Rating: 
Summary: Must Read
Review: A great book that gets more profound and complex with repeated readings. Tragic and moving, it brims with irony, pain, and sensitivity. Should be required reading for adolescents and young adults.
Rating:
Summary: He said it like it was!!!!
Review: Greg and I were in the same class, graduating from Muncie (IN.)Central High School in 1962. He always seemed to be rather guarded....kind of a shy guy in many ways. But that is quite understandable. He had to be that way. Most likely, he was not ever sure what the agenda was of others who surrounded him. God knows, he was ostracized by people of both predominant races in Muncie at that time. That was apparent. Becoming a basketball legend changed that to some degree. Geezzzzz! I was even disowned by a female cousin of mine because I danced with a black girl at a 7th grade record hop back when it was acceptable for girls to dance with other girls! The girl remained a friend of mine throughout our school days (for Greg's knowledge, this was Sylvia M.). Moreover, I worked (in H.S.) with the mother of the white girl he eventually married. It is too bad that her family chose to disown her, but I am proud of her for standing up to them and following her heart. Yeah Sara!! Buy this book, and READ IT WITH YOUR HEART!! You'll be VERY glad you did!!
Rating:
Summary: He said it like it was!!!!
Review: Greg and I were in the same class, graduating from Muncie (IN.)Central High School in 1962. He always seemed to be rather guarded....kind of a shy guy in many ways. But that is quite understandable. He had to be that way. Most likely, he was not ever sure what the agenda was of others who surrounded him. God knows, he was ostracized by people of both predominant races in Muncie at that time. That was apparent. Becoming a basketball legend changed that to some degree. Geezzzzz! I was even disowned by a female cousin of mine because I danced with a black girl at a 7th grade record hop back when it was acceptable for girls to dance with other girls! The girl remained a friend of mine throughout our school days (for Greg's knowledge, this was Sylvia M.). Moreover, I worked (in H.S.) with the mother of the white girl he eventually married. It is too bad that her family chose to disown her, but I am proud of her for standing up to them and following her heart. Yeah Sara!! Buy this book, and READ IT WITH YOUR HEART!! You'll be VERY glad you did!!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing and Heart-breaking
Review: Gregory Howard Williams is a man who faced up to his father's past. A white boy who was found out he was really Black. This book is about "passing" and the legacy it leaves behind. Williams does not ask for the reader to pity his heritage, rather he seeks to make people understand why his father decided to cross the colour line and become a white-man. This is a well-written and thought provoking book that I would recommend to anyone from the age of 13 and up.
Rating: 
Summary: Life On The Color Line was a novel about Gregory Williams
Review: Gregory Williams believed that he was white for the first 10 years of his life untill his parents separated. Gregory grew up on both sides of the nation's racial boundaries. Buster Williams alcohlism drove him and family into bankruptcy. Gregory and little brother Mike found out their father James "Buster" Williams was a light-skinned African-American man who passed for a Italian American most of his adult life. After his mother and father split up Gregory or Mike didn't see much of their mother Lois Williams. Greg and his brother grew up on the African-American side of the town among their father's relatives. Father Buster encouraged Gregory to study and apsired Mike to hustle like him. While growing up Greg received warnings not to date white girls. Gregory's novel showed how he overcame his struggle to years upon years of povery and racism
Rating:
Summary: I thought this book was powerful and touching.
Review: Gregory williams takes you on a front row tour of his life on the color line. This book realy makes you stop, and think about the racial issues of past and present. It begins with Gregory (billy) and brother mike, living with their father (a half white half black person passing for italian), and their white mother living in white northern Virginia. This lilly life went on for ten years untill the fathers' alcholism lost the family business, and drove the boys' mother away. After that the father and the boys move to Indiana, and life is changed forever.
