Facing Prejudices

Jefferson writes repeatedly about how the prejudices Negroes faced in a variety of forms, from subtle to violent, changed the lives of people and eventually led to the quest for equal rights, but even that did not completely end prejudice against blacks.

Jefferson writes about the lives of Negroes around the time of the Civil War. They were forced to work for the Confederacy but when mulattoes offered to fight for the Confederacy, they were denied that opportunity. When Negroes escaped and showed up at Union camps, they were treated as “contraband.”

One of the earliest personal examples of this theme is seen in Jefferson's story about her paternal grandfather. He moved his family from Mississippi to California and bought a house in a modest neighborhood. The day the family moved in, someone burned a cross on their lawn. Jefferson's grandfather stood guard all that night to...