George, too dark to pass even if he had wanted to, chose to stay behind. He eventually married and had children in New Orleans — Black children — who had children.

One fateful decision created parallel American lives, racial worlds apart.