Rating:
Summary: he told the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Review: he told of all his problems, the pain, the happiness,and the sorrows. i really though i was there with him
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: I am a 19 year old college student. I picked this book up not knowing what to expect. This book took me to a place that I could not imagine anyone ever having to go. Imagine living a happy life with all of the privileges of being white. Imagine your life taking an unexpected twist and all that you ever knew is gone, including your identity. This is the life of Gregory and Mike Williams. Greogory and Mike were two white kids with not a worry in life until their alcoholic father beat their mother one time too many. She left the kids with their father and fled scared for her life. After their father's business diminished, they had to move to Munchie, Indiana and learn the horrid truth of their lives, they were now known as "colored" in white skin.The father that they had been led to belive was Italian, was really a black man that crossed over trying to make a better life for himself and his children. I wanted to cry as the boys went through trials and tribulations no child should have to suffer. They didn't have a mother or father to rely upon, their "white" family disowned them, and they had to fend for themselves just to have something to eat. I cried in many place because I couldn't imagine living a life like this and surviving. I commend Mr. Williams for this masterpiece and letting us in on his life. I will not take any of the things I had for granted after reading this masterpiece of an autobiography. Thank you Mr. Williams for making me appreciate my life.
Rating:
Summary: Some Things Never Change
Review: I came to read this book as an assignment in preparation for my oral exams in defense of the PhD in English from The Ohio State University. Initially, I resisted reading the book thinking it was "just another story of a White person trying to make some money off a trend involving Black people. However, when I finally sat down to read the book, I found Gregory Williams' story so compelling that I could not put it down until I had read every word two days later. When Dean Williams first arrived at OSU as the Law School Dean, scholars fervently debated the finer points of his book and students flocked to hear him speak. After having actually read the text, I can understand why they were drawn to this man. He describes in heart-wrenching details the privations he and his brother endured when they were forced to remove themselves from the life of White privilege in Virginia to one where survival in Muncie, Indiana meant learning quickly the cold hard facts of being Black in skin that appeared to be White. The family friend who took Gregory and his brother into her home is the only character who stands out as more memorable than the boys' alcoholic paternal grandmother. No reader could sit dry-eyed through a reading of this book where two innocent children were scorned and battered by relatives, peers, and strangers alike. Gregory Williams is to be admired for withstanding the agony of his unusual upbringing and the marvelous outcome as he now holds a superlative position in one of the nation's most prestigious universities that prides itself on the number of minority doctorates it produces. My only puzzlement following the reading of the book and viewing the family Dean Williams built, is that he seems to have ended up with a very "White-looking" family and so he seems to perpetuate the same image of self-hate that he describes his father as producing. However, Williams is truly to be commended for his superb handling of a "race" issue that confronts a society which declares that there is no biological basis in race---all Blacks are not always all Black (F. James Davis) and more multi-racial writers and scholars need to step forward and be recognized.
Rating:
Summary: Some Things Never Change
Review: I came to read this book as an assignment in preparation for my oral exams in defense of the PhD in English from The Ohio State University. Initially, I resisted reading the book thinking it was "just another story of a White person trying to make some money off a trend involving Black people. However, when I finally sat down to read the book, I found Gregory Williams' story so compelling that I could not put it down until I had read every word two days later. When Dean Williams first arrived at OSU as the Law School Dean, scholars fervently debated the finer points of his book and students flocked to hear him speak. After having actually read the text, I can understand why they were drawn to this man. He describes in heart-wrenching details the privations he and his brother endured when they were forced to remove themselves from the life of White privilege in Virginia to one where survival in Muncie, Indiana meant learning quickly the cold hard facts of being Black in skin that appeared to be White. The family friend who took Gregory and his brother into her home is the only character who stands out as more memorable than the boys' alcoholic paternal grandmother. No reader could sit dry-eyed through a reading of this book where two innocent children were scorned and battered by relatives, peers, and strangers alike. Gregory Williams is to be admired for withstanding the agony of his unusual upbringing and the marvelous outcome as he now holds a superlative position in one of the nation's most prestigious universities that prides itself on the number of minority doctorates it produces. My only puzzlement following the reading of the book and viewing the family Dean Williams built, is that he seems to have ended up with a very "White-looking" family and so he seems to perpetuate the same image of self-hate that he describes his father as producing. However, Williams is truly to be commended for his superb handling of a "race" issue that confronts a society which declares that there is no biological basis in race---all Blacks are not always all Black (F. James Davis) and more multi-racial writers and scholars need to step forward and be recognized.
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