A review by gleefulreader
Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

5.0

Margo Jefferson's memoir is her story of growing up in an affluent and privileged Black family in Chicago during the decades of change post-WWII. However, it is more than simply a straightforward history - it is a meandering examination of race and gender, of individuality and conformity. Jefferson is clear-eyed and lucid about the challenge of aspiring and working desperately to fit in and be accepted by the White community - through emulation of White habits and lifestyles while denying and tamping down anything that marks you as too "Black" - and yet still being subject to discrimination and outright scorn. She describes her own confusion and dissonance at being neither White, nor in many ways, Black, of always being an outsider, an Other. If the book meanders occasionally, it can be forgiven as there is much to absorb here, with no clear answers. I found myself for the first time in years with a highlighter at hand, marking passages I wished to remember. This is definitely a book I will be re-reading.