Gwendolyn R. Morris

I wanted to explain a few things about the black/white issue in NUBIAN PASSION. Before the Atlantic slave trade began its full operation, race was not really a factor in the world. Differences were based more on culture, not race. African women socialized freely in Europe, normally in aristocratic circles before the Atlantic slave trade, though there were not very many African women on the continent. A few did marry European aristocrats.

I purposely chose these periods to write about as a history lesson depicting how things were before race became an issue in the world. Thus, the race issue is not addressed in my stories because it was not a very relevant issue during the periods about which I wrote. I only addressed it mildly in Butterfly because it was an issue with BAND. Since Butterfly took place in the future, I hoped to show that race had become irrelevant to a romantic relationship. In GrayEyes, I mentioned race because it was part of the basis of the story. Slaves/servants came in all colors during most of history, it was not merely based upon a black/white situation.