Summary: The Color of Water

Chapter 10: School

James reflects upon his and his sibling early conception about Judaism. They were not familiar with this element of their mother background, and they had only vague impressions, and often misconceptions of Judaism. However, James comments that at times his mother’s attitudes consciously or unconsciously reflected her upbringing. For example, her absolute insistence on the importance of education meant that James and his siblings often commuted long hours in order to receive the best possible schooling, mostly in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. As a consequence, James and his siblings were often the sole black students in school, and suffered from prejudice of the white world.
Chapter 11: Boys

Ruth recounts her relationship with a black boy named Peter. Because of the racism of the South, Ruth and Peter had to meet secretly. The constant threat of violence came mostly from the Ku Klux Klan, although Ruth explains that most white Southerners shared the violently racist attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan. When Ruth became pregnant with Peter’s child, she did not dare to tell any white people. Her mother had found her bracelet in Ruth and Peter’s secret meeting place, silently placed the bracelet in front of her daughter, and suggested that Ruth go to New York for the summer. Although she and her mother never spoke of her situation, Ruth felt deeply grateful that her mother had chosen to keep the secret and acknowledge Ruth’s need to leave town.

Chapter 12: Daddy

James’s biological father, Andrew McBride, died when Ruth was still pregnant with James. Therefore, James always regarded his strong and good-natured stepfather Hunter Jordan as his father, calling him Daddy. Hunter worked as a furnace fireman for the New York City Housing Authority, and adopted the eight children from Ruth’s previous marriage. Hunter used his life’s savings to buy a house in St. Albans, Queens, but he chose to live by himself during the workweek in his Fort Greene, Brooklyn apartment. The city later tore down his beloved brownstone in order to build a housing project, which devastated Hunter. James fondly recalls his family’s road trips down South with Hunter’s brothers Walter and Henry. Hunter suffered from a stroke during James’s adolescence. After Hunter came home from the hospital, he spoke one-on-one with James in a rare moment of intimacy and expression, urging him to take care of Ruth and his siblings. Two days later he had a relapse and died.

Chapter 13: New York

Ruth’s mother sent Ruth to New York City, to home of Ruth’s aunts. Ruth’s aunts tended to regard Mameh with little respect, primarily due to her disability. They treated Ruth as inferior to their own daughters. However, Ruth’s grandmother, Bubeh, treated Ruth well. Ruth also remembers with gratitude her Aunt Betsy’s treatment of her. After Aunt Betsy repeatedly asked Ruth what the matter was, Ruth finally broke down and admitted that she was pregnant. Aunt Betsy not only kept the secret, she connected Ruth to a doctor willing to perform abortions.

Chapter 14: Chicken Man

After his stepfather died, James began to do poorly in school, use drugs, and get involved in petty thief. He was only aware later that much of this phase related to the anger he felt at his situation. After Ruth discovered that not only were James’s grades poor, but he had been skipping school entirely, she sent him to his sister Jack’s house in Louisville, Kentucky, for the summer. James ended up spending three consecutive summers in Louisville. Jack’s husband Big Richard and his friends, southern working men, hung out day and night on “the corner” where James says he received his “true street education.” Chicken Man was James’s favorite local man, and the one from whom he learned the most. While James was working at the gas station, he got in a fight with his boss friend and was fired. James ranted to Chicken Man about his wish for a gun, and Chicken Man responded seriously. Chicken Man recognized his failures in life, and urged James to educate himself and work hard. Chicken Man made a negative example himself and the men on the corner. Shortly after his talk with James, Chicken Man had a dispute with a woman who returned later that day and stabbed him to death.

Chapter 15: Graduation

During her junior of high school, Ruth stayed with Bubeh in New York. The school she was attending was too hard, however, she had to return to Suffolk to complete high school. Upon her return she visited Peter, who claimed he still loved her. However, while she was working at her family’s store one day, Ruth overheard someone say that Peter had gotten a black girl pregnant and was to marry her. She approached Peter, who said he was marrying the girl as a result of pressure from his family. At that moment, Ruth felt sure that she had to escape Suffolk. Tateh forbid Ruth to attend her graduation because part of it was to take place in a Prostestant church. Ruth defied her father and planned to attend the graduation. However, when she approached the threshold of the church, she was unable to go through with it. She took the bus to New York City the very next day.

