Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South (1998) is a memoir by the American author and historian Melton A. McLaurin, who describes coming of age as a white person in the segregated South. McLaurin was born in 1941 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and grows up in the nearby town of Wade. The memoir takes place in the small town of Wade during the 1950s and focuses on the racism he witnessed at both individual and institutional levels. Another work by this author is Celia, A Slave.

Plot Summary

The memoir is written in the first person. As McLaurin recalls a series of key moments in his childhood, we witness how his internalized white superiority gradually erodes through a series of personal encounters with African Americans. The chapters are structured around individuals who challenge or change McLaurin’s view of race. Racism was commonly accepted in the segregated South. McLaurin’s family is relatively well-off family and well known in the community. He is raised to be decent and polite to African Americans, but he is also taught that white people are superior to African Americans. As the memoir progresses, McLaurin gains a growing awareness of the challenges faced by African American families due to segregation and racism.

McLaurin situates the reader within the town of Wade before turning to a series of personal encounters that slowly transform his understanding of race. The memoir begins when McLaurin is in seventh grade and starts working in his grandfather’s store. Segregation restricted where African Americans could go to school, walk, eat, or rest. Because of the separation in society, McLaurin is fascinated by the black customers in the store. The first chapter sets the scene for the anecdotes that follow.

In an early chapter, McLaurin recalls an incident when he was 13 that helped him recognize how prevalent racism was. During a game of pick-up basketball, McLaurin has a violent emotional reaction to placing something in his mouth that was previously in the mouth of a black boy. When he is faced with an intimate connection—swapping saliva—his prejudices become apparent and he realizes his own complicity in racist attitudes. McLaurin uses this moment to show how racial bias is implanted in the minds of children.

McLaurin realizes he has internalized the racial codes of segregation, and the remaining chapters detail a series of challenges to this racial bias. We meet an unusual but intelligent man named Street, who teaches McLaurin to question received wisdom. This encounter marks a significant step in his eventual rejection of segregation and racist beliefs. Later, the anecdote related to “saliva-swapping” transitions into an analysis of how interracial sex and marriage were policed and reviled in the segregated South. McLaurin goes on to reflect on the pervasiveness of guilt in the South, which he argues is a result of white Southerners knowing racism is wrong. Using a shameful incident from his teens in which he race-baited a man in the community, McLaurin challenges the morality of segregation for dehumanizing individual African American people.

McLaurin also discusses his complicated relationship with his grandfather. His grandfather is intelligent, confident, and well-known in the community. Throughout the memoir, McLaurin begins to understand that he is also racist. While his grandfather could be kind to African Americans who asked for help—evidenced where he goes to extreme lengths to help a woman named Viny Love—McLaurin writes that his grandfather enjoyed the power he held over a population that he considered inferior to himself. In the final chapter, McLaurin recounts his final rejection of the racial etiquette he was raised to believe. He outlines the lengths that segregationists went to in order to prevent African Americans from succeeding. He argues that doing so had a psychological and emotional cost for both white people and people of color growing up under segregation.

Separate Pasts concludes with a reflection on what has changed since desegregation. McLaurin argues that despite desegregation, racism persists even among otherwise well-meaning individuals. We witness his views on race evolving throughout the memoir, and McLaurin urges people to reflect on their own racial attitudes and actions.