{"id":4255,"date":"2013-04-12T15:32:08","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T15:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2013-04-12T15:33:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T15:33:55","slug":"those-richardsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=4255","title":{"rendered":"Those Richardsons…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…When Jim and Edna married and settled into the world of Washington County<\/a> [in 1914], it already had an almost century-old tradition of interracial marriage that led to a large community of mixed-race people who, though a known presence in the county, lived apart from blacks and whites nestled in their own world and culture.<\/strong>\u00a0 Unlike the rest of Alabama<\/a>, Washington\u00a0 County, along with Mobile<\/a>, maintained three separate school systems: one for whites, one for blacks and one for \u201cthose of racially mixed heritage.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Yet, to most white people in Washington County, and some blacks, Jim and Edna Richardson and their children were neither black nor white; they were just known as \u201cthose Richardsons.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 The couple refused the local custom of designating their children as racially mixed.\u00a0 And in spite of the children’s racial designation as white on their birth certificates, they also refused to identify themselves as white in spite of their outward appearance.\u00a0 Instead, the family existed as an entity unto themselves, living as a black family that moved between the black and white worlds, rather than sealing themselves into the boxes that local people wanted to fit them in.\u00a0 Perhaps that stand played a role in denying them a place in local history.\u00a0 Although \u201cthose Richardsons\u201d may not be present in the annals of local history, the active oral tradition of the American South has kept their life and times alive among the people…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eubanks, W. Ralph, The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interacial Family in the American South<\/a><\/em>. (New York: HarpersCollins. 2009) 11 & 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…When Jim and Edna married and settled into the world of Washington County [in 1914], it already had an almost century-old tradition of interracial marriage that led to a large community of mixed-race people who, though a known presence in the county, lived apart from blacks and whites nestled in their own world and culture.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}