Passing for white

I read this book at least 10-15 yrs ago. I think I bought it at the dollar store. It was about a woman who for a college class (I think) had to interview a Civil War survivor. The old woman told a long story about being a slave and passing for white. The ending that she was the person passing was a surprise ending. I think it took place in New Orleans but not sure.

Hi Cgr, I don't recognize that title, but maybe someone else will. In the meantime I found this list of books on Wikipedia. None of them sound like what you're looking for but maybe...

* Writing in the late 19th century, Charles W. Chesnutt explored issues of mixed-race people passing for white in several of his short stories and novels set in the South after the American Civil War. It was a tumultuous time, with dramatic social changes following the emancipation of slaves, many of whom were mixed race.

* Mat Johnson and Warren Pleese's graphic novel Incognegro, which draws inspiration from Walter White's experiences as an investigative reporter looking into lynchings in the South, tells the story of one Zane Pinchback, a young, light-skinned African American man whose own eyewitness reports of lynchings are regularly written up in a New York periodical under the byline Incognegro.

* Nella Larsen's 1929 novella, Passing, deals with two biracial women's racial identities and their social experience: one generally passes for white and has married white; the other is married to a black man and lives in the black community of Harlem. She occasionally passes for white for convenience, as it was a time of social segregation in some public facilities.

* Black Like Me was an account by journalist John Howard Griffin about his experiences as a Southern white man passing as black in the late 1950s.

* The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth featuring a professor of classics who spent his adult professional life passing as a white Jewish intellectual. The story was inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard.

* Danzy Senna's 1998 novel Caucasia, Birdie, a biracial girl, passes for white with her white mother as they go into hiding. Her sister, Cole, looks black and goes with their black father into a different hiding place.

Thanks for your quick response. I am sorry but I should have added that the book was fiction.

Sorry, thought I'd found a good match but on closer inspection it's not. Try these lists, maybe something will jump out!

http://library.jccc.edu/guides/literature/africanamfiction.html

http://www.myshoes2.com/MSAdultBBBooks.html

Thanks for trying. I am thinking since I am pretty sure I bought it at the dollar store if it was a total flop as a book that it is really on any lists. But it was interesting and I remember I really enjoyed it.