Divided To the Vein

Born of a favored son of Chicago's aspiring black bourgeoisie and the idealistic daughter of white Southeast Missouri farmers, Scott Minerbrook grew up in the 1950s and '60s in a world characterized by both the highest ideals of racial integration and the grim realities of racial separatism and willful ignorance. In his late thirties, Minerbrook set out to claim the white grandparents who had refused to recognize his existence. Despite their determination to "keep things just as they are," he knew that bringing down the daunting barrier called race was essential to his humanity, and to theirs. In the course of his journey, Minerbrook takes a hard look at his upbringing and at the lives of his parents and considers how their habits of mind have touched his. Lyrically written, painfully honest, psychologically and socially astute, Minerbrook's memoir challenges all of us to overcome the cult of race and to move beyond it.