A single decision made roughly a century ago split journalist Susan Saulny’s family by race — and she spent years trying to close that divide.
Saulny, a journalist, traced the story back to a Creole great-uncle who left his Black family behind, moved to Chicago, and began living as a white man. He didn’t return. For the relatives he left, that choice meant two branches of the same family drifted into entirely separate racial worlds — with no contact, no explanation, and no reunion for generations.
The story resurfaced in Saulny’s mind after news broke about Pope Leo’s Black family roots. That disclosure sent her back into her own family’s history, where she found the same fault line running through her own bloodline — a man who crossed the color line and, in doing so, erased himself from the family he came from.
The practice Saulny’s great-uncle used has a name: passing. It was common enough in the early 20th century, particularly among light-skinned Creole families in the South, where the consequences of being identified as Black — economic, legal, social — were severe. Not every person who passed intended to sever family ties permanently; some circumstances made going back nearly impossible.
Saulny describes her reporting on the family separation as a personal journey to reunite the two sides. What she found wasn’t simple — a century of silence leaves gaps that documents and interviews can only partly fill. Whether living descendants from both branches have now fully reconnected isn’t something the NPR report resolves cleanly.
The timing matters. Pope Leo’s background sparked a broader public conversation about how Black ancestry has been hidden, obscured, or simply never discussed across American families — and about what it costs, over generations, when that history goes unacknowledged. Saulny’s account is one answer to that question. An intimate one.
NPR published Saulny’s account on June 3, 2026. The full story of whether her family’s two halves have managed a lasting reunion remains, by her own telling, unfinished.
Reported by NPR. Read the original report.
