Interview with NPR's Michele Norris

Published: Sept. 30, 2010, 4 a.m.

When NPR's Michele Norris joined her uncle for breakfast during a stopover in Chicago, she learned something about her father that would transform her memory. Norris set out on a journey through her own family's racial roots and secrets, and the search became the basis of her book The Grace of Silence. Our correspondent Jacque Day spoke with Norris, who realized she couldn't fully understand how other people talked about race until she understood how her own family dealt with it.