Since 1899, the 25th College Reunion class has been charged with selecting a chief marshal based on criteria that include success in ones field as well as service to both the University and the broader society. We read about the individuals who looked white but consciously chose not to pass who, when given the choice, opted for black life and community. She felt close to their pain; she almost grieved with them. There was a time when families got dressed up for holidays. In letters, unpublished family histories, personal papers, sociological journals, court cases, anthropological archives, literature, and film, she finds a coherent and enduring narrative of loss.. . He sits at the dining table after our holiday feast and stares off in the direction of the CD player, holding the remote in his hand. Events will be simultaneously live-streamed for those who cannot attend in person. Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. He is dressed in his finest clothes. Sometimes the passing Hobbs depicts is shown to be simply a practical choice what she calls tactical or strategic passing. In 19th-century America people passed as free first, white second. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago. It was a very unique place that began as a labor-organizing school and later became a center for civil rights and nonviolence activism that trained leaders and Civil Rights icons like Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, she said. As an alumna, her service to Harvard has included interviewing prospective students, coordinating the Harvard Black Alumni Societys San Francisco chapter, and working on the Harvard College Fund Gift Committee for her Class 15th Reunion. Then one day, when their eldest son made an off-the-cuff comment about a black student at his boarding school, Albert blurted out, Well, youre colored. It was almost as if Albert had grown weary after 20 years of carefully guarding their secret. An older boy would steal the jacket before its leather sleeves had the chance to crease. study predicted. Ad Choices. My grandmother had told me incredible stories about the migration and moving to Chicago and her impressions of the journey, Hobbs says. My gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate with my classmates, all in person, is boundless, and Im counting the days until we can all be together again on campus.. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. She wanted to stay in Chicago; she didnt want to give up all her friends and the only life shed ever known. But her mother was resolved. Those are the only fragments of that story that I have, Hobbs says. In June, she will lead the alumni parade as part ofHarvard Alumni Dayand host aspecial luncheon in Widener Library, where University leadership convene with a small group of alumni leaders and other dignitaries, including the Harvard Medalists and theAlumni Day featured speaker. Nowhere to Run: African American Travel in Twentieth-Century America explores the humiliation and indignities as well as the joy, exhilaration, and freedom that African American motorists experienced on the road and To Tell the Terrible, which examines the collective memory of sexual violence among generations of black women. Its the early nineteen-fifties, and he sits by the radio with his family, looking at the frosted Christmas tree with bubbly lights. Author of the 1923 modernist classic Cane, Toomer came from an illustrious, high-powered racially mixed family. But they get the gist of the main question of the song: Should old friends be forgotten? Staggered by this nightmarish new reality, I am grasping for explanations for why my parents can no longer live together. She has won teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Graves Award in the Humanities, and the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award. Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of United States History, the Director of African and African American Studies, and the Kleinheinz Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. She teaches courses on American identity; African American history; African American womens history; American road trips, migration, travel and mobility; and twentieth-century American history and culture. I thought their bond was indestructible. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. When my mother left our house in New Jersey, my father made two playlists for her with their favorite songs. She was a master of improvisation, the original mother of invention. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/parents-divorce.html. Ad Choices. Sometimes one whole side would be blank. She has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. The marriage is over now. Merrick Garland to speak at Commencement for Classes of 2020 and 2021, Happiness is not a destination Happiness is the way, Expanding our understanding of gut feelings, Gen Z, millennials need to be prepared to fight for change, Allyson Hobbs is elected Class of 1997s chief marshal, this years featured Harvard Alumni Day speaker, DNA shows poorly understood empire was multiethnic with strong female leadership. Hobbss cousin was 18 when she was sent by her mother to live in Los Angeles and pass as a white woman in the late 1930s. And our cousinand this was the part of the story that my aunt really underscoredwas that our cousin absolutely did not want to do this, Hobbs says. As my mom, my sisters and I drifted off to sleep, hed croon: They said someday youll find/All who love are blind/Oh-oh when your hearts on fire/You must realize/Smoke gets in your eyes.. This is a different type of grief. My father cant go back to the Chicago of the nineteen-fifties. She is the recipient of Stanfords highest teaching prize. Stop walking like an old man, she scolded him. This history of passing explores the possibilities, challenges, and losses that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It is also to be perpetually aware of both the primacy of race and the bankruptcy of the race idea, as Allyson Hobbs, an assistant professor of history at Stanford University, puts it in her incisive new cultural history, A Chosen Exile., Hobbs is interested in the stories of individuals who chose to cross the color line black to white from the late 1800s up through the 1950s. Im bleeding out. Du Boiss double consciousness that sense of being in two places at the same time. But such was life for my father, growing up in Chicago back then. It must be terrifying for them. He wears a light-blue cashmere V-neck sweater over a neat button-down shirt and brown corduroy pants, classic gifts for Dad from previous Christmastimes. But we can follow the poignant instructions offered in Auld Lang Syne: to remember the past, the stories, the scenes, the settings, the friendships, and the family. