Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family is a fascinating story told by Pauli Murray about her maternal grandparents, Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald, and the realities of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the South. The novel ranges from the pre-Civil War era through the Reconstruction ultimately narrowing in on racial segregation and how it affected interpersonal relationships and individuals. The racial segregation divided people significantly and impacted the gender roles people took on during this era, which is seen in the lives of Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald. During the Jim Crow era, the south was a very racially segregated portion of the country and Pauli Murray strongly emphasizes this through the interpersonal relationships
