Passing in Boston: The Story of the Healy Family 

Much respect to your father.

Hi what part of Mississippi is your relative Mr. Hayes from? I have a William Hays from Simpson County. He lived to be 107. He was know by Uncle Bill by whites and blacks

Amazing story but that’s not passing. He was open about his race, passing is when you try to get away from or hold on to an identity that is inaccurate. Typically People of color, that are able and life their life as a passing for shore person, does so to reap a benefit. Your grandfather was biracial but others couldn’t tell and he made his race known, much different.

My nephew is mixed race, Black father / White mother. He didn't really know his father, for his father was a "rolling stone" and had fathered 16 children, by 15 different women. Nine of the children managed to plan a get-together to meet their other siblings. All 9 still keep in touch, via phone, social media, etc. They are all across the US, from Boston to San Fran. They plan meetings in different places, the two big cities, the large state of California, and the New England area as well as the Mid West in Northern Kentucky and South Western Ohio a few times a year.

What does your nephew identify as, if you don't mind me asking?

The Healys never lived as slaves.

@@sandraatkins2539 I didn't say they ever had. The law in America used to be that a child bore the condition of its mother. Had they not passed for White, the Healys would have been enslaved.

They passed because they looked white, they had a wealthy white father who paid for them to get an education, and assimulate. Period. Having darker skin like their mother they would have been enslaved and not received those opportunities.

It still is today, just to a lesser extent. I know from experience.

It’s history that requires study and inevitable make us better as a people. To forget about the past can lead to repeating it.

The numbers were great for those that passed but went largely unaccounted! Why because what's done in the dark comes to light! Imagine if all those that Raped, Married, Loved, people of African origin and those that "Passed" acknowledged their Truth! What if they collectively lived out loud, loved, fought for their/our human right at that time. Or dealt with the choices they made. I feel we wouldn't have to try redefine our Global Nations today. Because we would have dealt with Racism, educational inequalities, injustices, equal access to Healthcare, financial ascension, Economics, Housing equalizers and more wouldn't be a thing of contention today. But the change is coming. Those of you that feels "one should get a life", just know we are and do. However, it is often stopped by Whites, the others that believed they are more entitled. Hence, racism and vestiges of old ideals continue! Think about that! We all in this Country of the US are Americans...Live with That!

Check your pulse...you might be a zombie by now...

That's what I was thinking.

@Sandra Atkins The Healy Father OWNED their MOTHER, she carried 9 CHILDREN for her Slave master, Healy. Healy Enslaved people that look like me. He is NO HERO for educating his Bi-racial Off-spring {Privileged Children} using the $$$Millions Healy acquired on the BACKS of ENSLAVED African Americans. {Caps are for HIGHLIGHTED points, not shouting}.

@@SC-uq2jf The you people STOP claiming the Healy Family for your "race." Their accomplishments (which YOU people want to claim as your own) were financed by hiring out slave labor in Georgia. You types love to redefine relationships as "rape." If so, you were honored by it, based on the way you try to drag their offspring into your "race."

And we all came from mixed dna so the whole argument is moot.

The human genome has been decoded and all humans alive today any and everywhere on the planet share a common female ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA traces back to this Eve in Africa. So we, unlike our ancestors, have the scientific proof that we all belong to the one race Homo Sapiens Sapiens; whose phenotype (physical appearance) exist on a spectrum from people who have no melanin (albinism) through ivory, beige, tan, golden, copper, nut brown, chocolate, and people with a saturation of melanin so intense the skin radiant blue black. The National Geographic Society has tracked the migration out of Africa to populate the entire planet. We don’t have to be limited by 19th century ideas for organizing ourselves. This lecture on the Healy family is a clear and simple demonstration that “race” as we use it is a social construct. And the mental, emotional, intellectual, and physical characteristics attributed to people according to race are fluid and malleable for the reason- that it’s all made up!

@@deborahpollitt7533 Don't forget Eve's husband Adam.

Jesus. Hair like wool. Feet like brass.

@@henryottis295 lol Henry Ottis (aka Chris Rock)

PLACE WATERS that will never happen. You cannot get black from white. But you can get white from black . Climate have nothing to do with it. White people were made 6000 yrs ago. They were made from weaning out the melanin from black people by marrying the lighter ones to the lighter ones. This process took 600yrs. Today it takes 3 generations.

Yeah there was a lot going on back then . Too bad America hasn't learned from its mistakes.

Droid phone I looked at your page. I saw that you like black Lodge. They're my favorite drum. My favorite song is Soldier Boy . I'm a pow wow dancer women's traditional. Are you native to?

I'm fascinated. We have a verbal history in our family that there's "an indian in the woodpile", supposedly one of the greats married an "indian" from New Orleans. I found a picture of all the brothers in the family in my great grandpa's generation, one of them definitely has black features, similar to the 4th brother at the beginning of the slideshow. I'm doubting there's any white family with a long history of living in the states, who doesn't have black somewhere in their past.

Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson's slave. She was a young girl when he began molesting her, producing other slaves. Therefore, he was a pedophile. There was no marriage of any sort. He didn't even make provisions for her to be freed upon his death. Remember he had a wife too. .

