Book - Pearl's Secret

Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family

by Neil Henry

A black professor of journalism and award-winning correspondent takes an investigative look into his family's past in this autobiography and family story, as he pieces together the murky details of his family's past in search of the white branch of his family tree. worldcat image & summary

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I was fascinated by this story. I’ve read a number of similar books* –  author sets out to discover the story of biracial family. 

Neil Henry is about my age. He is the great-great-grandson of A.J. Beaumont, a white Englishman who moved to Louisiana at age 17 in 1856, and Laura Brumley, a freed slave. The two had a long time relationship that resulted in the birth of Pearl, the author’s great-grandmother.

“In the Beaumonts I found a white family that certainly was every bit as human as we were, people who had struggled with their own brand of demons. Both of our families had been crippled to some degree by prejudice, personal trauma, and tragedy, but in the most important ways both branches had endured. So it wasn’t what we did for a living that counted, nor what kind of china we dined on, nor what our houses and neighborhoods looked like. Nor, in this one sense, did our skin color even matter very much. What counted most through the generations, far more than any other factor, regardless of our race, was how we treated those we loved and how well we loved. That seemed the transcendent lesson or moral that my search had revealed.”

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See "Tomlinson Hill"