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67 Miss. L.J. 427 (1997-1998)
Becoming Black in America: A Book Review Essay of Life on the Color Line by Gregory Howard Williams

handle is hein.journals/mislj67 and id is 435 raw text is: BECOMING BLACK IN AMERICA: A BOOK REVIEW ESSAY OF LIFE ON THE COLOR LINE BY GREGORY HOWARD WILLIAMS Alfreda A. Sellers Diamond I. INTRODUCTION Life on the Color Line chronicles the life of Gregory Howard Williams.1 The book asks important questions about the social consequences and the significance of racial designa- tion, particularly, what it means to live life as a black child in this country.2 Dean Williams' memoir, however, reveals the question from a different vantage point, in that he explores the question from the perspective of a child who comes to his blackness from whiteness. In approaching the question of the significance of racial designation from this point, Life on the Color Line offers an opportunity to revisit the immediate pre- Brown v. Board of Education3 era of Plessy v. Ferguson,4 when the law of the land was separate but equal, and the immediate post-Brown era, when living life as a black child in * Associate Professor of Law, Southern University Law Center. B. Mus. Ed., M. Ed., J. D., Louisiana State University; LL.M., Columbia University. 1 Gregory Howard Williams is currently Dean of Ohio State University School of Law. He was born in 1943 in Virginia. ' Life on the Color Line is one of several books detailing the lives of children who have struggled with questions of racial identification. See generally, SHIRLEE TAYLOR HAIZLIP, THE SWEETER THE JUICE (1994); JAMES MCBRIDE, THE COLOR OF WATER (1996); SCOTT MINERBROOK, DIVIDED TO THE VEIN: A JOURNEY INTO RACE AND FAMILY, (1996); BARACK OBAMA, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER: A STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE (1995). 3 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 4 163 U.S. 537 (1896), overruled by Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 427

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