I’d come to the family history center in search of my grandfather Azemar Frederic. She appeared as nondescript and gray as the walls. With robotic precision, she meted out instructions on how to use the machines, where the microfilms were located and how to order original documents. At the room’s entrance sat a gray-haired woman, birdlike and benign. The windowless basement of the Buffalo Grove Family History Center had the feel of an underground bunker-fluorescent lights, cinder block walls, the musty scent of dampness. ![]() My experience was eye-openingĮxcerpted with permission from “ White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing” by Gail Lukasik. I went looking for information on my mother’s side of the family. “You’re the one with the slaves in your family” “You know the saying, ‘there’s a nigger in every woodshed.’” B means black.” She looked me up and down. Tags: Gail Lukasik, SalonĬomments Off on “Those cards have been copied. Gail Lukasik, ‘ “You’re the one with the slaves in your family”’, Salon, October 28, 2017. “Oh,” she finally said as if a light bulb had gone on in her head, “You’re the one with the slaves in your family.” It was evident to me it would be useless to continue this conversation with this bigoted God-lugging woman.įor a long second she stared through her glasses at me as if she was searching for a physical confirmation of my heritage. She seemed to think I agreed with her, that the one-drop rule was correct, leaving no doubt about my race and in her eyes my tainted blood. You know the saying, ‘nigger in the woodshed.’” “Yes, just one drop was all that was needed. She finished my thought for me as if confirming what she’d already said about race and blood. “In Louisiana,” I muttered, “you only had to have one drop of black blood to be considered black.” I felt assaulted with an experience I had no way to relate to and that I wasn’t certain I could even claim. I’d never heard of “nigger babies.” And if I had, I’d never be spewing the term out like a sharp slap.Īll I could muster in defense of a family whose race I’d just discovered and was unsure of was a fact that sounded like an excuse. I stood there, stunned, having no idea what the woman was talking about or how to respond. The word nigger kept reeling from her mouth like the rolls of microfilm whirling around me. We had those candies, you know, we called them ‘nigger babies.’” She said this with some glee in her voice as if we were sharing the same joke. She laughed, a tight pinched laugh full of malice. Can that be right?” I asked reticently, purposely not mentioning that the B was attached to my mother’s family. “I was wondering about the racial designation B in the 1900 Louisiana census. I got up from the machine and walked over to her. She was shuffling through index cards, keeping herself busy, and looking bored. How could Azemar be black in 1900 and white in 1930? I was familiar with the one-drop rule, a racial classification asserting that any person with even one ancestor of African ancestry was considered to be black no matter how far back in their family tree. ![]() When I found him, his race was no longer designated as B, now his racial designation was W. My grandfather’s family was not black.Īware of the time, I hurriedly searched for Azemar in the 1930 census. Then what did B mean if not black? And why would the census taker mark my grandfather and his family black? It had to be a mistake. Would the census taker use B for black in 1900? It didn’t seem likely. My mind didn’t quite take in what I was seeing. As I traced across the grid, I stopped on the letter B, perplexed by its meaning, then I scrolled up to find the category: Race.
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