Meet the Author: E. Dolores Johnson with Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love

Scared by a local lynching and mandatory prison time for violating Indiana’s anti-miscegenation laws in 1943, E. Dolores Johnson’s black father and white mother fled Indianapolis and secretly married in Buffalo, then hid from authorities and her family for thirty-six years. She simply vanished, evading FBI and police searches that ended by declaring her the victim of foul play, either dead or kidnapped by white slavers.

She talks about her family history and her new memoir in this public event co-hosted by the Boston Public Library and American Ancestors/NEHGS in partnership with the Museum of African American History and the State Library of Massachusetts.