DeGrange Family Reveals 1920s Racial Passing Split That Created 2 American Lives
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 15
DeGrange Family Reveals 1920s Racial Passing Split That Created 2 American Lives
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 15
A Chicago family meeting exposed a long-hidden split in the DeGrange lineage: two brothers from a New Orleans Black orphanage built separate family lines after one passed as white.
In the early 1920s, Edward DeGrange left New Orleans for Chicago and presented himself as white, while his brother George stayed behind in the segregated South and remained identified as Black.
That decision produced generations of descendants who grew up in different racial worlds—white in Chicago, Black in New Orleans—without sharing the full family history.
The account frames the DeGranges' story as a stark example of how skin tone, segregation and limited opportunity could divide one family into 2 distinct American identities.
How different are the families' lives today after a century on opposite sides of the color line?
Did the two brothers ever speak again after one chose a new racial identity?
As DNA tests expose family secrets, could your own racial identity be a historical fiction?