Emilie Hasselmann

Discussion section 102

18 October 2016

A History of Racial Passing

          Racial passing refers to the cultural phenomenon of men or women of one race (usually African-American) “passing” for another race (usually white). This phenomenon seems to have originated in the 19th century so that African-Americans could attempt to avoid the persecution of the pre-civil war era. Whether this be a way to elude violence and abuse, or even to escape slavery, African-Americans were willing to give up their black identities and join white society unbeknownst to their white neighbors. One famous case of racial passing is the story of Ellen and William Craft. Ellen Craft was born the daughter of a mixed-race slave and a wealthy white slaveowner, Major James Smith, in 1826. Smith’s wife sold her off the plantation to Macon, Georgia to remove the evidence of Smith’s infidelity. William Craft was another slave on the same plantation whom Ellen eventually married. The two escaped to the North in December 1848 by traveling openly by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia. She took advantage of her mixed-race heritage and “passed”  as a white male planter and he as her personal servant in order to ride the train without question. Their daring escape was widely publicized in various abolitionist newspapers and public lectures making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves.

While passing seemed to have originated during the slavery era, many historians argue that it reached its peak in cultural popularity during the Harlem Renaissance. This was partly because it was during this time that Jim Crow segregation laws were most powerful and black Americans were forced to pass as white to dodge these laws and avoid discrimination. However, the Harlem Renaissance is associated with passing also because the time period gave way to many artistic and literary movements, many of which depicted the phenomenon of passing. These depictions included Nella Larsen’s “Passing,” Walter White’s “Flight,” and James Weldon Johnson’s “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.”

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man  by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to only as the "Ex-Colored Man", living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He lives through a variety of experiences, including witnessing a lynching, that convince him to"pass" as white to secure his safety and advancement, but he feels as if he has given up his dream of "glorifying" the black race by composing ragtime music.

Published amid controversy in 1926, Flight focuses on the dilemma of Mimi Daquin, a light-complexioned African American woman who passes, for a time, as white. In doing so, her success exceeds her expectations but even so "cannot quell a recurrent yearning."

Most famous stories of people racial passing came from the Harlem Renaissance. For example, there was New Yorker Theophilus McKee, who'd chosen to live as a white man for all of his adult life. When he was offered a huge inheritance as the only colored descendant of Negro Civil War veteran Col. John McKee, he was forced to step forward and reclaim his identity as a black man. His claim and the court fight with his biracial siblings made national news.

`Colonel John Mckee (grandfather of Theophilus Mckee)

`Colonel John Mckee (grandfather of Theophilus Mckee)

There was also Dr. Albert Johnston who  grew up in Chicago, attended the University of Chicago Medical School in the 1920s, and went on to become a radiologist in New Hampshire. He and his wife were black but eventually passed for white so Johnston could secure an internship. For 20 years, they kept this secret from their neighbors, and even their children. After the United States entered World War II, Johnston "outed" himself by applying for the Navy. He was rejected because of his racial background, and his neighbors and friends learned that he was, in fact, a black man.

Harry S. Murphy was a black man who passed for white to enroll in the University of Mississippi in the 1940s, when Ole Miss was not yet integrated. Murphy lived a normal life as a member of the track team and various other school institutions. Later after Murphy left the school to join an all black university and reclaim his black identity, he observed the violent resistance to integration and declared, "they're fighting a battle they don't know they lost years ago."

With the 1960s and the black power movement, racial pride replaced the desire to pass as white, and the act of passing became passé. However, many historians argue that passing is back. In 2000, the movie “The Human Stain” covered the fictional story of a black professor passing for a white man in 1998. In 2003, journalist Brooke Kroeger’s collection of case studies, “Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are,” earned a lot of praise and led to a National Public Radio program on passing. Also in 2003, Brent Staples wrote a series of New York Times editorials on the subject. Certain historians, like Stanford professor Allyson Hobbes, chalk this passing renaissance up to the heightened tensions and restrictions around undocumented immigrants today. Millions of undocumented immigrants are forced to pass as white Americans on a daily basis, according to Hobbes. Similarly, even in our modern era, many people in the LGBT community were forced to pass as straight to avoid legal marriage restrictions and even societal discrimination.

Hobbes published her book, A Chosen Exile: The History of Racial Passing in 2013 in which she examines “not what people gained by being white, but rather in what they lost by not being black.” Many of the true stories discussed in this post include the “passer’s” desire to reclaim their blackness for one reason or another, just like Clare Kendry in Passing by Nella Larsen. For one it was to claim an inheritance, for another it was to enlist in the navy. Similarly, in the novel, Clare wishes more than anything to move to Harlem and participate in the Harlem renaissance that celebrated her black culture even at the expense of her luxurious lifestyle as a white woman married to a white man. Hobbes research, along with the patterns shown in so many stories of racial passing seems to convey the notion that there is something unfeasible about passing. The theme that it is human nature to want to revert back to one’s true identity pervades all of these examples and shows that when disassociating from one’s race more is lost than what is gained.

Allyson Hobbes Ted Talk at Stanford University

1. Professor Allyson Hobbes said, "Historians and literary scholars have paid far more attention to what was gained by passing as white than to what was lost by rejecting a black racial identity," she said. "I want to show that passing is a deeply individualistic practice, but it is also a fundamentally social act with enormous social consequences. I want to show what was lost by walking away from a black racial identity." What did Clare lose by walking away from her racial identity? What was it that drew her back to the “black world?”
2. We have examined the theme of real versus fake identities thoroughly across different modernist texts. How does the practice of racial passing tie in with this theme? Can people ever truly alter their real identity or race?

Works Cited

@salon. "“Passing” and the American Dream." Saloncom RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

Nate Sloan The Humanities at Stanford. "Stanford Historian Re-examines Practice of Racial 'passing'" Stanford University. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

"William and Ellen Craft (1824-1900; 1826-1891)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

"'A Chosen Exile': Black People Passing In White America." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

Numbers, By The. "The Passing of Passing: A Peculiarly American Racial Tradition Approaches Irrelevance | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed." The Passing of Passing: A Peculiarly American Racial Tradition Approaches Irrelevance | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.