This book is not the story of Freemount and the years when blacks owned the land. It is the story of a mostly landless people, the coloreds, who lived in Glen Allan and other small southern towns during the last years of segregation. I have written it to recall a treasure more valuable and enduring than land ownership. It is the treasure that stood out in my colored childhood when there was so little else, and it has been a source of strength to me in all the years since then. That treasure is the nourishing love that came to me from my extended family of aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, neighbors, and friends... They are the reason I want today's world to remember an era that in our haste we might mistakenly forget—that era when we were called colored.

Although I understand that the author was looking back with fondness at his childhood and the community that raised him, I was uncomfortable with his acceptance of, and almost nostalgia for, a time when blacks were oppressed. His pride on the day he is first able to pick 200 lbs. of cotton, his happiness at having two white boys as almost-friends, and his love for his Poppa as he waits at a stop sign until all the white drivers have gone first were all scenes that made me cringe. But the author's point, that he was happy despite segregation, has more to do with the resilience of his family and community than with acceptance of bad treatment. Raised first by his grandfather and then his great-aunt, his childhood was the epitome of "it takes a village." His portrayals of the people in his past are compassionate and generous, and he only has kind things to say, which is in itself a reflection of how he was raised. An interesting glimpse into the 1950s American South for this Northern reader. ( )

I've had this book for years and just got around to reading it and I have to say, I was honestly surprised.

I found this book to be well written, full of detail and rich in history. Many of the things written in here I had never heard of, they were never taught in school or shown on the t.v. specials and I'm more than happy that I was able to read this book, look at the images and take away a piece of history that has been too long ignored yet not forgotten.

When We Were Colored doesn't focus on the Civil Rights movements like most history based stories do. Instead in focuses on what Black Americans did during their day to day lives, how they lived in spite of all that was going on around.

When We Were Colored is a positive book about the history of Black Americans that deserves to be acknowledge and placed in our history books as simply part of our American history-nothing more and nothing less. ( )