Negroland A Memoir
Negroland A Memoir by Margo Jefferson, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on August 23, 2016, is a reflective exploration of privilege and discrimination within a unique social context. This reprint edition spans 272 pages and is presented in English. Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic, shares her experiences growing up in an upper-crust black community in Chicago, which she refers to as “Negroland.” The memoir delves into the complexities of identity and societal expectations, highlighting the historical backdrop of the civil rights movement and the evolving dynamics of race in America.
In this memoir, readers will find an insightful examination of a world shaped by exclusive networks and the pressures of achievement, where skin color and hair texture are scrutinized alongside professional accomplishments. Jefferson articulates the psychological and moral contradictions inherent in her upbringing, offering a nuanced perspective on the Talented Tenth and their positioning between white society and the broader black community. Through her narrative, she addresses the challenges and realities faced by individuals navigating the intersections of race, class, and gender in the 20th century United States.
Official synopsis Publisher
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic
Jefferson takes us into an insular and discerning society: “I call it Negroland,” she writes, “because I still find ‘Negro’ a word of wonders, glorious and terrible.”
Margo Jefferson was born in 1947 into upper-crust black Chicago. Her father was head of pediatrics at Provident Hospital, while her mother was a socialite. Negroland’s pedigree dates back generations, having originated with antebellum free blacks who made their fortunes among the plantations of the South.
It evolved into a world of exclusive sororities, fraternities, networks, and clubs—a world in which skin color and hair texture were relentlessly evaluated alongside scholarly and professional achievements, where the Talented Tenth positioned themselves as a third race between whites and “the masses of Negros,” and where the motto was “Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment.”
Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions, while reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments—the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the falsehood of post-racial America.
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