Separate Pasts: Growing Up White In The Segregated South

Chapter 4 turns to the subject of interracial sex, one of the biggest taboos in the South. Despite fear and disgust over interracial sex, it was common. The prevalence of sexual contact between races made it “a symbol of both the reality and the futility of segregation” (65). Sexuality was policed by white men. Relationships between African American women and white men were more common. African American women were discussed in crude sexual terms and said to have insatiable sexual desire. Relationships between African American men and white women, however, were perceived as sins “against God and against the white race” (69), highlighting how controlling sex was a form of social control. These racist ideas have tangible consequences. McLaurin writes that a local white man caught his white wife in bed with an African American man. The white man kills both of them. Despite his guilt, he is acquitted.

After establishing the social norms of the period, McLaurin describes his sexual awakening as a teenager. In particular, he reflects on the African American women he was sexually attracted to in order to show the complex reality of interracial desire. For instance, the subject of a 14-year-old McLaurin’s first sexual fantasy is an African American woman named Jessie Florence, a nurse who “wore her sexuality well” (76).