A profoundly moving and deeply personal memoir by the co-host of
National Public Radio’s flagship program All Things
Considered.
While exploring the hidden conversation on race unfolding
throughout America in the wake of President Obama’s election,
Michele Norris discovered that there were painful secrets within
her own family that had been willfully withheld. These
revelations—from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police
officer to her maternal grandmother’s job as an itinerant Aunt
Jemima in the Midwest—inspired a bracing journey into her family’s
past, from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots
in the Deep South.
The result is a rich and extraordinary family memoir—filled with
stories that elegantly explore the power of silence and
secrets—that boldly examines racial legacy and what it means to be
an American.