I Passed For White - Plot

Plot

Bernice Lee, a young woman of mixed African and European ancestry, living in Chicago with her family travels to New York and starts a new life passing as a white woman. The film begins with her being mistaken for a purely white woman by a white man who tries to hit on her repeatedly. Her brother, more obviously of mixed heritage, fights off the man. Bernice's grandmother consoles her when she confides her troubles.

Later in the film, after a failed attempted at looking for employment as a black, she decides to leave town, use the name Lila Brownell and live as a white woman. On the plane to New York she meets and eventually marries the man of her dreams – Rick Leyton – only she hasn't told him she is part black. He and his rich family and friends are white. Her white friend Sally, and black maid Bertha both advise her not to tell him. She becomes pregnant, and fears the child will have black features or coloring – and gets a book to read about this unlikely possibility, which she hides, but Rick eventually discovers it, although their maid claims the book belongs to her.

Bernice/Lila goes into premature labor and has a stillborn child, but cries out "Is the baby black?" after she awakens from anesthesia. This leads Rick to suspect that his wife has been unfaithful. Eventually, she and her husband divorce without Bernice ever having revealed her true name or past. She then returns to her family in Chicago and her original identity.