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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