No Color Is My Kind: The Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Integration of Houston

by Thomas R. Cole

No Color Is My Kind is an uncommon chronicle of identity, fate, and compassion as two men--one Jewish and one African American--set out to rediscover a life lost to manic depression and alcoholism. In 1984, Thomas Cole discovered Eldrewey Stearns in a Galveston psychiatric hospital. Stearns, a fifty-two-year-old black man, complained that although he felt very important, no one understood him. Over the course of the next decade, Cole and Stearns,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292711980
• ISBN13: 9780292711983
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 285 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating book about Houston, integration, and two men

In the 1990s I spent two years traveling in Europe. One day in a Hungarian history museum I hit the wall: Here I was reading all about the Magyars, but I knew little about my own hometown--Houston, Texas--except whatever I'd been forced to memorize eons ago in grade school. Unfortunately, once I got back to Texas I found many of the local history books unbearable: "In 1832, Lamar So-and-So reined in his trusty steed at the banks of Buffalo Bayou." I gave up my getting-to-know-Houston project until recently, when I stumbled upon No Color is My Kind: The Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Integration of Houston. This is easily the best book I've ever read about Houston history. Thomas Cole personalizes the story, makes himself visible as a person confronting his own ideals, frustrations, and personal myths. His subject, Eldrewey Stearns, is obviously no easy man to pin down. Stearns has troubles, and I'm afraid he suffers more than most people. However, the fact that the writer refused--or was unable--to paint Stearns as a perfectly noble (and flat) hero is, in my opinion, exactly why Stearns is such a moving figure and why this work is so much richer than the Daughters of the American Revolution (or worse, Daughters of the Confederacy) tributes that so many other books about Houston and Houstonians seem to be. Stearns is real, and Cole's depiction of him and his part in Houston's integration movement deepened my appreciation for African-Americans' struggles and their courageous stands.