“This is the story of how we lived, and coming to grips with the reality that is.”

Tarnished Legacy begins at the turn of the new millennium as the author begins to question the pain and secrecy surrounding the deaths of her maternal and paternal ancestors. What proves most troubling is her attempt to understand why all of her ancestors are buried in a poor Colored cemetery on the edge of the City of Philadelphia in unmarked graves. What social and personal shame marked the end of their lives? The story travels back to the late 19th/early 20th century and explores the social conditions which resulted in the birth of the first daughter of a concubine and the resulting social pressures, and privileges, that accompanied the Black community’s “high yellow class.” In so doing, it helps to shed light on the politics of race and social intercourse. Tarnished Legacy provides insightful revelations as to how folklore, history, humor and culturally embellished spiritual practices and beliefs are used as a form of social resistance from a racially oppressive social environment. Moreover, it details the author’s struggle to come to grips with the social ramifications of race, poverty, class and color-caste at the beginning of her young existence and throughout her successful transition into a meaningful life. This remarkably engaging, well-written family memoir is a factually-based, historical account of four generations of family life in twentieth century Black America.

Dr. Patricia Reid-Merritt is the Distinguished Professor of Social Work and Africana Studies at Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey. A community-oriented, activist scholar, she is the Founder/Artistic Director of Afro-One Dance, Drama and Drum Theatre, Inc., a community-based, nonprofit, performing and cultural arts school and company in Mount Laurel/Willingboro, New Jersey. Dr. Reid-Merritt is the author of Race in America: How a Pseudoscientific Concept Shaped Human Interaction (CLIO, 2017); Righteous Self-Determination: The Black Social Work Movement in America (Black Classic Press, 2010); Sister Wisdom: Seven Pathways to a Satisfying Life for Soulful Black Women (John Wiley & Sons, 2002); and, the national Blackboard best-seller, Sister Power: How Phenomenal Black Women Are Rising to the Top (John Wiley & Sons, 1996).