The Philosophy of Multiracial Identity and Self Realization : Thoughts from an Ofay-Mulatto, Essayist, and Spiritual Seeker

A child of the Civil Rights Era born below the Mason-Dixon Line, Charles Byrd eloquently shares his awe-inspiring story of self-discovery and revelation through a lens of spirituality. This important book chronicles the tense family dynamics, powerful social experiences, and thought-provoking interracial philosophy of a man whose national advocacy helped persuade the federal government to allow the 10 percent of the population at that time to self- identify as more than one race on the 2000 U.S. Census.

This literary retrospective includes references to nine of Byrd’s many essays published on the former Interracial Voice website he founded in the 1990s and other national publications. He ruminates on a variety of subjects from former President Barack Obama’s preferred racial identity to the Black community’s resistance to the multiracial identity. Byrd serves as a docent through his personal history of American interracial thought from the mid-century Civil Rights era in pre-Loving Abingdon, Va., to present-day New York City, pointing to the segregated schools and cemeteries along the way to his conclusion that he was unwilling to relinquish any part of his blended heritage.

This book is a deeply intellectual look at rarely discussed points of view in the late 20th century movement to recognize mixed-race people as they chose to be seen.