Barbara Hilyer had never been to Minneapolis before this week. But her journey to the city to speak about her book, “Legacy Lost: Passing Across the Color Line,” is a kind of homecoming.
In 1882, Hilyer’s great-grandfather, Andrew Franklin Hilyer, became the first African American to graduate from the University of Minnesota. He went on to become a prominent civic leader in Washington, D.C. His son, her grandfather Gale Pillsbury Hilyer, Sr., followed in his father’s footsteps, graduating from the U of M and becoming a lawyer in Minneapolis as well as a founding member of the city’s NAACP.
For many years, Barbara Hilyer didn’t know any of this. She grew up in Oregon, believing that she was white. Her father, Gale Pillsbury Hilyer, Jr., left Minnesota after his service in World War II and chose to pass as white, never revealing his history to his children. Years after his death, when Barbara was 33 years old, she learned the truth from her stepmother.
While teaching high school social studies in Ashland, Oregon, Hilyer devoted time to researching her family’s history. She connected with an aunt she’d never met, Heléne Hilyer Hale, who unlike two siblings had not chosen to hide her racial identity. As a student at the U of M in the 1930s, Hale was active in the movement to integrate student housing. She eventually moved to Hawaiʻi, where she had a successful career as a politician.
Related: The Origins of the NAACP in Minnesota
Through interviews with Hale and independent research, Hilyer’s book took shape – a chronicle of her family history, including her father’s choice to pass in white society. “It was really hard for me to decide to publish this story knowing that my father spent his whole life trying to keep [this secret],” Hilyer said. “But the more I got into it, the more I saw what a common story it is.”
Since publishing her book in 2024, Hilyer has traveled the country speaking about it. On Thursday, she’ll share her story at the U of M and join a lunch hour panel with John Wright, professor emeritus of African American and African Studies, and Erik Moore, head of the university’s archives. In the evening, she’ll speak at Magers & Quinn Booksellers with William Green, an emeritus professor of history and critical race and ethnic studies at Augsburg University. Hilyer will also appear on the Twin Cities PBS program Almanac.
More than anything, Hilyer said she’s excited to bring her story back to where it began.
“I’ve felt that all along, even though I’ve never been there and I’m not from there,” she said. “I really think that it’s an important story to land back [in Minneapolis].”
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