Baynard Woods thought he had escaped
the backwards ways of the South Carolina he grew up in, a world
defined by country music, NASCAR, and the confederacy. He’d fled
the South long ago, transforming himself into a politically
left-leaning writer and educator.
Then he was accused of
discriminating against a Black student at a local university. How
could I be racist? he wondered. Whiteness was a problem, but it
wasn’t really his problem. He taught at a majority Black school and
wrote essays about education and Civil Rights.
But it was his problem. Working as a
reporter, it became clear that white supremacy was tearing the
country apart. When a white kid from his hometown massacred nine
Black people in Charleston, Woods began to delve into his family’s
history—and the ways that history has affected his own life.
When he discovered that his
family—both the Baynards and the Woodses—collectively claimed
ownership of more than 700 people in 1860, Woods realized his own
name was a confederate monument. Along with his name, he had
inherited privilege, wealth, and all the lies that his ancestors
passed down through the generations.
In this gripping and perceptive
memoir, Woods takes us along on his journey to understand how race
has impacted his life. Unflinching and uninhibited, Inheritance
explores what it means to reckon with whiteness in America today and
what it might mean to begin to repair the past.
