Summary

As an epilogue to the book, Gladwell includes the story of his own success as it connects to his own family's background. Gladwell's ancestors are from Jamaica. His great-great-great grandmother is a slave bought in Jamaica who has a child with her white owner. Gladwell explains the social structure in Jamaica at the time, which is partly based on skin tone. Lighter skinned black people are given more opportunities and privileges than darker skinned people. Gladwell's grandmother, Daisy, along with his grandfather, Donald, are school teachers able to provide an education for their twin daughters, one of whom is Gladwell's mother, Joyce.

Gladwell charts the social conditions that come together to allow his mother to advance her education. In the 1930s, when his mother is a young girl, a man named William MacMillan visits Jamaica and writes about the poor conditions...