The Color of Life

When a white woman from the suburbs marries the black son of prominent civil rights activist James Meredith, her world, and later the lives of her mixed-race sons, is changed forever. Cara's journey into issues of racial healing and justice is a story of love, history, faith, and learning to see and celebrate the beauty of everyone.

In this spiritual memoir, a white woman in an interracial marriage and mixed-race family paints a beautiful path from white privilege toward racial healing, from ignorance toward seeing the image of God in everyone she meets.

Author and speaker Cara Meredith grew up in a colorless world. From childhood, she didn't think issues of race had anything to do with her, and she was ignorant of many of the racial realities (including individual and systemic racism) in America today. A colorblind rhetoric had been stamped across her education, world view, and Christian theology.

Then as an adult, Cara's life took on new, colorful hues. She realized that white people in her generation, seeking to move beyond ancestral racism, had swung so far in believing a colorblind rhetoric that they tried to act as if they didn't see race at all.

When Cara met and fell in love with the son of black icon, James Meredith, the power of love helped her see color. She began to notice the shades of life already present in the world around her, while also learning to listen in new ways to black voices of the past. After she married and their little family grew to include two mixed-race sons, Cara knew she would never see the world through a colorless lens again.