Anachronistic on Purpose

If you’ve read any of my books, you know I’m a little nuts on the subject of historical accuracy. I spend a lot of time making sure that something really happened in 1943, not in 1941 or 1945. But in my newest books—a trilogy about Detroit on the home front in World War II—I’ve gone out of my way to use an anachronism.

In the 1940s, the polite term for people of color was “Negro.” The colloquial term, which was falling into disfavor, was “colored.” After the awful events of 2020—George Floyd’s murder and the protests against it—I couldn’t see using either period-appropriate term. They both sounded wrong.

What sounded right to me was the word “Black,” as we use it today. Historically accurate? No. Morally right? Yes.