One Drop

by Bliss Broyard

  Chapter 29

  My father wrote about his recurrent dream for an essay called “Intoxicated by My Illness,” which appears in his book by the same name.

  For more on legal definitions of blackness and whiteness in the United States, see Davis’s Who Is Black?, the Braman essay in the UCLA Law Review, and Lopez’s “Social Construction.”

  I am particularly grateful to Daniel Sharfstein for sharing with me his essay “The Secret History of Race in the United States” and for his assistance in deciphering the decisions for the Sunseri v. Cassagne trials. The details of the case, Sunseri v. Cassagne, 196 So. 7 (1940), come from decisions published in Southern Reporter and from the trial transcript available at the Louisiana Supreme Court archives in New Orleans.

  For more on Louisiana’s racial laws and the career of Naomi Drake, see Domínguez’s Definition, Trillin’s “Black or White” from the New Yorker, and O’Byrne’s “Many Feared” in the Times-Picayune.

  Chapter 30

  Klonsky’s observation about the Greenwich Village streets appears in his Discourse.

  For more on African American troops in World War II, including the quoted letters from white officers about commanding black troops, see Lee’s Employment.

  I am grateful to Edward Howard and Ellis Derry for sharing with me their recollections of the 167th Port Company. My father’s military record and the historical record for the 167th also provided details about his service.

  Enid Gort graciously shared her research and reflections on my uncle Franklin H. Williams, from which I gleaned many details of his life.

  Chapter 31

  Ross Wetzsteon’s Republic of Dreams provided background on Greenwich Village of the 1940s and the quoted description of the San Remo bar.

  Irving Howe’s observations about the Partisan Review and political thought during the 1940s appear in his book Margin.

  I am indebted to David Leeming’s biographies of James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney for my account of their experiences in Greenwich Village.

  W. F. Lucas’s comment about my father’s racial change during his subway ride into Manhattan appeared in Gates’s article “White Like Me,” as does the reference to my father in the correspondence between Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes.

  Details about the publication of Brossard’s Who Walk in Darkness were drawn from correspondence found in the Laughlin Collection at Harvard, along with interviews with Anne Bernays, Tim Horan, and Vincent Livelli.

  For more on the segregation of labor unions, see Hill’s “Labor Unions.”

  The biographical details of Van den Haag’s life come from the finding aid for the Ernest van den Haag Papers at the University of Albany. For more about his efforts to oppose integration, see Khan’s Separated.

  Chapter 32

  I am grateful to my mother for sharing the correspondence between her and my father during their engagement. My numerous interviews and discussions with her also contributed greatly to my account of my father’s life.

  My father’s essays on family life have been collected into Men, Women.

  Chapter 33

  For more on the effect of Katrina on New Orleans’s black middle class, see Cass’s article “Notable Mardi Gras Absences.” Keith Medley is quoted on black Mardi Gras balls in Texeira’s “Black Social Networks.”

  New Orleans East’s uncertain future is discussed in greater detail by Howell and Vinturella in their New York Times piece and by Donze and Krupa in “Nagin Upbeat” in the Times-Picayune.

  Afterword

  For more on the significance of the findings by the Human Genome Project, see “Reading the Book of Life,” a White House news conference on the decoding of the genome.

  Wade’s “The Human Family Tree” and Anger’s “Do Races Differ?” were helpful in providing background about tracing ancestral origins in human genes, as was Cavalli-Sforza’s Genes, Peoples, and Languages.

  More information about DNAPrint’s testing services can be found at their Web site, DNAPrint.com.

  Bibliography

  NEWSPAPERS

  Cleveland (Ohio) Gazette, March/April 1894

  The Crusader (New Orleans), 1891–96

  Daily Picayune, 1892, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1900

  New Orleans Tribune, 1864–68, 1869–70

  New York Times, 1946–90

  ARCHIVES

  Biography—Duckett, Alfred A. 2004. In Contemporary Authors (Biography), Thomas Gale, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007SBDW4/ref=ml_bd/102-8738840-8646560 (accessed July 17, 2005).

  Brooklyn Eagle Morgue. In Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library. Brooklyn, NY, 1938–45.

  Chandler Brossard Correspondence. In James Laughlin Collection. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

  Compiled Military Service Records, Civil War. In National Archives. Washington, DC.

  Compiled Service of Military Units in Volunteer Union Organizations, M-594. In National Archives. Washington, DC.

  Family Note Cards [Bertha Neff]. Covington Courthouse, Covington, LA.

  “History of the 167th Port Co.” In War Department Records Branch, A.G.O. College Park, MD, 1944–46.

  “Remarks of Lt. Gov. Oscar J. Dunn.” In A. P. Tureaud Collection, The Amistad Research Center. New Orleans, LA.

  BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND VIDEO RECORDINGS

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  Baker, Liva. The Second Battle of New Orleans. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

  Basler, Roy Prentice, and Christian O. Basler. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

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  Brossard, Chandler. “Letter to the Editor: Wake Up, We’re Almost There,” New York Times Book Review, May 2, 1971.

  ———. “Plaint of a Gentile Intellectual.” Commentary, May 1950: 154–56.

  ———. Who Walk in Darkness. London: John Lehmann, 1952.

  ———. Who Walk in Darkness. 1st Herodias Classics ed. New York: Herodias, 2000.

  Broyard, Anatole. “American Sexual Imperialism.” Neurotica, Autumn 1950, 36–40.

  ———. “Anecdotes from the Hospital.” Atlantic Monthly, September 1982, 81–86.

