This morning I had the amazing opportunity to meet with Author, Anna Rosenburg.  We met through a mutual friend, Katherine Moore Cooper (who interviewed Anna for her autobiography), while Anna is on tour here from “across the pond” for her book, “Who Am I Really?“.   Anna’s story is compelling.  Here is a brief description from the back of her book:

Until she was seven years old, Ann Rosenburg was happy. She live a simple life in a two-room flat with her devoted father. In Anna’s world, there was very little to worry about – until a wealthy, high-minded pillar of society’s across the road decided that it really wasn’t right for a little girl to be brought up by a poor father on his own.  Telling Anna that they were going to drive in the country, she took her away to live in a children’s home.

The devastation of this betrayal and the loss of regular contact with her father destroyed Anna’s young world. Her unhappiness was compounded by her confusion over her own identity.  What did her black skin mean? Why wasn’t it the same colour as her father’s? Where did she come from? Who was she really?

As you can imagine, Anna and I had much to talk about over two cups of coffee!   I’ll be interviewing Anna on Hope42Day, next Wednesday, December 5 at 4:30pm CST,  please do join us if not for the “live” show, then for the downloadable podcast.  I know I’ve often asked myself “who am I really?” and I certainly did not have as confusing an difficult a childhood as Anna.

Before meeting Anna, I had not read her book nor knew that she was bi-racial but I knew she would be special because of my respect for Katherine Moore Cooper and another mutual friend, Nettie Reynolds, who first told me about Anna and thought she might be just the sort of person I would enjoy interviewing on my show.  Without any knowledge of Anna’s life story nor that she was bi-racial, one of my first questions to her was if she had received (extreme) prejudice growing up with dark skin in England and what that was like for her.  I soon learned how ignorant I was about the black experience in England.   I’ve black friends in the United States from all kinds of socio and economic vectors and have heard their story, but was humbled to learn how difficult it was for Anna and black and brown-skinned people to grow up in that Anglo society.

Seems I have been reminded once again how important it is for us–you and me—to have as many conversations as we can with all kinds of people so that we can become aware of the blinders we walk around with in our lives, often times without any idea that we do.

Join us next Wednesday for what promises to be a moving interview.