The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South

by W. Ralph Eubanks

Overview

A story of one family's love and courage in the Jim Crow-era Deep South In defiance of his middle-class landowning family, a young white man named James Morgan Richardson married a light-skinned black woman, Edna Howell. It was 1914 in south Alabama. Together they eventually built a house at the dead end of a road in a rural black community. If you came there to do the Richardson family harm, you faced Jim Richardson's rule of justice, represented by a double-barreled shotgun. And at the end of the road, there was only one way out. The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South examines how one pioneering interracial couple developed a love and a racial identity that carried them defiantly through the Jim Crow years. Through interviews and oral history collected from both sides of the Richardson family's racial divide, as well as archival research, The House at the End of the Road probes into the core of the issue of race in early twentieth-century America. At the same time, it takes the lessons of the past and places them under the scrutiny of a contemporary world adjusted to DNA ancestry testing, a more flexible sense of racial and ethnic identity, and a tolerance and acceptance of the racial ambiguity that laws prohibiting Jim and Edna Richardson's marriage sought to eliminate. Jim and Edna Richardson were Ralph Eubanks's grandparents. Now, decades after interracial marriage became legal, Eubanks takes readers on a journey back to his grandparents' house at the end of the road where he reconstructs their life and times and seeks lessons for America's multiracial future. W. Ralph Eubanks, Washington, D.C., is the author of the memoir Ever Is a Long Time, which Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently director of publishing at the Library of Congress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617030819
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	09/07/2011
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	129,068
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

W. Ralph Eubanks, Washington, D.C., is the author of the memoir Ever Is a Long Time, which Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently director of publishing at the Library of Congress.

What People are Saying About This

K. Anthony Appiah

Eubanks’s grandparents created an interracial family in rural Alabama nearly a century ago. Now he has taken his family’s story and used it to explore our changing AMerican ideas about what to make of our ancestries. His work should inspire all of us to think anew about our country.

David Levering Lewis

“Ralph Eubanks’s Mississippi detective story wrapped in a memoir is a remarkable journey back to the civil rights future. This wistful little book holds a significance as rich as Delta loam.”

Dave Isay

Eubanks pieces together this intricate story across three generations of his family, and in turn sheds powerful new light on the complex story of race and identity in these United States. A pleasure to read, a poignant American story not to be missed.

Steve Yarbrough

Eubanks writes with a novelist’s sense of story and a poet’s eye for language and detail. Most important, though, he writes with sensitivity, understanding, and Socratic wisdom. This is not just an important book for these timse—it’s a book for all time.

Editorial Reviews

The first and most basic lesson of genealogy is to talk to your family. Eubanks (Ever Is a Long Time) interviewed his mother to start to learn about his grandparents, Edna and Jim Richardson, an interracial couple who married, lived together, and raised a family in rural Alabama in the first years of the 20th century. While Eubanks begins by seeking his grandparents' motivations and their methods for subverting societal norms, his memoir eventually broadens to a thoughtful (though still personal) exploration of the construction of race and racial identity, particularly within families that cross the color line. He considers thought-provoking questions like the potential for communication between black and white family members. Eubanks concludes, among other things, that while his own generation threw off the yoke of segregation partly by forging a proud black self-identity, his children seem to see race as a tangible but uninteresting social fact—and to them, race is far less compelling than questions of justice and fairness. VERDICT Highly recommended, especially for memoir readers or patrons interested in thoughtful and personal considerations of race.—Emily-Jane Dawson, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR

Library Journal

Eubanks pieces together this intricate story across three generations of his family, and in turn sheds powerful new light on the complex story of race and identity in these United States. A pleasure to read, a poignant American story not to be missed. — Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps

Eubanks’s grandparents created an interracial family in rural Alabama nearly a century ago. Now he has taken his family’s story and used it to explore our changing AMerican ideas about what to make of our ancestries. His work should inspire all of us to think anew about our country. — K. Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University

Eubanks writes with a novelist’s sense of story and a poet’s eye for language and detail. Most important, though, he writes with sensitivity, understanding, and Socratic wisdom. This is not just an important book for these timse—it’s a book for all time. — Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War

PRAISE FOR EVER IS A LONG TIME: “A gift to everyone who reads it, a book that is at once a touching family memoir and an attempt—successful—to come to terms with the author’s past.... It is, in all respects, an exemplary and admirable piece of work.” — Washington Post

“Compelling...by turns a charming remembrance of a rural childhood and a chilling reminder of racism’s legacy.” — BookPage

“Eubank’s memoir is written in clear, accessible prose...his straightforward manner makes the emotional issues and difficult memories all the more poignant.” — The Sun Herald

“Ralph Eubanks’s Mississippi detective story wrapped in a memoir is a remarkable journey back to the civil rights future. This wistful little book holds a significance as rich as Delta loam.” — David Levering Lewis, author of WEB DU BOIS: The Fight for Equality and the American Century

From the Publisher

Eubanks pieces together this intricate story across three generations of his family, and in turn sheds powerful new light on the complex story of race and identity in these United States. A pleasure to read, a poignant American story not to be missed.

Dave Isay

Eubank’s memoir is written in clear, accessible prose...his straightforward manner makes the emotional issues and difficult memories all the more poignant.

The Sun Herald

PRAISE FOR EVER IS A LONG TIME: “A gift to everyone who reads it, a book that is at once a touching family memoir and an attempt—successful—to come to terms with the author’s past.... It is, in all respects, an exemplary and admirable piece of work.

Washington Post

Ralph Eubanks’s Mississippi detective story wrapped in a memoir is a remarkable journey back to the civil rights future. This wistful little book holds a significance as rich as Delta loam.

David Levering Lewis

Eubanks’s grandparents created an interracial family in rural Alabama nearly a century ago. Now he has taken his family’s story and used it to explore our changing AMerican ideas about what to make of our ancestries. His work should inspire all of us to think anew about our country.

K. Anthony Appiah

Eubanks writes with a novelist’s sense of story and a poet’s eye for language and detail. Most important, though, he writes with sensitivity, understanding, and Socratic wisdom. This is not just an important book for these timse—it’s a book for all time.

Steve Yarbrough

Compelling...by turns a charming remembrance of a rural childhood and a chilling reminder of racism’s legacy.

BookPage

PRAISE FOR EVER IS A LONG TIME: “A gift to everyone who reads it, a book that is at once a touching family memoir and an attempt—successful—to come to terms with the author’s past.... It is, in all respects, an exemplary and admirable piece of work.

Washington Post