Chapter 16: Driving

James comments upon Ruth’s emotional fragility after the death of her second husband. James recounts the amusing adventure that ensued when his mother decided she should learn to drive Hunter’s old car. She drove crazily, and after a few close calls, declared that she would never drive again. Gradually, James began to give serious consideration to the warnings of Chicken Man and his sister Jack, who said bad things would happen if he failed to change his behavior. James looked to God for comfort and guidance.

Chapter 17: Lost in Harlem

When Ruth arrived in New York, she lived with her grandmother, Bubeh, and worked at her Aunt Mary’s leather factory, where she met James’s father, Dennis. Eventually Ruth could no longer tolerate her aunt’s bad treatment of her, and quit her job at the factory. She sought jobs in several different places, ending up at a nail salon. The manager, Rocky, took Ruth under his wing, renting a room to her and taking her out on the town. Although Ruth did not realize it, Rocky was being kind to her because he wanted her to become prostitute. When Ruth told Dennis about Rocky, he informed her of Dennis intentions. Ruth cut off contact with Rocky and moved back in with Bubeh.

Chapter 18: Lost in Delaware

Living in New York was becoming too expensive for James’s family, and there was considerable debate as to whether they should move to Delaware or remain New York. Eventually, the family moved to Delaware. There, James became increasingly involved with jazz. He took a trip to Europe with the jazz band, sponsored by a white couple named the Dawsons. James also worked as Mrs. Dawson’s gardener and as a server at several of her gatherings. As James got older, he became more certain that he wanted to become a musician. He applied to Oberlin College in Ohio. Although he had a strong background in music and writing, he was concerned about his poor grades and SAT scores. To his surprise and to his mother’s delight, Obelin accepted James. Ruth continually bragged about his acceptance to her friends and neighbors. When James left home for college, Ruth showed characteristic encouragement and support, repressing her emotional response to his departure until the bus had pulled away.

Chapter 19: The Promise

Ruth talks about the first stages of her romance with James’s father, Dennis, a North Carolinian violinist. Dennis and Ruth found a room on 129th Street and lived there together. When Dennis first introduced Ruth to his family and friends, her race shocked them, but they were welcoming to her nonetheless. Mameh became sick, and Ruth temporarily returned to Suffolk to help out. Tateh became involved in an affair with a woman who lived nearby, and even took occasional lengthy trips out of town with her, leaving the running of the store to his wife and daughters. Tateh’s behavior disgusted Ruth. Tateh repeatedly tried to get his wife to sign a divorce papers, but she refused. In Reno, Nevada, Tateh got a divorce, but essentially nothing changed in his household. Ruth had always been jealous of her younger sister Dee-Dee for her good looks, her position of favor with Tateh, and her more Americanized identity. However, later on in life, Ruth came to realize that Dee-Dee was put in a difficult position, being the youngest child left at home alone with her parents. Although she was a proud girl, Dee-Dee pleaded with Ruth to come back and lived in Virginia. Ruth promised her she would, later breaking that promise and creating a painful tension between Dee-Dee and herself.

Chapter 20: Old Man Shilsky

James took a road trip down to South to seek out his mother’s past. He had just broken up with his girlfriend Karone. He had also reached a moment of indecision regarding his career, in part due to his confusion about his own racial identity. In Suffolk, Virginia, he sought to uncover the origins of his mother’s family. He wanted to understand his mother’s past, and then understand his own. Armed with only the location of his mother’s old house, and her best friend’s first name, Frances, James headed into town. In the former location of Shilsky’s store, he found a McDonald’s. He knocked on the door of the house behind McDonald’s, and sixty-six year old Eddie Thompson answered. When James inquired about the Shilsky family and informed Eddie that he had descended from them, it took a few moments for Eddie to stop laughing. He recalled the Shilsky family, and encountered his memories of each of them, noting in particular Old Man Shilsky’s mean-spiritedness and poor treatment of his family. James asked Eddie to call Ruth, who remembered Eddie and reacted with tears. Later that night, James walked down to the river.

Chapter 21: A Bird Who Flies

Ruth recalls the day Bubeh died, leaving Mameh devastated. Ruth’s parents and sister pleaded with Ruth to stay. Dee-Dee stopped speaking with her after she insisted on leaving. Her father was particularly persistent in asking her to stay, and Ruth fought bitterly with him. He accused her of running off to marry a black man, warning her that if did she should never come home again. Ruth had no idea, then or ever, how he knew this. She returned to New York, discovering on the bus ride that her mother had left her Polish passport in Ruth’s bag lunch. It remains the only picture Ruth has of Mameh. When Dennis reported that he heard Mameh had been admitted to a Bronx hospital, Ruth was anxious to visit her, but her Aunt Mary discouraged her, reminding her of her break with her family. A few days later her mother died. Ruth struggled with her death and the sense of guilt she felt at abandoning her. Ruth found strength from Dennis, and from her newfound affinity with Christianity. Ruth recalls that when they killed chickens on Yom Kippur, Mameh reassured Ruth that since the chicken was not “a bird who flies,” it was acceptable to kill it, emphasizing that one should never trap a bird that flies. Mameh loved birds and used to feed them and sing to them, then shoo them away, singing in Yiddish, “birdie, birdie, fly away.”

