WHEN WE WERE COLORED, by Eva Rutland, chronicles the lives of an ordinary yet extraordinary "colored" family as they move from segregation to integration during the turbulent civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s.

Beyond the lunch counter sit-ins, the freedom rides and church bombings, black Americans went about their day to day lives with a fearful but quiet determination, moving into newly integrated schools, neighborhoods and work places. Veteran novelist Eva Rutland tells their true story from her special vantage point of "colored" wife and mother who lived it.

Achingly poignant at times, funny at others, always down to earth, it is the story of a transformative age, as relevant today as it was "When We Were Colored..."

Read a Sample Chapter (PDF)
Review from a local blogger

Book Events:

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Sunday March 21st 2:00 PM
the Avid Reader at the Tower
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Sacramento, CA 95818

When We Were Colored in the news:

90-year-old's memoir filled with ageless lessons on race, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A timeless message, Sacramento Bee
American Authors Association book review
Land Park mother's memoirs from 1964 re-released, The Land Park News
90-Year-Old Spelman Alumna Hosts Book Signings In Atlanta, Atlanta Daily World
Eva Rutland: A Mother's Gift of Memory, NPR

About Eva Rutland - Website

Eva Rutland, author of more than 20 novels and winner of the 2000 Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement, presents the timely and relevant story, first published in 1964, of her life in the years “before integration, before affirmative action—when segregation was the norm, discrimination was legally tolerated, and blacks were second-class citizens”.

About IWP Book Publishers - Website

Our pledge is to publish books that will bring readers a lift, some laughter and a love for each other. We pledge also to publish books of substance, books that expose injustice, that defend the weak and the dispossessed and that celebrate the qualities that Isaac Westmoreland embodied - courage, perseverance, hard work and justice.