The Deeper the Roots

“Insightful, emotional, and enraging” this memoir from Stockton CA's first black mayor “empowers us to fight for equal opportunities for our communities” (Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist).

“Don’t tell nobody our business,” Michael Tubbs’s mother often told him growing up. For Michael, that meant a lot of things: don’t tell anyone about the struggle of being Black and broke in Stockton, CA. Don’t tell anyone the pain of having a father incarcerated for twenty-five years to life. Don’t tell anyone about living two lives, the brainy bookworm and the kid with the newest Jordans. And also don’t tell anyone about the joys of growing up with three “moms” —a Nana who never let him miss church, an Auntie who’d take him to the library any time, and a mother, “She-Daddy”, who schooled him in the wisdom of hip-hop and taught him never to take no for an answer.

For a long time Michael didn’t tell anyone his story, but as he went on to a scholarship at Stanford and an internship in the Obama White House, he began to realize the power of his experience. By the time he returned to Stockton to become, at age twenty-six, its first Black mayor and the youngest-ever mayor of a major American city, he knew his story meant something.

Tubbs shares with us his family of badass women, his life-changing encounters with Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, the challenges of governing in the 21st century en route to unveiling his compelling vision for America rooted in his experiences in his hometown.

“Hugely inspiring and important.” —Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Color Purple