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of American history and the director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University. Hobbs has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford. She is currently writingtwo books,Far from Sanctuary: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights, which examinesthe road trip through the lens of 20th-century African American motorists,and To Tell the Terrible, which explores the collective memory of sexual violence among generations of Black women. Allyson Hobbs, AM02, PhD09. I thought, Ive really got to write about the people who were left behind, she says. A Chosen Exilewon the Organization of American Historians Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in American history and the Lawrence Levine Prize for best book in American cultural history. A Chosen Exile won the Organization of American Historians Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in American history and the Lawrence Levine Prize for best book in American cultural history. He remained close to the other Harlans, one of whom was Justice John Marshall Harlan the great dissenter of the Supreme Court who argued on behalf of equal rights under the law in Plessy v. Ferguson. Sarah Jane, a character in Douglas Sirks 1959 remake of the film Imitation of Life, denies her black mother in her attempt to be seen as white. Alumni will be able to reconnect in person for Harvard Alumni Day, reunions, and other alumni programs across the campus, after the pandemic kept many from visiting for two consecutive years. Its lacerations came without warning. This collaboration never fails to fill me with joy., She called writing her thesis about the Highlander Folk School, nestled in the mountains of Tennessee, transformative. He laughs as he describes the suit that he wore, with a skinny tie, when they were first married, my mothers fancy dresses, and the special holiday outfits purchased for my older sisters and brother. The study found that 18 years after the death of a child, bereaved parents were more likely to have experienced a depressive episode and marital disruption than other parents. I should be able to stanch the wound, but I cant. I wish I could hear the sounds of the crackling radio and join him, my aunt, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother around the dining table or next to the frosted Christmas tree. His family did not have much money, but, as he would later tell us with a smile, We didnt know we were poor. His grandmother cleaned the homes of white families and often came back to the apartment with stories of what the white folks do. Setting the Christmas table with her best china, she would turn to my father and my aunt and say, with satisfaction, This is the way the white folks do it. The world of the white folks was just as remote geographically as it was in imagination and in experience. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to pass out and embrace a black identity. The authors father in 1943, at age three. Remember that, Joyce? he asks my mother. Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of history and director of African and African-American studies at Stanford. Like A Chosen Exile, it also tells a story about identity, the uncomfortable territory of in-between, about leaving home and self behind and setting out into something unknown. I wonder if my parents marriage would have survived if my sister Sharon hadnt died from breast cancer at 31 in 1998. Biomolecular archaeology reveals a fuller picture of the nomadic Xiongnu. I cling to my sister and childhood friends who remember the past. Joe Christmas, the tormented drifter in William Faulkners Light in August, considers his blackness evidence of original sin (a.k.a. I am undone, untethered, dysfunctional. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Many of them, Hobbs found, reading his papers, couldnt do it. I bought a flocked Christmas tree, just like the ones that my grandmother chose when my father was growing up. Photo by Jessica Tampas Photography Date March 31, 2022 Now Im mourning people who are still alive. Their stately home served as the community hub, and there they raised their four children, who believed they were white. One of the most interesting figures in the book is the novelist and poet Jean Toomer. One story Hobbs tells is of Elsie Roxborough, a socialite who briefly dated Joe Louis and Langston Hughes, and who in 1937, after graduating from the University of Michigan, began passing as white to become a model. Students' reflections on Allyson Hobbs' seminar, "On the Road: A History of Travel in Twentieth Century America," AMSTUD 109Q, The Great Migration, C-SPAN, "Lectures in History,"May 10, 2011. And well take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. PROVO, Utah (Mar. And her mother wanted her to come home right away. Building 200, Room 113 miscegenation) and ends up castrated and murdered. She has won teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Graves Award in the Humanities, and the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award. edited by Grossman, J. R., Keating, A. D., Reiff, L. