(Posted 10-6-99)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Steve Gilliam, 336-334-5371
"COLOR OF WATER" AUTHOR JAMES MCBRIDE
WILL GIVE READING AT UNCG ON OCT. 28
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GREENSBORO--Author and musician James McBride will discuss his book, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother," and read selections from it for students in the "All Freshman Read" at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28.
McBride's talk will be given in Cone Ballroom of Elliott University Center. The event is free and open to the public. A student panel will ask McBride questions about his writing and about writing the novel.
The event is part of the "Who R We?" series of programs at UNCG. During the academic year, the campus is presenting a variety of free, public programs through "Who R We?" to examine issues of race, racial prejudice and cultural stereotyping in America.
"The Color of Water" was selected as the primary work for approximately 300 students to read this fall semester in the English 101 introductory class. Dr. Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, who is director of freshman English at UNCG, said that the event will allow the students to see and hear a novelist discuss a book that they read as a group.
Published in 1996, McBride's book explores the life of his mother, who was born Rachael Shilsky, the daughter of a failed itinerant rabbi in Poland. After her family immigrated to America and settled in Suffolk, Va., she was married at age 17 to a black minister and was a founder of the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church. The author and his 11 siblings grew up in the poverty-ridden, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn, as the children of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white. At one point, McBride's father's family lived in High Point.
He describes his mother as fiercely protective, a woman who sent her children by bus to good schools and took them to Manhattan's free cultural events. She was strong-willed, yet loving, and demanded both respect and good grades from her children. His book also contains recollections of his own experiences of a mixed-race child, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and success.
McBride is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Columbia School of Journalism. He has been a staff writer for the Boston Globe, the Washington Post and People Magazine. He also has contributed articles to Rolling Stone, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times.
A professional saxophonist and composer, McBride has received several awards for his work in musical and theatrical composition. These include the 1993 Stephen Sondheim Award, the 1996 Richard Rodgers Horizons Award and the 1996 American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Development Award. He is currently working on the authorized autobiography of music legend Quincy Jones.
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