Review: Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South

Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South by Melton A. McLaurin
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Melton McLaurin was a young white boy living in Wade, North Carolina in the 50s just prior to the Civil Rights movement. Wade is a small rural town that was very segregated during McLaurin's youth, with a specific mindset for both blacks and whites. His granddaddy ran the general store where Melton worked when he wasn't in school. McLaurin talked with everyone that came into the store and knew everyone well. It was these encounters that began to shape the impressions he had about racism. His daddy, grandaddy, and their cronies were segregationists. They were mostly kind to the blacks in town, but there were obvious racist views and separation between the two races. As young Melton grew older, though, he started questioning this ideology. Whites and blacks living in the same town, separated by color with distinctly different histories that intertwined.

In this book, Melton describes some of the stories of his youth about the people that helped shaped his ideas on the divisions between the races and the ones that helped unravel those views. He gets to know the blacks in town and forms a bond with many of them. As Melton progressed in his views, the tiny town of Wade began to change as well, slowly, but change did occur.

This is a side of the southern race story that is not often told. It is the view of a young, impressionable child who is taught to be a racist, but questions this philosophy. The book proves the point that racism is learned and passed through future generations until it is challenged and rejected. Sadly, there are many towns in the rural south that have not challenged these views but they are dwindling in numbers. This book is a reminder of how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

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