Book Review: Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black

Williams, now the dean of the Ohio State University College of Law, had a childhood that would have wrecked an ordinary mortal; it came close to destroying his younger brother Mike. Williams seems never to have lost his energy and determination to succeed through all the grim and harried years of his youth. His childhood is a constant story of mistreatment, overwork, and betrayal. Gritty poverty and the ensuing hunger and desperation overwhelm him time after time. A boy with very white skin living with black relatives, Williams was the target of rejection from both races. In spite of this, Williams prevailed.

Central to the success of this book is the author’s detachment: he tells his story as it happens with great drama, humor, and understanding of the people involved but without entering into analysis of what each tumultuous event was doing to his psyche. Despite beatings, being abandoned, being cheated of money, of chances to succeed, and of love, Williams had a strong attachment to his father. Gregory Williams is able to make his disreputable but gregarious alcoholic father come into focus as a man with a great deal of promise, writing talent, political savvy, and a sense of timing with history. Williams does not bewail his father’s failure. He just attributes it to the inevitable vicissitudes of drink and uproarious living. The elder Williams is alive in these pages, in a strangely backhanded tribute to what might have been.

Gregory Williams looks back at this ragged, chaotic childhood to find in it the reasons for his perseverance and success. He says, "In spite of all of the pain and grief of my early years, I am grateful to have been able to view the world from a place few men or women have stood… I am bound to live out my life in the middle of our society and hope that I can be a bridge between races, shouldering the heavy burden that almost destroyed my youth."

What drove Williams to his eventual success? He says that every time he got discouraged, he would recall the first few months living with his relatives as an outsider. "I reminded myself that if I could make it through those days, all other obstacles could be overcome." He pushed on, to a master’s, a law degree, then a doctorate. It was never easy, and at the height of his discouragement, he received a letter from Miss Dora, who had raised him, saying: "But I know you are trying to go to school and trying to work and be a lawyer and I hope I will live to see you make it." He knew he had to persevere.

This is the pattern of the genre, then. A person with seemingly insurmountable odds against him (or her) becomes convinced that an education is his salvation. There is usually a mentor, an older person who believes in him and encourages him. There is usually a little luck along the way. But most of all, there is a burning determination in the heart of the protagonist that he or she will survive, persevere, and succeed. Williams has written an outstanding testament to the power of a persevering heart.