Despite Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and pervasive discrimination, a substantial number of African Americans entered the middle class before World War I. This was a life little known to outsiders of college graduations, formal weddings, and singing around the piano in the parlor. Peggy Wood was born into such a world in 1912. Her memoir is a parting of the curtains that kept much of this world from view. For this reason, Something Must Be Done belongs on the shelf alongside Sarah and Elizabeth Delaney s 1993 classic Having Our Say.

Peggy Wood memorably recounts her journey from Alabama s...