Gregory Howard Williams

Submit a 1500 words paper on the topic Compare and contrast how Gregory Howard Williams and one of the other authors (Malcolm Gladwell or James McBride from the Half and Half) are able to achiev. This situation gets more bitterer when the societal foundation is based on racism and color supremacy. Life on the Color Line is indeed a very touching and sensitive account of how prejudices can affect a person deeply. The first ten years of his life Williams grew up believing that he was a white. Understandably this might have given him a security that every child needs. This also gave him the advantage of being brought up in a society which was entitled for privileges. After his parents’ separation he shifted to Muncie, Indiana where he came to know the most violent truth about his life. His father by marrying into a white family had crossed all the boundaries the society had laid. It would have been easy for Williams to follow the norms for entirely black or entirely white society. However the question of his very existence that stood in front of him with more and more ferocity. At an age where most kids are indulged, pampered he was forced to face a turmoil that was to change his life forever. He had been to Muncie to visit his white relatives who now shunned the children. He had no other alternative than to take a refuge in the black community. Neither of the sections of the society was kind to the kids. The blacks had little to spare and often bore a grudge towards them. Whites had already outcaste them as racial mongrels. As put by Williams himself, “though only ten years old I faced one of the hardest choices of my life, to dream or to despair. I chose to dream”. He worked diligently to achieve his dreams and correctly took refuge in education. Williams and his brother worked their way hard towards the betterment of their life. However he was more than often subjected to the inequalities and brutalities of racism. Denial of academic awards because he was black, violence inflicted by his fellow students, is to name a few.