Life on the Color Line

Life On The Color Line This is an elegantly written memoir about the life of Greg Williams and his younger brother Mike.The boys live in Virginia with their parents who ran a rowdy bar for military people associated with the bases in Norfolk. Their father was a temperamental, brilliant, exceedingly charming, devious alcoholic. When his fathers marriage and business came apart in Virginia, Greg was about 8 years old, and Mike a bit younger. Their …

…amazing life experiences. The author, who looked white himself, recounts many experiences in Muncie of being forcefully coached to "stay in his place" as a black person. The result is that the reader thinks "Am I glad I don't live in Muncie!" and then immediately realizes that many towns may be like Muncie, but not every town has the eloquent storyteller who has seen both sides and can reveal the ugly underbelly of racism firsthand.