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Office of VP for University Human Resources, Office of Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer, Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century, Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century Part II, Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing. She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford. Subscribe to our Weekly eNewsletterUpcoming EventsRecent News, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 360 Following a tradition that goes back more than 120 years, Hobbs was elected by her classmates andwill play a number of ceremonial roles in celebration of their 25th reunion. Raising Freedom's Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future after Slavery (Book Review), Searching for a New Soul in Harlem: Allyson Hobbs on Racial Passing and Racial Ambiguity during the Harlem Renaissance, Conclusion: A Paradigm Shift in Fits and Starts. I knew separate holidays would be unbearable, so I planned a holiday party that I rationalized as our familys Christmas. The arrival of these two ostensibly white women allowed Elsie to remain white, even in death, Hobbs writes. She plans to shed light on their journey by looking at the places where African Americans ate, slept, danced, where they stopped for gas or groceries or a hair cut or a bathroom break. It won two prizes from the Organization of American Historians, the Frederick Jackson Turner Award for the best first book in American history and the Lawrence W. Levine Award for the best book in American cultural history, as well as other honors. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor.. Its a story weve of course read and seen before in fictional accounts numerous novels and films that have generally portrayed mixed-race characters in the sorriest of terms. I didnt have the time or the instinct to soften or parry the blow. ever waiting to be found just below the surface.. Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of United States History, the Director of African and African American Studies, and the Kleinheinz Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. I wantedto get rid of my possessions, because possessions stood between me and death. She committed suicide in 1949. When Hobbs joined Harvards Black Student Association, she was able to connect to the Black community at Harvard socially and intellectually.. She has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in history and as a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. Lombardo brought in the new year with the song for almost fifty years, from the stock market crash in 1929 to his last performance, during the countrys bicentennial, in 1976. She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. I wanted to make Harvard a welcoming place for all first-years, especially those who might otherwise have felt intimidated or apprehensive about starting their College experience, she said. The spectacular collapse of my parents marriage has been too much for me. Allyson Hobbs 97, whose award-winning writing, scholarship, and teaching tackle the history and lasting impact of race in the U.S., will serve as this years chief marshal of alumni, the Harvard Alumni Association announced today. From left: a portrait; Jean Toomer Papers: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; The Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library. Their four children grew up believing they were white. While the song absorbs my father, plates are cleared, dishes are washed, Uno cards are located, and new rules for the game are debated. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and . Her sister had died from breast cancer when Hobbs was 22. She has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. His life was not an easy one. And so the matter was decided. The labor that the farm required seemed to leave Burns with a heart condition that afflicted him later in life. They cry as if these were their own parents. Hobbss father remembers visiting the familys house once as a child and noticing how light skinned they all were, the parents and the children, and shethis cousinwas the most light skinned. Some years later, long after the phone call and the fathers death, one of the brothers died, and Hobbss father went to the funeral. Stanford, CA 94305Phone:(650) 736-6790Fax:(650) 723-8528Campus Map, Ph.D., University of Chicago, with distinction B.A., Harvard University, magna cum laude, Allyson Hobbs is an Associate Professor of United States History, the Director of African and African American Studies, and the Kleinheinz Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. And the answer, of course, is no, the past must be remembered. One year, my grandmother splurged and bought my father a University of Chicago jacket for Christmas. She was honored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP with a Freedom Fighter Award. She is a contributing writer toThe New Yorker.comand a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. Hobbs earned her Ph.D. in American history from the University of Chicago. During the 19th century, African Americans sometimes passed as white in order to pass as free, using their light complexions to elude slaveholders and slave hunters. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of ones birthright. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Lombardo died in 1977. Stanford Historian Allyson Hobbs has written a history of racial passing in America, "A Chosen Exile." "There's probably a time when we all engaged in some form of passing," she said. But the crevice opened wider when she read the papers of sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, PhD31. Many of the songs are from the road trip playlists. And with that Albert and Thyra began the journey toward blackness again. Rich Murray, AB94, finds the stuff of life for beloved TV characters. Ive been perseverating over my parents mortality for years. If I close my eyes, I am back in the car, and my head is resting on one of my sisters shoulders. On road trips to see relatives in Chicago or to our favorite summer vacation spot, my dad would entertain himself by singing along with the most exaggerated intonations to the hits of the Commodores, the OJays and the Platters. She has won numerous teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Graves Award in the Humanities, and the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award. Listen to these stories, maybe you can imagine. Allyson Hobbs | Department of History - Stanford University But the cousin, of course, wasnt there. That was the bombshell, the offhand remark that plunged historian Allyson Hobbs, AM'02, PhD'09, into a 12-year odyssey to understand racial passing in Americathe triumphs and possibilities, secrets and sorrows, of African Americans who crossed the color line and lived as white. Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of history and director of African and African-American studies at Stanford. "Perhaps . The moment when I was handed the keys to Highlanders archive was the moment when I knew I wanted to be a historian., Hobbs was extremely active outside the classroom as well, including participating in the Crimson Key Society and the First-Year Outdoor Program. The Root named A Chosen Exile as one of the Best 15 Nonfiction Books by Black Authors in 2014., View details for DOI 10.1017/S1537781419000690, View details for Web of Science ID 000529084900011, View details for Web of Science ID 000431473400019, View details for Web of Science ID 000299143500019, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Stanford University (2008 - Present), AAAS/CCSRE Faculty Research Fellow, Stanford University (2014 - 2015), Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ford Foundation (2013 - 2014), Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University (2013), Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, Stanford University (2013), The Graves Award, Humanities, Stanford University (2012), Clayman Institute for Gender Research Fellowship, Stanford University (2011 - 2012), Diversity Dissertation Fellowship Alternate, Ford Foundation (2011), CCSRE Junior Faculty Development Program, Stanford University (2010), Hoefer Faculty Mentor Prize, Stanford University (2010), St. Clair Drake Teaching Award, Stanford University (2010), Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Department of History, Stanford University (2007 - 2008), Diversity Dissertation Fellowship, Ford Foundation (2007), Von Holst Prize, Lectureship in History, University of Chicago (2006), Trustee Fellowship, University of Chicago (2000 - 2006), Advisory Committee Member, African and African American Studies, Committe-in-Charge Member, American Studies Program, Core Affiliated Faculty, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Researcher, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Faculty Affiliate, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Faculty Advisor, Masters in Liberal Arts Program, Member, Transnational, International, and Global History Initiative, Department of History Urban Studies, Advisory Board, Spatial Legacy Academy, East Palo Alto, CA, Faculty Advisor, Mellon-Mays (2010 - Present), Pre-Major Advisor, Department of History, Stanford University (2010 - 2011), Expert Reviewer, Bedford/St. She gave a TEDx talk at Stanford, she has appeared on C-Span, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and her work has been featured on cnn.com, slate.com, and in the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.Allysons first book, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, published by Harvard University Press in October 2014, examines the phenomenon of racial passing in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present. Crossed lines | The University of Chicago Magazine I berate myself for such a nave hope. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Her plan in part is to follow the Green Book. For her, rather, passing is an opportunity to consider deeper questions. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile. And yet, as Hobbs reminds us, hybrid identities are still racial identities, and as our present moment unfolds, we are often left to wonder if we have seen this movie before., https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/books/review/a-chosen-exile-by-allyson-hobbs.html. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. That loss has always been a major, major part of my adult life. As she waded deeper into her research and the aching narratives found there, she began to identify with the people she read about. I tell new friends, I wish you could have known my parents before. Look at these pictures look at their high school prom picture maybe you can understand. The man whom my mom had loved since she was a teenager was now slower, unsteady and aging. I am mourning a family and people who are still alive. Allyson Hobbs is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Stanford University. One of the loved ones Hobbs lost helped spark her current book project, a study of the Great Migration through the experiences of travelers heading north through a segregated country. (now Secretary of Commerce) Gina M. Raimondo 93. You know, we have that in our own family too. That was the bombshell, the offhand remark that plunged historian Allyson Hobbs, AM02, PhD09, into a 12-year odyssey to understand racial passing in Americathe triumphs and possibilities, secrets and sorrows, of African Americans who crossed the color line and lived as white. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. My sister died one year after my future husband and I graduated from college. When his father died, his farm was on the brink of failure, and Burns and his brother moved the family to a new farm in an effort to stay afloat. She is a contributing writer to, and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. But I knew the sources were out there, because I knew there were stories like the one about this distant cousin of ours., Hobbs, who teaches American history at Stanford University, started by reading literature and going through the correspondence of Harlem Renaissance writers like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen, picking out the gossip they exchanged about themselves and their acquaintances passing for white. As historian Allyson Hobbs explains in A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, scholars have traditionally paid far more attention to what was gained by passing as white than . Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of American history and the director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University, and the author of " A Chosen Exile: A History of. Married to Thyra in 1924, Albert graduated from medical school but couldnt get a job as a black doctor, and passed as white in order to gain entry to a reputable hospital. 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