A Credit to Your Race

A longtime resident of Surrey, Truman Green wrote 'A Credit to Your Race' (1973), in which a fifteen-year-old black porter's son falls in love with, and impregnates, the white girl next door. Set in Surrey, circa 1960, 'A Credit to Your Race' is a disturbing and convincing portrayal of how the full weight of Canadian racism could come to bear on a youthful, interracial couple. "If Isolation is a key theme of black B.C. writing," says social historian Wayde Compton, "Green's protagonist Billy Robinson is the most fully-drawn expression." Compton says Green was diplomatic in the way he described racism, but his novel was passed over nonetheless. After rejection from several literary presses in Canada, Truman self-published his novel in a limited edition of three hundred copies. "If isolation is a key theme of black B.C. writing, Green's protagonist Billy Robinson is the most fully-drawn expression." author and social historian Wayde Compton