interracial marriage Archives - Page 2 of 2

Hello World,

I had been holding off all month about posting about Black History Month because I knew I would be writing about Kathi Macias’ latest book “The Moses Quilt.” In this book, we meet young couple Mazie Hartford and Edward Clayton, who live in Langsdale, California nearby San Francisco. The couple are clearly in love, and Edward wants to marry Mazie, but for some reason, Mazie won’t say yes to his proposal. Edward is a Christian, a successful lawyer and devoted to Mazie. Mazie is also a Christian, getting ready to start her teaching career and equally devoted to Edward. Everyone in their families believes they are a good match even if the two are different races. Edward is black while Mazie is white. Although Mazie is not racist, it becomes clear as the story continues that their different races is causing Mazie to be fearful about being an interracial married couple.

Mazie’s great-grandmother Mimi, who moved from Alabama to live with Mazie and her mother, understands Mazie’s apprehension about moving forward with Edward. Although she is an elderly white woman from the South, she is not racist. In fact, she believes that she can help Mazie move past her fear by telling the story behind her beloved Moses quilt. The Moses quilt was named after Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who became like Moses in the Bible as she led hundreds of escaped slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

Throughout the rest of the book, Mimi shares stories about Harriet Tubman with Mazie and Edward. As I learned about Harriet Tubman as a child, I did not expect to learn more about this courageous woman but Macias obviously thoroughly researched Tubman’s life and shared details I did not know. Mimi’s storytelling becomes even more precious to Mazie and Edward as it becomes clear that the 93-year-old woman is nearing death. Does Mazie marry Edward? Will Mimi get to finish her story before she passes away? What secrets are interwoven in the Moses quilt? Of course, I cannot answer those questions! You have to get the book! What I appreciated most about Book 1 in “The Quilt Series” is how Macias was able to stitch together a modern day love story and a story about one of the most beloved women in black history.

For more information about “The Moses Quilt,” please check out the book trailer below:

For more information about Kathi Macias and her other books, please go to kathimacias.com.

If you would like to win a free copy of “The Moses Quilt” please see the link below. By entering the contest, you are also subscribing to my e-mail list Don’t worry. I don’t e-mail very much For more opportunities for free copies of “The Moses Quilt” by Kathi Macias, please visit F acebook.com/CSSVBT.KathiMacias.

Any thoughts?

Note: I was given a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for posting a book review on my blog; however, the opinions are mine alone.

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“It’s not that easy being green,
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves,
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold,
Or something much more colorful like that.”

Kermit the Frog in “It’s Not Easy Being Green”

Hello World,

I remember hearing that song in my childhood, and it really touched me because I felt so very different as the lone black girl in my class for some time at Pathway Christian Elementary School. Fast forward 30 or so years later, and I’m still different and tragic as I’m a single black woman (yes, I have a manfriend, but I’m not married). Apparently, we are the most unmarried women on earth, and everyone wants to study us, dissect us and write endless stories about us…And so we are the focus of another article in the Wall Street Journal written by Ralph Richard Banks, the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, in which he suggests that more of us would get married if we broadened our horizons by dating men of other races – namely white men…

Don’t get me wrong…I’m a journalist, and I understand having to write about the topic of the day…It just makes me feel a bit defensive when we have been the topic for the last two years…and I’m not entirely sure that women of other races are not having difficultly in this area as well…So back to the article of the day…Below are a few points from the article that I found interesting…

Nearly 70% of black women are unmarried, and the racial gap in marriage spans the socioeconomic spectrum, from the urban poor to well-off suburban professionals. Three in 10 college-educated black women haven’t married by age 40; their white peers are less than half as likely to have remained unwed.

Black women confront the worst relationship market of any group because of economic and cultural forces that are not of their own making; and they have needlessly worsened their situation by limiting themselves to black men. I also arrived at a startling conclusion: Black women can best promote black marriage by opening themselves to relationships with men of other races.

A desirable black man who ends a relationship with one woman will find many others waiting; that’s not so for black women.If many black women remain unmarried because they think they have too few options, some black men stay single because they think they have so many. The same numbers imbalance that makes life difficult for black women may be a source of power for black men. Why cash in, they reason, when it is so easy to continue to play?

The prevalence of relationships between professional black women and blue-collar black men may help to explain another aspect of the racial gap in marriage: Even as divorce rates have declined for most groups during the past few decades, more than half of black marriages dissolve.

What would happen if more black women opened themselves to the possibility of marrying non-black men? To start, they might find themselves in better relationships. Some professional black women would no doubt discover that they are more compatible with a white, Asian or Latino coworker or college classmate than with the black guy they grew up with, who now works at the auto shop.

Any thoughts?

And in case you have never heard Kermit’s song, check it out here…