The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Stared Down World War II in the Name of Love

Studying in Paris as the Nazi invasion looms, fleeing the encroaching German occupation across Europe, and escaping an Italian concentration camp with his Danish lover—these are just some of the exploits of queer African American scholar Reed Peggram, whose extraordinary story comes to life in this dazzling biography from historian Whitmire (Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian). A “treasure trove” of Peggram’s letters from the 1930s and ’40s, shared with the author after a serendipitous meeting with Peggram’s great-niece, forms the basis of the tale. Whitmire explores Peggram’s humble beginnings in Boston and his studies (facilitated by a client of his grandmother, a janitor) at prestigious institutions including the exclusive Boston Latin School and Harvard. The book’s nerve-wracking pace picks up once Peggram goes to study at the Sorbonne. Traveling in the shadow of the impending Nazi offensive, which he calls “a silly old war” and treats as a mere “wrench” in his plans, Peggram focused instead on studying, socializing, and, most significantly, encountering “the love of his life,” Danish painter Arne Gerdahn Hauptmann. Peggram stubbornly refused to evacuate numerous countries until Hauptmann could secure a U.S. visa to escape alongside him, a choice that led to their imprisonment and astonishing rescue by an all–African American regiment in rural Italy. Peggram’s letters movingly convey his willingness to risk his life for love. It’s a vivid glimpse of queer Black life at an exceptionally tumultuous historical moment. (Feb.)