“My father became ‘Black’ when I was in sixth grade,” American photographer Alex Christopher Williams remembers. Born to a white mother and a Black father, Williams, who presents as white, was raised by his mother in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods in Ohio. His father, Paul, who was 21 when Williams was born, chaperoned his sixth-grade class on a field trip to Washington D.C. “My father was much younger than many of the other kids’ parents so he was much cooler and more relatable to us,” Williams says. “I got to see my friends and everyone in my class communicate with my father and suddenly I became cooler because my father was Black — as though he were an accessory like a Gucci bag.”
.
After Williams’ mother remarried, the family moved to Mississippi when he was 13. “I was fortunate to have my maternal grandfather take me aside and say, ‘Just get ready. Prepare yourself.’ I had no idea what he was talking about,” he remembers. Raised in a “white normative culture,” Williams learned to code switch, moving effortlessly between various white friend groups. He rarely mentioned his father’s identity among his friends, for when he did, it was met with stereotypes of race.
.
“When I was in Mississippi, my friends never met my father but would identify certain characteristics about what they knew about Black culture in me and point that out,” Williams recalls. “We were in a band together and there was a moment when we would click. I’d be excited, jumping up and down yelling, and they would call it ‘Black Man Freak Outs.’ Or they wouldn’t even believe it, saying things like, ‘There’s no way Alex could be Black.’”
.
.
