The Color of Love

Gene Cheek
The Lyons Press (2006)
ISBN 9781592288984
Reviewed by Marcelline 'Marcy' Burns for Reader Views (10/06)

This is the story of a boy’s experience of wondrous love and awful pain. It is written with honesty, and it will be a rare reader who does not cringe in face of the terrible things that adults did to an innocent young boy. As the boy’s father fell into a life of alcoholism, he was not simply absent as a husband and father. He abused and terrorized and ultimately provoked the years- long separation of mother and son. Those of us who lived in the South when Jim Crow ruled are shamed, as we should be, by this account of ugly racism.

Mr. Cheek is a father and grandfather writing from his memory of the people and events of his childhood and youth. Occasionally, the reader may wonder if a boy could have been so perceptive and articulate as he recalls. Perhaps. It is possible, although it seems likely that the account has been colored to some extent by his adult eyes. In the preface, he himself acknowledges that the exact content of long ago conversations cannot be remembered, and as it turns out, it doesn’t matter. He says, and the reader will believe, that he has remained true to the people about whom he writes.

The boy, Gene, was deeply devoted to his Mother Sallie and to his Grandmother Anderson. He accepted, respected and, I believe, loved Mr. Tucker (Tuck) who is portrayed as a good man. Sadly, being a good man was not enough in that place and in that time. Many Southerners then labeled all Negroes with an intentionally pejorative “nigger”, and some acted out their hatreds as members of the Ku Klux Klan. Neighbors, as well as the Cheek family, self-righteously persecuted Sallie and Tuck because they dared to love each other. In a custody hearing, hate-inspired courtroom testimony led to Gene’s being exiled from his family.

This author writes well. Without reservation I recommend his book to any reader. In particular, I recommend it to those readers who are committed to social justice and who care about the welfare of children. If you are so young that you know about Selma, Martin Luther King, and the Civil Rights Movement only as history, read “The Color of Love.” And, for those who may still harbor some vestige of racism within their hearts, please read this book.

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