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Martha S. Jones explores racial identity by looking at her own family history

FILE: Author of "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir," Martha S. Jones pictured at The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles California.
Image provided by Martha S. Jones
Author of "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir," Martha S. Jones pictured at The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.

Historian Martha S. Jones was looking through a book one day when she found a section mentioning her grandfather. It referred to her grandfather as white. But in reality, her grandfather’s father was a free man of color, and his mother was born enslaved. This wasn’t the first time her family’s racial identity was questioned, so she started writing down her version of her family’s history. It's that history, and her family's relationship to racial identity, that she explores in her new book The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.

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Special thanks to our interns Angelica Gajewski and Kathy Wang.

Disrupted is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

Kevin Chang Barnum is a producer for Connecticut Public Radio’s weekly show Disrupted. Kevin grew up in Connecticut and started his radio work at his graduate university’s radio station, KUCI. He has also worked for HRN, a network of food and beverage podcasts.
Dr. Khalilah L. Brown-Dean is an award-winning scholar at Wesleyan University, author, and host of 'Disrupted' on Connecticut Public.
Robyn Doyon-Aitken is the Deputy Director of Audio Storytelling and Talk Shows
Meg Dalton is the director of audio storytelling and talk shows for Connecticut Public where she oversees the station’s talk shows and podcasts, including the limited series 'In Absentia'.
Meg Fitzgerald is the senior manager of projects and radio programming.

Funding provided by:
The Connecticut Office of Film, Television and Digital Media

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