The Summer I Turned Black

How I went from merely accepting my race to proudly and passionately embracing it.

Photo: The Ernest Cole Family Trust/Magnum Photos

There’s a memorable episode of the ’70s and ’80s TV sitcom The Jeffersons in which Allan Willis, the White son of mixed-race couple Tom and Helen Willis, makes an uncomfortable blanket presumption. While discussing race and jealousy with his sister, Jenny, who is Black, and several…