A History of Racial Passing in the United States

Bodies Series, Episode #1 of 4. Late in 2020, a number of white academics were revealed to be passing as people of color, making the concept of racial passing a matter of national conversation. For these white folks, the benefits of being considered a person of color were based on a perception that minorities somehow have special access, abilities, or freedoms unavailable to white people – which is, of course, both untrue and oversimplified. In reality, whites passing as people of color is a manifestation of their inability to believed, or inability to accept, that there might be spaces and roles that might exclude white people. However, historically, it has been Black Americans who have passed as white. Throughout American history, Black Americans have chosen to pass as white for a number of reasons - to escape from bondage, to avoid the oppression of Jim Crow, to succeed in a career otherwise closed to a person of color. Some passed only from 9 to 5, others, for their entire lives. But when Blacks passed as white, it wasn’t quite the same, nor was it just a way to land a job or garner some social cache. They did so to try to slip free of structural racism – and the results weren’t all positive. In this episode, Averill and Sarah discuss the history of African Americans passing as white in the United States. 

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Bibliography

Bibb, Henry. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave. New York: McDonald & Lee Printers, 1849

Craft, William and Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom: or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. London: William Tweedie, 1860.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written By Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

 Gatewood, Willard B. Aristocrats of Color, The Black Elite, 1880-1920. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000.

Hobbs, Allyson. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Hughes, Langston. The Ways of White Folks. New York: Vintage Classics ebooks, 1990.

McCaskill, Barbara. “Ellen Craft: The Fugitive Who Fled as a Planter,” in Ann Short Chirart and Betty Wood, eds., Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume I. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.

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