Talk2010

Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunts and the Enduring (In)significance of Melanin"

Library Of Congress. Center For The Book

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About

When William Henry Hunt married Ida Alexander Gibbs in the spring of 1904, their wedding was a glittering Washington social event that joined an Oberlin-educated diplomat's daughter and a Wall Street veteran who could trace his lineage to Jamestown. Their union took place in a world of refinement and privilege, but both William and Ida had mixed-race backgrounds, and their country therefore placed severe restrictions on their lives because, at that time, "one drop of colored blood" classified anyone as a Negro. This "stain" of melanin pushed the couple's achievements to the margins of American society. Nonetheless, as William followed a career in the foreign service, Ida (whose grandfather was probably Richard Malcolm Johnson, a vice president of the United States) moved in intellectual and political circles that included the likes of Frederick Douglass, J. Pierpont Morgan, Booker T. Washington, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Mary Church Terrell. Adele Logan Alexander has written a fascinating account of this couple in her new book "Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunts and the Enduring (In)significance of Melanin" (University of Virginia Press, 2010).

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Library of Congress
Language
English
Country
United States
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