Cara Meredith - The Color of Life: A Journey toward Love and Racial Justice

Cara Merediths storytelling offers moments of revelation that humanize our societys struggles with racial division while pointing toward hope for overcoming our divides. Dont be surprised to find yourself stretched and transformed by her prophetic message.

Edward Gilbreath, author, Reconciliation Blues and Birmingham Revolution

This candid, thoughtful memoir of Caras exploration of racial identity teaches us, but it does so through an invitation into Caras thoughts and fears, bumbling mistakes and earnest reflections, and journey of discovering herself and her history. I am so grateful for the gift of this book.

Amy Julia Becker, author, White Picket Fences: Turning toward Love in a World Divided by Privilege

Cara Merediths journey is a challenging reminder that the road to racial justice begins with the tender first step of seeing the face of God in every soul looking back at us, including the face in the mirror.

Patricia Raybon, author, My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness

Cara honors the stories and experiences of her father-in-law, her husband, and the greater black community as she traces her narrative and discusses the challenges of her journey. This book is a moving and insightful resource for all of us.

Ken Wytsma, lead pastor, Village Church; author, The Myth of Equality

Cara blends personal insights, thoughtful research, helpful lessons, and hope on this emotionally charged subject. Draw close, listen, learn, be challenged and encouraged, and take the next step toward love and justice.

Vivian Mabuni, speaker; author, Warrior in Pink and Open Hands, Willing Heart

This book advises like a trusted friend, making it an essential contribution to the conversation on racial reconciliation. This book is reshaping my understanding of the imago Dei, inviting me to see more clearly the vibrant beauty and rich opportunities of diversity.

Jer Swigart, cofounding director, Global Immersion Project; coauthor, Mending the Divides

This book is a gift especially to white people like me who are confronting our blindness and pleading for our sight to be healed. Caras winsome, personal, and captivating storytelling helps pull back our cultural blinders so we can see in full color, leading to redemption for all of us.

Jon Huckins, cofounding director, Global Immersion Project; coauthor, Mending the Divides

Cara has written a beautiful, rich accounting of the power of love to bridge the divisions we establish between one another. This memoir is a powerful gift for those who seek hope and healing in a divided world.

Deidra Riggs, author, speaker, disco lover

Cara has given us a way to posture our hearts and minds toward personal and interpersonal considerations of race while holding systemic-cultural considerations firmly in mind. This is a fascinating, challenging, and encouraging record of lived knowledge and practiced wisdom.

Justin McRoberts, author, Prayer: Forty Days of Practice

Cara takes us on her journey of stepping out of her protective bubble and running headlong into reality. From the moment I picked this book up, I couldnt put it down. I trust youll have the same experience.

Marlena Graves, author, A Beautiful Disaster: Finding Hope in the Midst of Brokenness

In a world where many folks want to be colorblind, Cara invites us to see the world in full color and declare that every person is as beautiful as God is. She dares us to dream of the world as it should be, inviting us to join her in the streets as we build that world.

Shane Claiborne, author and activist; cofounder, The Simple Way and Red Letter Christians

Cara invites us to join her in a space where the systems that separate us are seen, acknowledged, and reckoned with. Her words are necessary especially for white folks like myself who need help confronting our privilege and finding our way toward justice and reconciliation.

Micha Boyett, author, Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer

ZONDERVAN

The Color of Life

Copyright 2019 by Cara Meredith

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ISBN 978-0-310-35184-9 (softcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-35774-2 (audio)

ISBN 978-0-310-35300-3 (ebook)

Epub Edition December 2018 9780310353003

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This book is not only a work of nonfiction but a retelling of events and memories from the authors perspective. Some of the names of individuals involved have been changed to disguise their identities. Any resulting resemblance to other persons living or dead is coincidental and unintentional.

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To James, Canon, and Theodore,

the three who hold my heart

Contents

C ara is the mother of my two youngest grandchildren. She now faces the reality of raising two nonwhite boys to manhood in America. The problem is generally referred to as the racial problem by the experts. To me, it has always been a simple question: Who in America enjoys the rights of full citizenship?

Sitting on my desk, where I do most of my work, is a picture of my fathers mother, who lived the first twelve years of her life as a white woman. Her father had her reclassified from white to colored in 1875 for political reasons. She continued in his plantation school, later becoming the teacher at the school until the 1890s, but she was forbidden to teach her own children. What she did teach her children produced me. My grandmother used the Bible to lay a foundation for her downline, and she taught my father every book in the Bible, and my father taught me every book in the Bible by the time I was twelve.