Eben Miller's "Born along the Color Line," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Born along the Color Line by Eben Miller.

The entry begins:

Casting my book as a movie, I'll start with the easiest role to fill. In this collective biography, the role of a distinct place—the Troutbeck estate in Amenia, New York—actually nears in significance to some of the main figures involved. Happily, the sylvan setting where the men and women I write about gathered together in 1933 remains largely intact as the Troutbeck Inn and Conference Center.

Of the roughly two dozen up-and-coming African American leaders invited to Troutbeck in 1933, my book explores the lives of five key individuals. Their biographies, woven together with the story of the conference they attended at Troutbeck, illuminate a generational struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans.

I can see Derek Luke as Louis Redding, a graduate of Harvard Law School and the first African American admitted to the bar in Delaware. To portray him, Luke could capture Redding's professionalism, intellect, and commitment to social justice—all the while conveying the young man's struggle to meet the expectations of his small, middle class community in Wilmington.

As Abram Harris, a brilliant young economist who taught at Howard University, I'd expect Michael...[read on]

Learn more about Born along the Color Line at the Oxford University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: Born along the Color Line.

--Marshal Zeringue