Nationwide — Rosalind “Bee” Harris has announced the release of The Story of Ruth in honor of her mother’s passing 15 years ago in November 2008. In the book, which was published on Mother’s Day this year, she shares the inspiring story of her mother, Ruth Juanita Smith James Boyd, using her mother’s own words in this unique first-person narrative. The book taps into the heart of the African American experience, from Jim Crow to the election of the first Black president.
Ruth Smith, her husband, and their first of six children turned away from their racially segregated Mississippi home and ventured north to Michigan, in search of a dream too often deferred for so many. She sought what every family would want to experience – real freedom.
“I wrote this book to memorialize her life,” says Harris, who learned of her mother’s sudden death on the evening of the election of Barack Obama in 2008. “Losing my mother was devastating. My heart sank with pain. It was the beginning of my soul’s search, which brings me to this point of honoring and remembering her.”
“I think about my mother every day, and I feel her spirit around me,” Harris says. “Writing this book and expressing my love for her has been soothing to my soul.”
Harris is the publisher of the award-winning Denver Urban Spectrum
, a community publication that has been spreading the news about people of color since 1987 and is recognized as the documenting source for accuracy in news and information.“The telling of this story gives voice to the insightful historical saga of a Black family at a time when many now seek to silence such voices,” says former Denver Urban Spectrum editor, contributor, and friend, James Michael Brodie, who served as editor for this project.
“Roughly half of the states in this nation have entertained measures to erase the teaching of Black history,” says Brodie. “Ruth Smith bore witness to the humanity of those she loved. If ever there was a time to tell our stories, now is that time.”
The Story of Ruth is available where all books are sold including on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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