“I was a black woman according to my family, society’s one-drop rule and my birth certificate. It was culturally and legally ridiculous to wonder if I wasn’t. Yet my biological ancestry counted for absolutely nothing. My beloved mother was white.”

Former Andover resident, E. Dolores Johnson discusses her new book, Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets and Love, with author, Grace Talusan. It's a multi-generational memoir that reveals America's changing attitudes toward race mixing, discovered through the courageous journeys of her family’s women. Johnson's parents fled to Buffalo from Indianapolis so they could marry without violating Indiana's anti-miscegenation laws. Her father was black and her mother was white. Johnson details her journey unearthing the secrets of her family, and in so doing, wrestles with identity, class, and education, aiming a potent lens at what it means to be biracial and shining more light on the racism that continues to sicken this country to this day.

Presented in collaboration with Burlington Public Library, Memorial Hall Library, Stevens Memorial Library and Tewksbury Public Library, Libraries Working Towards Social Justice.