Chapter 22: A Jew Discovered

James continued his exploration of Suffolk, locating the synagogue his mother’s family had attended. Although James most likely could have found Ruth’s sister Dee-Dee, he felt that to do so only would have introduced more pain into her life. However, he did not want to enter the synagogue, both to come to terms with his Jewish roots and to be able to tell his children about those roots. The rabbi at the synagogue knew of the Shilsk yfamily, but gave a curt response to James’s request for additional information. James met instead with Aubrey Rubenstein¸ who father had taken over the Shilsky’s store when Ruth’s father left town. Aubrey used James’s tape recorder to send a greeting to Ruth, but James never played it for her, thinking it might be too painful. During his last night in Suffolk, James awoke in the middle of the night in his motel room. He walked down to the Nansemond River, where a penetrating loneliness enveloped him. The burden of the past fell upon him and he felt the acute pain his grandmother Hudis must have endured in Suffolk. Juxtaposed with this sadness, he experienced a desire to embraced life and humanity. James returned to New York, recognizing that in this appreciation of life, beyond “all the rules and religions in the world,’ he paid silent tribute to his grandmother.

Chapter 23: Dennis

Ruth recounts the harassment she and Dennis endured as an interracial couple in 1940s Harlem. Dennis and Ruth attended Metropolitan Baptist Church, the parish of their favorite preacher, Rev. Abner Brown. Ruth made a decision to fully embrace the Christian faith and became very active at the church. Although she and Dennis had been living together, they were not legally married. In a small ceremony in Rev. Brown’s church office, Ruth and Dennis were joined in marriage. They lived in one room for nine straight years. They had four children. Ruth recalls those nine years as the happiest of her life. During this time, she became friends with a white Jewish woman named Lily, a Communist who later insulted Ruth and never spoke to her again. Dennis and Ruth established the New Brown Memorial Church after Dennis received his divinity degree in 1953. Four years later, Dennis became seriously ill. While he was sick, Ruth discovered she was pregnant with their eight child, James. Dennis died in a matter of months, and only after his death did Ruth learn that the cause of death was lung cancer. Ruth went through an incredibly difficult time after Dennis death, both emotionally and financially. Her community was tremendously kind, but their assistance simply did not provide enough. In desperation, Ruth even contacted her Jewish family for help. Aunt Betsy slammed the door in her face and Dee-Dee reminded her of her broken promise to return home, and refused to talk to her. Ruth then met her second husband, Hunter, who promised to take care of her and remained true to his word.

Chapter 24: New Brown

In 1994, New Brown Memorial Church held a fortieth anniversary gala, at which Ruth and James were present. Despite Ruth’s feelings that the church had changed in negative ways, and that her first husband had been the best Reverend for the parish, she decided to speak at the event. She discarded her prepared speech in favor of an energetic speech recounting her husband’s original vision for their church and attesting to the power of the word of God.

Chapter 25: Finding Ruthie

James discussed the sense of aimlessness he experienced in college and in the professional world. He remained certain of his passion for both writing and music, and eventually realized they were not mutually exclusive professions. His mixed race kept haunting him, manifesting itself in his behavior in the workplace and in his personal life. After floundering around in various jobs, never completely satisfied, James realized that his professional crisis related to his identity crisis. At that point¸ he began to entertain the notion of this memoir. In 1993, Ruth finally returned to Suffolk, Virginia, along with James, Judy, and Billy (James’s siblings). She reunited with her friend Frances, reestablishing a friendship that endures to this day. James recognizes that all the extraordinary elements of Ruth’s life, her children are what most define her, and are her crowning accomplishment. Accordingly, he catalogues their names and their accomplishments, as a tribute to his siblings as well as to his mother. Each year, despite the hassles of traveling, James and all his siblings flock to his mother’s house for the holidays, spouses and children in tow. The chaotic environment of James’s childhood is reareated in these festive gatherings.