I gotta say, I feel like there was a lot in this book that I missed, not because the subject was about people far darker than me, but because I wasn't alive in the 50s and 60s so most of the pop culture references were people I'd never heard of and didn't know what they looked like or did. There was a lot of the expected little black girls in upper society were held to higher standards and expectations than white children and were expected to be "ambassadors" for their race. There was the expected anxiety about lower class black people and perfection. There was, of course, so much culture around hair and what you did to it. But the author waxed lovingly about these ground-breaking, beautiful brown and black Hollywood women that I just didn't know. They all seemed to have had a very strong influence on her and others of her time. I looked a few up, but I don't know them so it didn't seem important to me and the author failed to help me understand.
I was moderately disappointed in this book except for the brief family history, which took place between about 1850-1930. It seemed like there was a vastly more interesting story there, particularly with the author's grandmother, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend this book.
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