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The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother Paperback | Pages: 291 pages
Rating: 4.09 | 98146 Users | 5126 Reviews

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Title:The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
Author:James McBride
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Anniversary Edition
Pages:Pages: 291 pages
Published:January 14th 2004 by Riverhead Books (first published January 23rd 1996)
Categories:Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Cultural. African American. Biography Memoir. Race. Academic. School

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Touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "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. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.

In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.

At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.

Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

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Original Title: The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
ISBN: 1573225789 (ISBN13: 9781573225786)
Edition Language: English
Literary Awards: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (1997)

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Ratings: 4.09 From 98146 Users | 5126 Reviews

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this book spent two years on the new york times bestseller list and it's easy to see why. mcbride's "tribute" is a beautiful story, rich with detail, about his own life and his mother's. he smartly introduces almost every chapter with memories from his mother's life, in her own voice. as he tells us at the beginning and reminds us at the end, he spent 8 years talking to her and recording their conversations, so the memories in her voice are an interesting contrast to the memories in his own



If Cheaper By the Dozen, by Frank Gilbraith Jr., and The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, ever somehow met and had an "I like you as a friend, not a lover" child, The Color of Water would be it - race and a ridiculous amount of kids. The concept is compelling, and I would recommend this book to anyone who was disappointed that Run, Ann Patchett's most recent book, didn't deal more directly with race issues in a mixed-race family. Nominally, this book is a tribute to James McBride's mother, who was

The mere fact that this woman raised 12 children, sent them all to college and watched them become successful professionals, with no money, with no help from her own family members, really with not much at all except her belief in God and incredible courage; well, this qualifies her for sainthood in my book. That she did this as a white woman married to black men, loved them both, watched both of them die, then struggled on alone, is a superhuman feat. Throw in the fact that she was the daughter

I am so thankful this book exists. As a child of a black father and a white mother, I was immensely drawn into the narrative of James MacBride's life. My story is not one as connected to the racism he encountered, but it nonetheless moved me considerably. He paints a tender, endearing, nuanced portrait of his mother and her life and times, and manages to take a deep and conflicting life story and not sink into maudlin recollection or saccharine moralism. An amazing tale.

What a beautiful and poignant read. This is McBride's tribute to his white mother. HIs story touches upon issues of racism, socioeconomics, identity and religion. From a young age, McBride struggled to find where he fit into this world as a black man with a white mother. At an early age, trying to find answers, he asked his mother what colour is God. Her response, "He is the color of water." The story is juxtaposed along with his mother's, with the challenges they both faced defining themselves.

"Given my black face and upbringing it was easy for me to flee into the anonymity of blackness, yet I felt frustrated to live in a world that considers the color of your face an immediate political statement whether you like it or not. It took years before I began to accept the fact that the nebulous 'white mans world' wasnt as free as it looked; that class, luck, religion factored in as well; that many white individuals problems surpassed my own, often by a lot; that all Jews are not like my