91-Year-Old, Blind Author Comes to the Bay Area

Eva Rutland, a  91-year-old blind author,  will be coming to Oakland Nov. 1 to sign copies of her book, “When We Were Colored, a Mother’s Story,” at the African American Museum & Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. Eva Rutland’s memoir chronicles her life as a black mother raising four children in the 1950s and 1960s during the early days of integration. Rutland went blind in her fifties, but she continues to write and has published more than 20 novels, mostly Harlequin romances. Her first book “When We Were Colored” was originally published in 1964 and tells the story of a middle class black family living in Sacramento, California in the 1950’s and 1960’s, before civil rights when segregation was legal and discrimination was the norm. Despite the discrimination she and her family faced, Rutland keeps her story upbeat and funny. In the revised introduction, she states that she  “was born during the olden days when grass was on the lawn, pot was a cooking utensil and civil rights were for white folks.” Sacramento Bee editorial writer and former KRON reporter Ginger Rutland will assist her mother by reading sections from the book and presenting a slide show  that includes family pictures dating back to the 1860s on the history of black people in the United States. For more information on the author go to www.evarutlanad.com.  Rutland’s book is available at Marcus Book Store at 3800 MLK Way, Oakland.