The Color of Water – James McBride
As a boy growing up in Brooklyn in a large and lively family, James McBride knew his mother was different. She looked white, but she insisted she was light-skinned. She refused to talk about her past, and when he asked whether God was black or white, she told him that God was the color of water.
In The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, McBride, a journalist and musician, finally uncovers her story. Alternating between his own voice and hers, the memoir tells of Ruth McBride Jordan, born Rachel Shilsky, the daughter of a Polish Orthodox Jewish rabbi who settled in Virginia. Fleeing a harsh and abusive home, she moved to New York, married a Black man, converted to Christianity and founded a Baptist church with her first husband in Red Hook, Brooklyn. After being widowed twice, she raised twelve children, all of whom went to college, despite poverty and prejudice.
McBride interweaves her remarkable story with his own experiences of growing up between two worlds, wrestling with questions of race, faith and identity, and coming to understand the strength and love of the woman who raised him.
Moving, funny and deeply honest, The Color of Water became a bestselling classic of American memoir and is widely taught in schools and universities.
It is an inspiring read for anyone interested in family, race, religion and the power of a mother’s determination.
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