  ———. Aroused by Books. New York: Random House, 1974.

  ———. “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” In New World Writing, Tenth Mentor Selection. New York: New American Library, 1956.

  ———. Intoxicated by My Illness: And Other Writings on Life and Death. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992.

  ———. Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir. 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

  ———. “Letter to the Editor.” New York Times Book Review, May 2, 1971.

  ———. “Mambo.” Neurotica, Spring 1950: 29–30.

  ———. Men, Women, and Other Anticlimaxes. New York: Methuen, 1980.

  ———. “Portrait of the Inauthentic Negro.” Commentary, July 1950: 56–64.

  ———. “Summer Madness.” In Summer, ed. Ali
ce Gordon. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1990.

  ———. “Sunday Dinner in Brooklyn.” In Modern Writing, ed. William Phillips and Philip Rahv. New York: Avon, 1953.

  ———. “Sunday Dinner in Brooklyn.” In Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men, ed. Gene Feldman and Max Gartenberg. London: Souvenir Press, 1958.

  ———. “A Truly Bad Book Just Doesn’t Happen” (review of Wake Up, We’re Almost There by Chandler Brossard). New York Times Book Review, April 4, 1971.

  ———. “Village Café.” Partisan Review 17, no. 5 (1950): 524–28.

  Buckley, Gail Lumet. The Hornes: An American Family. New York: Knopf, 1986.

  Carter, Clarence Edwin, ed. The Territorial Papers of the United States. Vol. 14, The Territory of Orleans, 1803–1812. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940.

  Cass, Julia. “Notable Mardi Gras Absences Reflect Loss of Black Middle Class.” Washington Post, February 25, 2006.

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  Chaillé, Stanford E. Intimidation and the Number of White and of Colored Voters in Louisiana in 1876, as Shown by Statistical Data Derived from Republican Official Reports. New Orleans: Picayune Office Job Print, 1877.

  Christian, Marcus B. “A Black History of Louisiana.” In Marcus B. Christian Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. New Orleans.

  ———. “Free People of Color of New Orleans.” In Marcus B. Christian Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. New Orleans.

  ———. “The Mechanics Hall Riot.” In Marcus B. Christian Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. New Orleans.

  ———. “The Negro as a Soldier: 1861–1865.” In Marcus B. Christian Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. New Orleans.

  ———. “Negro Education: 1861–1900.” In Marcus B. Christian Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. New Orleans.

  Clark, John Garretson. La Rochelle and the Atlantic Economy During the Eighteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

  Conley, Dalton. Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

  Connolly, Harold X. A Ghetto Grows in Brooklyn. New York: New York University Press, 1977.

  Corwin, Phillip. “Letter to the Editor.” New York Times Book Review, May 2, 1971.

  Coyne, John. “Letter to the Editor.” New York Times Book Review, May 2, 1971.

  D’Antoni, Blaise C., and St. Tammany Historical Society. Chahta-Ima and St. Tammany’s Choctaws. Mandeville, LA: St. Tammany Historical Society, 1986.

  Davis, F. James. Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition. 10th anniversary ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.

  Desdunes, Rodolphe Lucien. A Few Words to Dr. Du Bois, with Malice Toward None. New Orleans, 1907.

  Desdunes, Rodolphe Lucien, and Dorothea Olga McCants. Our People and Our History: Fifty Creole Portraits. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

  Diamond, Raymond T., and Cottrol, Robert J. “Codifying Caste: Louisiana’s Racial Classification Scheme and the Fourteenth Amendment.” Loyola Law Review 29 (1983): 255–85.

  Domínguez, Virginia R. White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986.

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  Donze, Frank, and Krupa, Michelle. “Nagin Upbeat After Win.” Times-Picayune, May 22, 2006.

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  Gates, Henry Louis, et al. African American Lives. Video recording. Hollywood: Paramount Home Entertainment, 2006.

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  Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

  ———. Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.

  Hanger, Kimberly S. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769–1803. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

  Hankins, Jonn Ethan, Steven Maklansky, and New Orleans Museum of Art. Raised to the Trade: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans. New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 2002.

  Harlan, Louis R. “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools During Reconstruction.” American Historical Review 67, no. 3 (1962): 663–75.

  Hentoff, Nat. “Broyard & (More).” Village Voice, May 13, 1971, 19–20.

  Hewitt, Lawrence L. Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

  Hill, Herbert. “Labor Unions and the Negro.” Commentary, December 1959.

  Hirsch, Arnold R., and Joseph Logsdon. Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

  Hollandsworth, James G. An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

  ———. The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.

  Houzeau, Jean-Charles, and David C. Rankin. My Passage at the New Orleans Tribune: A Memoir of the Civil War Era. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

  Howard, Perry. “The Populist-Republican Fusion: 1896.” In The Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Series in Louisiana History, ed. Matthew J. Schott. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana, 2000.

  Howe, Irving. A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

  Howell, Susan E., and John B. Vinturella. “Forgotten in New Orleans.” New York Times, April 20, 2006.

  Jackson, Joy J. “Bosses and Businessmen.” In The Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Series in Louisiana History, ed. Matthew J. Schott. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana, 2000.

  ———.New Orleans in the Gilded Age: Politics and Progress, 1880–1896. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

  James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books,
1963.

  Johnson, James Weldon. The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Boston: Sherman, French, 1912.

  Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

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  ———. James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994.

  Lopez, Ian F. Haney. “The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice.” Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 29 (1994): 1–62.