Negroland: A Memoir was published to acclaim in 2015. It was described by
Dwight Garner in The New York Times as a "powerful and complicated memoir",[6] and by
Margaret Busby in The Sunday Times as "utterly compelling",[7] while
Anita Sethi wrote in The Observer: "Jefferson fascinatingly explores how her personal experience intersected with politics, from the civil rights movement to feminism, as well as history before her birth."[8]Tracy K. Smith wrote in The New York Times: "The visible narrative apparatus of 'Negroland' highlights its author's extreme vulnerability in the face of her material. It also makes apparent the all-too-often invisible fallout of our nation's ongoing obsession with race and class: Namely, that living a life as an exemplar of black excellence — and living with the survivor's guilt that often accompanies such excellence — can have a psychic effect nearly as deadening and dehumanizing as that of racial injustice itself."[9]