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His father's grandmother, whose full name Truman never knew, was a part black, part Seminole Indian—and, like Joe's grandparents, a slave. So young Truman needed no history lessons in the oppression of blacks, or how to strive to rise above that oppression. His father, an independent and strident thinker, left academe to become a leading figure in the insurance business, in Atlanta and later Columbus. If you were looking for a pattern, there might be one in how the son, like the father, drifted from advocacy and intellectualism toward the convenience of pragmatic moneymaking.

Truman attended integrated schools in Columbus but recalls in his autobiography, “We were distant from the other kids; I had no white friends at school.” He played on the school football team but he and the only other black player dined separately. There was even a black YMCA in town. Segregation thrived in all corners of the city named after the white man credited with discovering the country. So he moved to Chicago. It was a move that would have consequences beyond his immediate career.