James McBride ’79 is a bestselling author and musician. His memoir, The Color of Water, is the story of his white, widowed Jewish mother, who raised 12 black children in New York City.An American classic and required reading in high schools and colleges across America, The Color of Water has sold almost two million copies worldwide, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is published in more than 16 languages.
McBride’s debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna (Riverhead Books) is the story of a friendship between an African American soldier and an Italian boy in Tuscany, Italy, during World War II. It is based on the true experiences of the all-black 92nd Division Regiment.
The book sold 70,000 copies and was ignored by every major Hollywood producer until one afternoon McBride picked up his phone and to his astonishment heard the voice of Wexler-Award recipient and American film icon Spike Lee on the other end. Lee’s promise: “We will not let 92nd Division down.” He was as good as his word.
This fall, Lee’s powerful, sweeping epic, Miracle at St. Anna, staring an international cast of Americans, Italians and Germans, will be released by Disney/ Touchstone. Written by McBride under Lee’s tutelage, it was produced by Black Butterfly Productions of Rome and Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Productions of Brooklyn, New York.
McBride’s newest novel, Song Yet Sung, released in February, 2008, is the highly charged story of an escaped female runaway slave who is haunted by disturbing dreams of the future as she desperately eludes a skilled slave catcher in pre-civil war Maryland. The book will be released in February 2008.
McBride is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, People Magazine, and The Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. His April, 2007 National Geographic story, entitled “Hip Hop Planet,” is considered a respected treatise on African American music and culture.
McBride is a tenor saxophonist and songwriter. As a tenorman, he has performed or toured with Little Jimmy Scott, Carla Cook, and Rachelle Ferrell, among others. He has written songs (music and lyrics) for Anita Baker, Grover Washington JR., and Gary Burton, Everett Harp, and even for the PBS television character, Barney.
He is the recipient of The 1993 Stephen Sondheim Award, and the 1994 ASCAP Richard Rodgers Award for his work as a musical theater composer. His 2003 Ô”Riffin’ and Pontificatin’” Jazz Tour was captured in a Comcast documentary. Yet he calls himself “a musical version of Sad Sack.”
McBride is a Brooklyn native and a graduate of New York City public schools. He studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music and received his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University in New York at age 22. He is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is married with three children. He lives in Pennsylvania and New York.
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