Family

For many, racial passing involved cutting ties with family members who were unable to pass as white. Despite this trend, Belle da Costa Greene kept much of her family intact, since her mother and three siblings also chose to pass. Greene had to be careful of what family she discussed, changing her last name from Greener to Greene to avoid connection with her father, a prominent civil rights leader, and adding the name “da Costa,” accompanied by the story of a Portuguese grandmother, to explain her skin tone.