In a Preface ostensibly written by the publishers, the writer promises that the work that follows will expose to white eyes for the first time the reality of being Black in America. The publishers note that racial segregation is pressuring those Black people who can to pass as white.

The narrator frames his narrative by explaining that he feels compelled to tell his story despite the risk in doing so. He wants to explore for himself and the reader how and why he transformed himself into a white man. During early childhood, he lives in a little cottage with his mother, the Black mistress of a powerful white man in Georgia. Their lives change dramatically when the narrator’s father, a man the narrator could only conjure up by his voice and shoes, sends the family away to live up North.

The narrator has an idyllic early life. He begins reading early and shows an aptitude for music. He listens with interest as his mother sings “old Southern songs” (6) and hums wordless melodies as she holds him. The first trial of his life is the discovery at school one day that he is Black, despite his white-presenting appearance.