Dolores Johnson's white mother and black father did not say anything about her mother's family growing up. This was in a time when interracial marriage was not only frowned upon, it was illegal in some states, including the one where her parents first got together.
It was only when she reached adulthood that Dolores Johnson pressed her mother for the full story, the one Johnson tells in the book Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love. That IS what Johnson's mother told her to tell her family: "say I'm dead."
We hear what really happened as Dolores began climbing her family tree.