Lacey Schwartz is a woman whose personal and professional journey of race and religion has won attention across the country. She grew up white and Jewish in predominantly white, Woodstock, New York only to learn after entering Georgetown University that her biological father was Rodney Parker, an African-American friend of her mother.
Parker, a legendary New York City college basketball scout was featured in a bestselling basketball book, Heaven is a Playground, by Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander.
Lacey Schwartz wrote, produced, and directed a one hour documentary, Little White Lie, that tells her fascinating story.
“I started making this film when I was in my mid-twenties, when I was living in what I considered a racial closet,” she said in a March 2015 interview on Conversations with Allan Wolper. “I was out in the world identifying with being black but I was still going home to my white Jewish family and identifying myself as white. I realized at that point that I wanted to integrate my identities internally.”
Lacey is married to Antonio Delgado, an African American man she met when they were both students at Harvard Law School. They are the parents of twin boys. Lacey considers herself a woman of color but retains her Jewish heritage.