Passing as white was a common practice of many African Americans with mixed heritage and lighter complexions who were navigating a segregated social order that left Black communities with far fewer resources than their Caucasian counterparts in the early 20th century. Belle da Costa Greene was no exception to this phenomenon, which ultimately led her to holding the highest position in one of the most influential institutions to emerge from that era: the Morgan Library & Museum located in the heart of New York City.

In this masterclass from the From Slavery to Freedom Lab at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University, Dr. Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting discusses the vibrant and undisclosed life of Belle da Costa Greene from the research she has done towards an upcoming book she is soon to publish.

Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor in the Departments of African American and Diaspora Studies and French and Italian at Vanderbilt University, where she is also Vice Provost for Arts and Libraries and directs the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Global Black Cultures and Politics. She was Chair of the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies and the Associate Provost of Academic Advancement. A comparative Europeanist and scholar of women, gender, and African Diaspora Studies, she is author/editor of 15 books and three novels, the latest of which includes the La Vénus hottentote: écrits, 1810 à 1814, suivi des textes inédits (L'Harmattan) and Bricktop's Paris: African American Women Expatriates in Jazz-Age Paris and The Autobiography of Ada Bricktop Smith, or Miss Baker Regrets, a 2015 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and an American Library in Paris Long List Nominee. She is a senior founding editor of Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International. She is also an advisory board member for the 100th Anniversary Belle da Costa Greene Exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum, NY (2023-2024) and a 2023 Judge for the National Book Award Foundation. She has had fellowships with the Camargo Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Bellagio Foundation, among others. She is working on the monograph: Men I'd Like to Have Known and the One Woman I'd Liked to Have Met.

The From Slavery to Freedom Lab supports a wide array of programs intending to examine the life and afterlives of slavery and emancipation, linking Duke University to the Global South. Through collaborative research, symposia, and community outreach, the Lab is a space to reflect collectively not only on slavery's enduring impact as an institution but think critically about how the legacies of resistance throughout the African Diaspora might help us to work toward liberation, inclusion, and social justice in the present.
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