Forbidden Friends

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Lester and Mickey's family histories track perfectly with the history of the New World. As a high school history teacher, he would start the first day of class by relating events from his extraordinary life story as a descendant from Mormon pioneers. And then he would shift and tell his husband's life story as a descendant from slaves. The timelines of the book start in 1619, when the first slave ship arrived in the New World. Lester's timeline starts in 1634 when his ancestor arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts, decades before the Salem Witch Trials took place across the harbor. This book pairs the narratives of these two families with the constant efforts undertaken by the colonizers to retain governing power while in the minority. Those centuries-old narratives can be traced in an unbroken chain to the populist messaging and demagoguery that is now pervasive in the messaging that shapes every single election in modern times. Whether out of willful ignorance, racism, or isolationism, the outcome is still the same. A charismatic and powerful voice emerges from a minority group that refuses to admit their privilege but are nevertheless living in constant fear of losing it.