The Trouble of Color

An American Family Memoir

You must sign in to see if this title is available for request. Sign In or Register Now
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Mar 04 2025 | Archive Date Mar 04 2025

Talking about this book? Use #TheTroubleofColor #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!


Description

An “intimate and searching” (Natasha Trethewey, New York Times–bestselling author of Memorial Drive) memoir of family, color, and being Black, white, and other in America, from “one of our country’s greatest historians” (Clint Smith, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of How the Word is Passed)

Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into college, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones’s right to speak. Suspicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair, he confronted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: “Who do you think you are?”

Now a prizewinning scholar of Black history, Jones delves into her family’s past for answers. In every generation since her great-great-great-grandmother survived enslavement to raise a free family, color determined her ancestors’ lives. But the color line was shifting and jagged, not fixed and straight. Some backed away from it, others skipped along it, and others still were cut deep by its sharp teeth. 

Journeying across centuries, from rural Kentucky and small-town North Carolina to New York City and its suburbs, The Trouble of Color is a lyrical, deeply felt meditation on the most fundamental matters of identity, belonging, and family.
An “intimate and searching” (Natasha Trethewey, New York Times–bestselling author of Memorial Drive) memoir of family, color, and being Black, white, and other in America, from “one of our country’s...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781541601000
PRICE $30.00 (USD)
PAGES 320

Available on NetGalley

NetGalley Shelf App (EPUB)
Send to Kindle (EPUB)
Download (EPUB)