A place to begin
The reading room
Primary works and trusted guides for reading further. Every link opens at its source; Passe Blanc reproduces no copyrighted text or images.
01Lehigh University 02Project Gutenberg 03Criterion 04Smithsonian 05Library of Congress 06Smithsonian Libraries
Passing
The essential novel: desire, danger, friendship, and the instability of being seen.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
A fictional autobiography about opportunity gained and inheritance relinquished.
Imitation of Life
A landmark and deeply ambivalent film about labor, kinship, gender, and passing.
How the Camera Sees Color
A concise history of colorism, Hollywood, and the pressures that made passing legible on screen.
Walter White, Mr. NAACP
The civil-rights leader used others’ assumptions about his appearance to investigate racial terror.
Passing Strange
A biography that reverses the familiar direction of passing and complicates the category itself.