a black man's tribute to his white mother
James McBride shares the story of his mother's life and complicated racial identity which he only learned after becoming an adult. He tells of her infancy in Poland as the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, her childhood in small-town Virginia, her move to Harlem at the age of eighteen, her marriage to an African-American man, her achievements as a wife and mother to twelve children, and her refusal to ever admit she is white.