Negroland: A Memoir

At Once Incendiary And Icy, Mischievous, And Provocative, Celebratory And Elegiac, A Deeply Felt Meditation On Race, Sex, And American Culture Through The Prism Of The Author's Rarefied Upbringing And Education Among A Black Elite Concerned To Distance Itself From Whites And The Black Generality, While Tirelessly Measuring Itself Against Both. Born In 1947 In Upper-crust Black Chicago--her Father Was For Years Head Of Pediatrics At Provident, At The Time The Nation's Oldest Black Hospital; Her Mother Was A Socialite-- Margo Jefferson Has Spent Most Of Her Life Among (call Them What You Will) The Colored Aristocracy, The Colored Elite, The Blue-vein Society. Since The Nineteenth Century They Have Stood Apart, These Inhabitants Of Negroland, A Small Region Of Negro America Where Residents Were Sheltered By A Certain Amount Of Privilege And Plenty. Reckoning With The Strictures And Demands Of Negroland At Crucial Historical Moments-- The Civil Rights Movement, The Dawn Of Feminism, The Fallacy Of Post-racial America-- Jefferson Brilliantly Charts The Twists And Turns Of A Life Informed By Psychological And Moral Contradictions. Aware As It Is Of Heart-wrenching Despair And Depression, This Book Is A Triumphant Paean To The Grace Of Perseverance. (with 8 Pages Of Black-and-white Illustrations.)-- Margo Jefferson. Includes Bibliographical References (pages [243]-248).