Early Life
McBride's father, the late Rev. Andrew D. McBride (August 8, 1911-April 5, 1957) who died of lung cancer at age 45, was African-American, and his mother (Ruchel Dwajra Zylska later changed to Rachel Deborah Shilsky later changed to Ruth McBride Jordan) (April 1, 1921-January 9, 2010) was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. He was raised in Brooklyn's Red Hook housing projects, James was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, and the eighth of 12 children and last child of Rev. Andrew McBride. "I'm proud of my Jewish history," he has said. "Technically I guess you could say I'm Jewish since my mother was Jewish...but she converted (to Christianity). So the question is for theologians to answer. ... I just get up in the morning happy to be living." His book The Color of Water talks about his family history and his mother.
Two of his older brothers, Dennis and Billy, graduated with doctorates in medicine, but that didn't appeal to James McBride. He received an undergraduate degree in music composition from Oberlin College in the year 1979. Later on, he received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.James McBride currently lives in New York. He is married, and has three children, Azure, Jordan and Nash.
Read more about this topic: James Mc Bride (writer)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)