{"id":63742,"date":"2022-05-09T02:34:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T02:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63742"},"modified":"2022-05-09T03:07:51","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T03:07:51","slug":"lost-boundaries-how-a-unh-student-inspired-one-of-americas-first-race-films-and-why-were-still-talking-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63742","title":{"rendered":"Lost Boundaries: How a UNH student inspired one of America\u2019s first \u201crace films\u201d and why we\u2019re still talking about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost Boundaries: How a UNH student inspired one of America\u2019s first \u201crace films\u201d and why we\u2019re still talking about it<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

New Hampshire Magazine<\/a>
\n2022-04-12<\/p>\n

J. Dennis Robinson<\/strong><\/a>
\nPortsmouth, New Hampshire<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>
A Johnston family portrait. From left to right, standing: Albert Sr.<\/a> and Albert Jr. From left to right, seated: Thyra<\/a>, Paul, Ann and Donald.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How a UNH student inspired one of America\u2019s first \u201crace films\u201d and why we\u2019re still talking about it<\/em><\/p>\n

Albert Johnston Jr. was 16 when he found out he was Black. His fair-skinned African American parents had been \u201cpassing\u201d as white<\/a>, they told him, since moving from Chicago<\/a> to rural Gorham, New Hampshire<\/a>, and later to Keene<\/a>. His father had been the town\u2019s country doctor with 2,500 white patients. He was an active member of the school board, the Masons<\/a> and the Rotary<\/a>. His mother Thyra<\/a> was a two-time president of the Gorham Women\u2019s Club and active in the Congregational Church.<\/p>\n

Born in 1925, growing up skiing the White Mountains<\/a>, Albert had only a single Black acquaintance in high school. In an era of widespread racial segregation and discrimination, he felt a seismic shift as he adapted from a dark-skinned Caucasian to a light-skinned Negro. Formerly gregarious, he drew inward. He attended and then dropped out of Dartmouth College<\/a>. He enlisted and left the Navy, talked of suicide, battled with his parents, and spent time in a psychiatric ward.<\/p>\n

Then Albert took a road trip. Decades before Ken Kesey<\/a> and \u201cEasy Rider<\/a>,\u201d with only a few dollars in their pockets, Albert and an old school chum named Walt hitch-hiked and hopped freight trains from New Hampshire to California<\/a>. For Albert, it was a spiritual journey into the homes of his long-lost African American relatives and into the roots of Black culture. For Walt, who was white, it was a great adventure with a good friend. After odd jobs, a love affair and a stint at the University of California in Los Angeles<\/a>, Albert found his way home. Renewed and focused, he enrolled in the well-regarded music program at the University of New Hampshire<\/a> in Durham<\/a>. And there in a UNH college lounge in front of 20 fellow students, Albert (Class of \u201949) finally laid his burden down. During a seminar on the \u201crace problem\u201d in America<\/a>, the topic turned to \u201ccross-bred\u201d people. He could offer some insight on that topic, Albert told his classmates, because he, himself, was a Negro. The room got very still, he later recalled, like the sudden silence after the climax of a concerto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not tell everybody?\u201d Albert said. \u201cWhy carry a lie around all your life?\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How a UNH student inspired one of America\u2019s first \u201crace films\u201d and why we\u2019re still talking about it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8413,459,8,6462,20],"tags":[33048,16585,23610,33464,12959,33465,33466,33467,23605,23598,5755,33463,33470,16589,3715],"class_list":["post-63742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-communications","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-albert-c-johnston","tag-albert-johnston","tag-albert-johnston-jr","tag-albert-johnston-sr","tag-darryl-f-zanuck","tag-gorham","tag-keene","tag-lawrence-benaquist","tag-louis-de-rochemont","tag-mel-ferrer","tag-new-hampshire","tag-new-hampshire-magazine","tag-readers-digest","tag-thyra-johnston","tag-university-of-new-hampshire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63742","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=63742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63751,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63742\/revisions\/63751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}