The Black Girl Next Door by Jennifer Baszile
Published in 2009, 308 pp.

Jennifer Baszile, the first black  female history professor at Yale University, has lived a life of firsts. Her father, raised in rural Louisiana and her mother, an urban child of Detroit, wanted better lives for their two daughters, Jennifer and her older sister Natalie, so they moved to the golden state of California. After her father’s business grew more successful, they moved to the exclusive enclave of Palos Verdes Estates.There they would escape the racism that still permeated America in seventies and eighties. They were mistaken and discovered that there was no release from racial prejudice.

Jen was a fighter and was unwilling to take things lying down. She fought the good fight for racial equality throughout her elementary and high school days. Even teachers disappointed, and that hurt!Jen tells her story with brutal honesty. She reveals her innermost insecurities and private thoughts. Reading her story is a truly enlightening experience.

Her family struggles with its own demons, and the pressures of juggling work and home responsibilities weigh heavily on her parents, especially her father. His relationship to Jen in particular became strained in her teenage years, and she could not wait to escape to a faraway college campus. She worked hard to be a good student, to become involved in extracurricular activities at school and to be active in her church youth group. She, like her father and mother, wanted to succeed. Nothing came as easily to her as it did to her beautiful sister Natalie, the first black homecoming queen at her school. Jen struggled to find her own way, her own path on her life journey.

To read this book is to gain incredible insight into a transitional period in the social fabric of our nation. I highly recommend this book.

Reviewed by Susie Nightingale

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