BY KAREN BOSSICK

Ten years after her father’s death, Barbara Hilyer made a startling discovery: Her father had lived his life as a white man in Seattle, Wash., while his sister had lived her life as an African American woman on the island of Hawaii.

How could this be? she wondered.

Her quest to discover the truth about her family led Hilyer into a deep dive into the concept of “passing”—a familiar concept among African Americans--and the complex nature of race and identity.

Hilyer tells her family’s story in “Legacy Lost: Passing Across the Color Line.” And she will discuss the book at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 20, at The Community Library in Ketchum.

RSVP to see it in person at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/12638835. The program will also be livestreamed and available to watch later at https://vimeo.com/event/4503834.

Hilyer, who is visiting family in Sun Valley, learned that her father had taken advantage of his light skin to pass as white to work as a lawyer in Seattle in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. He never told his family about the choice he made, even though his sister Hilene Hilyer Hale was serving as a Black politician in Hawaii.

“My book is of particular interest to white audiences who have little understanding of African American history or the concept of ‘passing.’ An it concretely demonstrates how race influences opportunity,” said Hilyer, a retired history teacher from Ashland, Ore. “My story has facilitated open and thoughtful conversations about race and identity, particularly in the current maelstrom of American politics.” 

Hilyer traveled to Hilo, Hawaii; Minneapolis, Minn., Washington, D>C>, and the Deep South to research the extended family she never knew and the historic times that defined them.  The familial characters she learned of along the way included Josephine Hassell, a former slave, Confederal matriarch and free woman of color living in Alabama.

Another in her family was Andrew F. Hilyer, a former slave born in Georgia in 1858, who fought racism and promoted the moral, material and financial interest of African Americans through the Union of the District of Columbia, which he co-founded in 1892. Hilyer, who earned two law degrees from Howard University in 1884 and 1885, worked as a clerk in the Treasury Department, became a successful real estate investor, received patents for home heating devices and published “A Historical, Biographical and Statistical Study of Colored Washington.”

Her tale challenges America’s oversimplified view of race as it explores how different individuals took advantage of different opportunities to define their lives in a race-conscious society.

Hilyer’s father, who professed to be Mediterranean, married an Irish Catholic woman. Her aunt, meanwhile left mainland America in 1947 to raise her family because she couldn’t get a job on the mainland. There her race never came up because Hawaii is so racially diverse.

Eventually, Hilyer’s aunt made the cover of Ebony Magazine as the first Black official in Hawaii since the queen was deposed in 1893.

While Hilyer had no inkling of her heritage growing up, there were times that people assumed she was Black. A professor called her a credit to her people, and the FBI referred to her as a “tall black woman” while investigating a burglary at a bar she worked at.