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Come by Here: My Mother’s Life

Clarence Major, Come by Here: My Mother’s Life (2002)

Come By Here: My Mother’s Life
Clarence Major
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002
Sam Fleming Southern Civilization Collection
Vanderbilt University Special Collections

Clarence Major is an award-winning American poet, novelist, and visual artist. In Come by Here: My Mother’s Life, Major crafts a personal history about his mother, Inez, who passed as a white woman for part of her life. The book charts Inez’s life facing color bias and domestic abuse, using her voice in first-person narration.  

Passing often involved moving to another county or state, leaving family and community to establish a new identity. In Come by Here, this aspect of passing is seen as Inez passes as white in Chicago to improve job prospects, far removed from her family living in Georgia.