Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored

Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored is a 1989 memoir by American author and public speaker Clifton Taulbert. Taulbert recalls growing up as an African-American in a small town in Mississippi amid open racial segregation in the 1950s, up until his move to the North in 1962, just before his eighteenth birthday. As Taulbert describes his coming of age, he enlightens his audience on the political, socioeconomic, and racial contexts that worked against African-American people during this moment in American history. Awarded a Pulitzer Prize, the book was adapted into a 1996 film of the same name.

The book begins in the small, unincorporated community of Glen Allan, Mississippi, where Taulbert grew up. He was born to a single mother, Mary Taulbert, just after she graduated high school. The birth took place in the home of his great grandparents, Pearl and Joe Young. Unable to care for him either financially or emotionally, Mary placed him in the care of Joe and Pearl for the first five years of his life. Taulbert grew up calling them “Mama Pearl” and “Poppa.” When he was five, Mama Pearl became terminally ill, and Taulbert moved in with his grandaunt, “Ma Ponk.” He lived with Ma Ponk until he finished high school.

Taulbert spends the rest of his book describing various memories of Mississippi, particularly of its African-American community, which was formative to his identity and outlook. As a young boy, he recalls going with Poppa to a Ku Klux Klan rally. They were met with extreme hostility from the white membership, causing Taulbert to question their populist ideology and search for better forms of group belonging. Taulbert’s neighborhood was segregated, impoverished, and rural, and nearly every adult worked in the fields for white landowners. He attended school in a tiny schoolhouse with one room, surrounded by the children of illiterate field workers, black servants, and housekeepers. Ma Ponk spent her days picking cotton for a white farmer.



One of the most positive features of living in Mississippi, in Taulbert’s view, was the predominance of a thriving African-American Christian community. Most of the people in his town attended the same church, which they would also use as a site for political organization. Ma Ponk actively attended church and sang in the gospel choir. Taulbert came to find many role models in the church community, crediting it with helping him to develop into an industrious and principled young man. When he became old enough to work, he took up a job under a white woman named Ms. Mavory. Ms. Mavory helped Taulbert develop an interest in reading, giving him books from the local library. His favorite book became Homer’s Iliad, which inspired him to educate himself in classical literature.

Taulbert recalls an array of childhood memories that have special significance, from attending prom in eighth grade to Ma Ponk’s famous fish fries. Many of these memories have strong political resonances. Foremost among them are several church meetings he attended as his church deacon, Joe Maxey, announced his intention to drive to Baltimore to attend a conference for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His church community was filled with a nervous intensity as they participated in coalitions to advance racial justice in Mississippi and at the national level. The prospect of racial justice eventually motivated Taulbert to move to the North. He ends his memoir as he graduates from high school, looking forward to leaving Mississippi and starting a new life. Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored is an intimate reflection on a time and place in African-American history darkened by racism, but also filled with hope for a better future.