num_pages: 314
description: As a boy in Brooklyn, James McBride knew that his mother was different. But when he asked about it, she'd simply say, "I'm light-skinned". Later he wondered if he was different too, and asked his mother if he was black or white. "You're a human being", she snapped. "Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!" When James asked what the colour of God was, she said, "God is the colour of water". As an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell the story. Her story was of a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled Harlem, married a black man, founded a Baptist church, and put 12 children through college. This is James McBride's tribute to his eccentric and determined mother, and an exploration of what family means.
language: English
title: The Color of Water : A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
titlecomplete: The Color of Water : A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
genres: Biography, Book Club, Memoir, Nonfiction, School, Audiobook, Autobiography, Biography Memoir, Race, African American
ratings_count: 119737
awards: awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Long Island Reads
publisher: Topeka Bindery