A Mother's Choice

Which of your sons will you keep? That's the question Gene Cheek's mother had to answer in 1963 in a Winston-Salem courtroom.

A white woman who had fallen in love with a black man, Sallie Cheek chose to keep her biracial infant son. Her decision sent her 12-year-old white son, Gene, to a children's home, where he remained until he was 18. Cheek tells the complex story of his family and their life in the Jim Crow South in his memoir, The Color of Love.

When University Librarian Deborah Jakubs, herself the mother of two sons, read the book, she was moved by it. "I was touched by Gene Cheek's deep love for his mother and his affection and respect for his stepfather," Jakubs said. "The book reminded me of the personal and painful effects of the Jim Crow era, and I was struck by the fact that these harrowing events took place not very long ago."

So, Jakubs responded when she had the opportunity to invite Cheek to speak about The Color of Love at Duke's Perkins Library. She asked the Office for Institutional Equity to join the Libraries as the co-sponsor of a public event and encouraged the Libraries' Diversity Working Group (DWG) to get involved, too.

The Diversity Working Group organized a "book club" for library staff to generate interest in The Color of Love before Cheek's visit. Staff, 50 in all, from throughout the system accepted the Libraries' offer of a free copy of the book.

Dee Wilson, the DWG chair and one of the book club organizers, said that many staff reported reading the book in one sitting. "They didn't want to put it down," Wilson said.

Lunchtime discussions of the book for library staff were offered in late October and early November. At the first gathering, staff discussed a series of questions compiled by the book club organizers.

"The questions provided a leaping-off point for some of the participants to make their own personal reflections about how they have been affected by society's -- or their own family's -- views on race and how people should be treated," Wilson said.

Jill Katte, another of the book club organizers and the discussion moderator said, "I got the sense after the discussion that many of the people there were very grateful that a more intimate forum had been provided for discussing the issues raised by the book—racial attitudes, domestic violence, alcoholism."

The second staff program began with 30 minutes of audio excerpts of interviews that were conducted for a Center for Documentary Studies oral history project on Jim Crow.

Library staff listened to the reflections of African Americans who lived in the South during the Jim Crow era and experienced the impact of laws and rules that were in effect from the 1920s until the passage of the Civil Rights Act. In the discussion afterwards, many participants shared their own personal experiences.

The culminating event was Cheek's Nov. 14 talk at the Perkins Library Rare Book Room, which attracted an audience from across Duke and the Durham community. Cheek said that although he was seeking vengeance when he started The Color of Love, he had found a capacity for forgiveness by the time he finished writing the book. In response to a question, Cheek said that he survived childhood experiences that might have left others permanently damaged because he knew that his mother and his step-father, Tuck, loved him, even though they had been unable to keep him with them.

Cheek said he is ordinary in every way except for his unusual childhood. But the audience responded to his story. Brandi Tuttle said, "He writes and speaks to the people. He doesn't strip the emotions out of the story because they are part of it. He lays the emotions and the story out equally for the audience to interpret, judge and internalize."