An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege Free Audiobook Download by Heidi Ardizzone

The memoir begins with a recounting of how the author was born into poverty in Mississippi. It soon blossoms into a story of her early years as a professor and intellectual at prestigious universities that provide an intellectual challenge. In the midst of writing this book, she found out that her father, who raised her, had been an activist in the civil rights movement and was murdered when she is six-years-old by someone trying to intimidate his family.

Belle da Costa Greene is a professor of African American studies at Princeton University and author of the bestselling book, "An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege." In this memoir, she explains how prejudice led her to question the very foundation of her life. It was not easy for Belle to acknowledge that the people who treated her badly were simply misguided, misinformed, or plain old wrong. But as she grew as an individual and read more about other races and cultures, she realized that racism was something separate from one's own personal beliefs about race.

Belle da Costa Greene was one of the first female anthropologists during a time when she was more commonly regarded as a chauvinist. Her journey to understanding and acceptance of her own prejudices is an inspirational story that can be read with or without knowledge of her achievements in anthropology.

Multi-award winning author, Belle da Costa Greene, has had a long and interesting career. After coming from a family of Italian immigrants, she was raised in an upper-class neighborhood. Her father's death when she was young brought about feelings of guilt and regret for her parents that led them to isolate themselves from the outside world. This isolation allowed her to see racism where others may not have been willing to admit it, but also left her without any role models or mentors who could teach her how to live with self-acceptance.

The author of the novel, Belle da Costa Greene, is a longtime professor of literature at Vanderbilt University. Greene was born in Italy and her family moved to America when she was just 5 years old. When she was in college, Greene discovered the writings of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci and became fascinated by his theory that culture can not be understood independent of a person's social class. She felt that this theory would help her understand her own family dynamics and provide evidence for why other cultures were different than her own.

A coming-of-age story of a young woman's journey from prejudice to privilege that examines how sexism, misogyny, and racism have shaped Belle's and America's view of success.