{"id":53804,"date":"2017-05-04T22:30:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T22:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=53804"},"modified":"2017-05-04T22:30:04","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T22:30:04","slug":"the-long-history-and-legacy-of-passing-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=53804","title":{"rendered":"The long history and legacy of passing in America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-nation\/wp\/2017\/05\/03\/the-long-history-and-legacy-of-passing-in-america\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>The long history and legacy of passing in America<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Washington Post<\/a><br \/>\n2017-05-03<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexlaughs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Alex Laughlin<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-nation\/wp\/2017\/05\/03\/the-long-history-and-legacy-of-passing-in-america\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/img.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-nation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2017\/05\/2Other-podcast-Ep3.jpg&amp;w=1484\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>(Illustration by Chris Kindred for The Washington Post)<\/small><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anita_Florence_Hemmings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anita Hemmings<\/a> was Vassar College\u2019s first African American graduate. But no one was supposed to know that she was black.<\/p>\n<p>A light-skinned mixed-race woman, Hemmings <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">passed as white<\/a> for most of her time at Vassar \u2014 until her roommate hired a private investigator to find out the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Hemmings graduated college in 1897 and continued passing as white for the rest of her life. Her story fits in with a broader history of African Americans passing in this country for personal safety, economic and social reasons.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/play.radiopublic.com\/95fc4111-af2c-44ea-b5c0-d443dd34ff62\/ep\/s1!13ad4e2e0b3e36f6815a088787b1adb175425f8f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Other: Mixed Race in America<\/a>,\u201d we learn the story of Hemmings, and we also learn about the legacy of passing that is inherited through generations of mixed-race Americans&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the podcast (00:19:12) <a href=\"https:\/\/play.radiopublic.com\/95fc4111-af2c-44ea-b5c0-d443dd34ff62\/ep\/s1!13ad4e2e0b3e36f6815a088787b1adb175425f8f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anita Hemmings was Vassar College\u2019s first African American graduate. But no one was supposed to know that she was black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,459,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[18762,9894,22218,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-53804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-alex-laughlin","tag-anita-florence-hemmings","tag-anita-hemmings","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53804","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=53804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53806,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53804\/revisions\/53806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}