There is valuable information here. For myself, it's hard to listen to the language used, albeit common and pervasive in USA culture broadly speaking, more so still when this was recorded, language which tags People as "slaves" or "masters, as basically things or "owners," language that pushes a continuous support Of complectionistic prejudice. All if this and moee6, rather than more accurately describing the facts: People were enslaved (held captive, abused and mis-treated As If "farm equipment"). They were Not the things (the slaves) they were treated as. The fellow human beings who were enslaved were called, "slaves," as a means to use language as if clearly defining them by those holding them captive and otherwise condoning the enslavement of fellow human beings, using dominant cultures chosen language to undermine the realities that All of the People mentioned were in Fact People, Human Beings, and Not the roles ascribed to any of them People were enslavers ("rulers" of concentration camps, of human beings, fellow human beings who were being treated As If things, regardless of the number of persons held captive), again, using dominant cultures chosen language to undermine the realities that All of the People mentioned were in Fact People, Human Beings, and Not the roles ascribed to any of them. This issue has been dear to my heart for decades. It's important for me to share this perspective. Thank you for reading, perhaps to see anew what we hear And think And feel with and in regard to language. Side note to the featured speaker on the vid: Please listen to your intonation when the first slides are shown, particularly when showing the last pictured brother of the family to be discussed. Thank you. Thank you, also, for the talk.

AD Powell powell....are you related to them or have you recently taken a dna test that um "surprised " you. You're extremely emotional about this story. I truly want to understand the source of your pain about this.

AD POWELL They were UNDENIABLY BLACK PEOPLE, so deal with it he he he....Only a white supremacist would try to claim mixed Black people who were successful in life as to make white people seem more important than Blacks.... later mate

tuutts39 They were COWARDS to claim to be white to exscape the oppression of while denying their father and mother. Instead of standing against racism and making a TRUE CHANGE for their people's painful lives, so don't fool yourselves about them being courageous.

tuutts39 You don't know what blacks who could never pass went through and for them to never see or talk to thier parents who Love and raised them ever again is an unGodly cruelty. You only care about what happens to white people and not blacks or any other kinda people obviously. You have all this sympathy because they married into white society and thier children are white.

@@awakingmind5251 I"m not sure the words "cowardice" and "courage" are appropriate. Do you have a particular pride in black people being hung? Do you think the father should have kept them in slavery? What do you think the mother/wife would have thought of the father had he not put them in places where they would be safe? There are all kinds of points of view about these things but the answers more complex than the binary choices you suggest.

I could not agree more, it seems that all of their children were aware at least at some level of their mothers race and what it would mean to "admit" it. As you said it is a shame that they had to hide it. But nobody can blame them.

Agree

nolalibertine...he gets away with it because he is the predictable arrogant, ignorant white apologist faux-academic con-artist...he thinks because he "says it" then it must be true and it must be accepted without question...nothing worse than a deluded self-serving white who DARES to interpret the experience and history of others "because I say so"...

What wrong with the O.J reference ?. The said picture does look like a young light-skinned black man. Similar to what O.J. looked like back in the day. There's nothing reprehensible about what he said.

OJ is proven innocent ! You would not have complained if he said “ looked like nazi Hitler or Nazi pope or Nazi husband of that child murdering , kidnapping queen of English

Yes. Most of them hid within the church. Priests and nuns aren't expected to marry and procreate.

He was White as that's how society saw him. His little admixture of Black blood doesn't make him a whole Black man. The old one drop rule has caused mass confusion among Black Americans !

Blood as in your dna! Your whole make up ! Not your skin color.

It sounds ridiculous and it is. Only an excuse to disempower a group of people.

Yes, any ancestry.

White people made the one drop rule , it's nonsense.

You are correct. She was mixed-race.

We are all one blood according to the Bible. Noah had 3 sons we all of one of the 3 sons of Noah. God didnt make no new people

that’s that racism run amuck for a “better life” Makes it sound copacetic …

@@playablue do you doubt they had a better life than they would have?

This was obviously a conscious decision on their part to consider themselves White and to also ignore the elephant in the room. While the denial of race and passing was very common, it is, none the less, tragic. It's a form of self-hatred.

angos love study so be glad

one thing about those of British descent, they love to study history, so just chill and be glad somebody does!

No way in.hell he looked like OJ Simpson 😳 🤣

You're not making any sense. In those days people judged you by what you looked like. They looked white and in reality were MIXED people. Not just black.

These were mixed people who had white privilege, they were never treated as black people because they did not look black.

@@sapphirebluemo mixed didn't matter in those days, in this country. Anything 10 percent black or more meat that one was BLACK. Anything else of what one is would be completely ignored. Times were truly black and white in those days.

2020 PARIS FRANCE IS FEELING IT TOO!!

What is the name of the book? I would like read it if it's in the public library.

No that's not what the first man was referencing. He was talking about other forms of passing. Ralph Lauren is Jewish and changed his last name as a lot did. Do the research.

@@teeart356 Thanks for the feedback, and yes I do know how to research.Peace

Tahnn Ju we

Get OVER yourselves, already......

I thought the same thing

He's a Healy look-alike.

I'm happy to go along with a good joke - cruder the better! - but just for the record the phrase "black Irish" has nothing to do with being of African ancestry.

@Lynda Anthony "black Irish" actually refers to the jet black hair of the Celtic Irish. A huge number of Irish people have very fair complexions being blonds and red heads and that has ironically become the stereotype of the Irish. But that's NOT what the indigenous Irish looked like. These fair-complexed people are the biological descendants of other European invaders, most often Vikings. The indigenous Celts, on the other hand, have straight black - not just brunette - hair and skin that easily tans. My mother, whose maiden name was O'Neill, had that kind of hair and skin. That's what it means to be "black Irish."

@@johnscanlan6337 so the black Irish are the descendants of the Drooads. I apologize for my misspelling.

@@johnscanlan6337 I believe it means having Spanish heritage.

@@enolamsamoht Druids. Also, possibly Asian. "Black Irish" have Spanish heritage The elder Irish immigrants of the U.S. east coast despised Italians. Evidently, they might have been more tolerant of people from Spain.

Not QUITE the N word he wanted to use.