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The Color of Love: A Black man's struggle to survive after the Civil War

by W. Arthur Wallace

261 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-1340; ISBN 1-4251-3468-8; US$18.95, C$18.95, EUR12.94, £9.78

As a ten-year-old slave, Theo Tanner escapes to the North. After the war, as a young man he searches in the South for any family members who might have survived. He must overcome racial hatred and the Klu Klux Klan to survive.

About the Book

As a ten-year old slave, Theo Tanner escapes to the North. On the way, he saves a small white girl from drowning, and receives help from her parents. In the North, he gets a good education. After the Civil War, he returns to the South trying to find any family members who might have survived. He marries and settles down in East Texas, sharecropping for Will Grant, an enigmatic, mean-spirited white man who hates blacks. Grant owns a large but rundown estate. The only reason he hires Theo is because he is too lazy to work the land himself. Violent confrontations characterize the relationship between these two men and will finally end in tragedy.

Through strength, courage and hard work, Theo and his family prosper and are able to help other people, both black and white struggling in these hard, bitter times. Success is not without its price, and he finally attracts the attention of the local Ku Klux Klan. He must find a way to triumph over this formidable force.

About the Author

W. Arthur Wallace was born in 1932 in Mexia, Texas. His parents worked in the oil fields and were no more or no less prejudiced than the rest of the people in Central Texas at that time. By todays standard they would be considered to be racist. The author went to segregated schools all through High School. As a boy, he accepted racial bias as a normal institution. His first experience with integration was at age seventeen when he joined the Air Force and suddenly found himself being bossed around by black Drill Sergeants. After the initial shock, he found them to be firm, but fair-minded and very professional. The twenty years he spent in the Air Force was a valuable learning experience for him. All the negative things he had believed about blacks were proved to be untrue. He began to study Black History and was appalled by the inhumane treatment black people received during slavery, post Civil War and even to this day.

Mr. Wallace is a graduate of Vallejo Jr. College in California and Mid-Western University in Texas. He lived with his wife in Illinois until recently, when she died in 2007. He now lives in Cape Cod.