How does a family broken by the bizarre rules of racism heal itself after three generations apart? [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/us/degrange-family-history-race.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jFA.k0X1.qxPCscBJOfZK&smid=tw-share

I pushed through the glass door and asked the hostess if the DeGrange party had arrived. Yes, she said, they are seated. I scanned the room, and my eyes locked on three women whose eyes were already locked on me.

It was a fall day in Chicago, and we had arranged to talk about something that in the best-case scenario would be uncomfortable; at worst, combustible.

The three women were Midwestern and white, and I am Southern and Black. I intended to tell them some information that I had only recently learned in detail — that our grandfathers had been together in the 1910s as children at the Lafon Orphan Asylum for Colored Boys, a bygone institution in New Orleans. They were brothers: George and Edward DeGrange. And they were Black.

In sepia-toned photos, George and Edward bear the resemblance of siblings, but they grew to be men a few shades apart in skin tone. George was copper brown; Edward, more of a sandy beige. This slight contrast would make a world of difference as they aged out of the orphanage into the reality of segregation, stunted opportunity and endless humiliation for poor Black people.

*snip*