Colored people : a memoir
(Book)

Gives an indelible portrait of a vanished America. Born in 1950, Gates grew up in Piedmont (population 2,565), a West Virginia town perched on the side of a hill in the Allegheny Mountains. He was raised in a small, intimate, middle-class "colored" community where secrets and haircuts were prime commodities and the major social event was the annual mill picnic. It was a time when the United States was just crossing the threshold into desegregation. But Gates's story is not only a story about race. It is the story of a family, of a village, and of a special time and place in American history.