appeals to readers of all races as a poetic valentine from her son to his mother, a poignant reflection on race and identity, and a realistic picture of growing up.
Ruth McBride Jordan: who is she? A self-professed "light-skinned" lady, she was reticent about her race but unwavering in her devotion to her twelve black children. Journalist, musician, and father James McBride examines his mother's history together with his own background and upbringing in his moving and impactful first book, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.
Born into a family of African American clergymen and raised by a non-white mother who refused to acknowledge her race, James McBride and his eleven siblings experienced "orchestrated chaos" in the impoverished Red Hook, Brooklyn projects. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades and commanded respect. When McBride was a young man, he thought his mother was a cause of shame, anxiety, and bewilderment. It wasn't until he was thirty years old that he started to learn the truth about her early life and her suffering.
In The Color of Water, McBride follows in his mother's footsteps and recounts her incredible tale in her fiery and passionate voice. She was born in Poland on April 1, 1921, as Rachel Shilsky (real name: Ruchel Dwara Zylska), the daughter of an unsuccessful traveling Orthodox rabbi. Her family fled pogroms and immigrated to America, where they eventually made their home in the little town of Suffolk, Virginia, which was very racially and anti-Semitic. Ruth speaks candidly and directly about her violent, cruel father, her frail and crippled mother, their loveless marriage, and the rest of the family and life she left behind.
After escaping Virginia and arriving in New York City at the age of seventeen, Ruth wed a black pastor and established the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her living room in Red Hook. Ruth McBride instilled in her kids the belief that "God is the color of water," as she was certain that there are rewards and ideals in life that cut beyond any race. Ruth, who was twice widowed and had to face severe bigotry and misfortune every day, used her willpower, discipline, and dedication to get her twelve children through college and, for the most of them, graduate school. She herself graduated from Temple University with a degree in social work at the age of 65.
McBride offers honest memories of his own upbringing as a mixed-race youngster in poverty, his dalliance with drugs and violence, his ultimate self-realization, and his success in the workplace, strewn across his mother's gripping story. The Color of Water is a poetic valentine from a son to his mother, a heartbreaking meditation on race and identity, and a vivid portrayal of growing up that will resonate with readers of all hues.