The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home

Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton, CA, writes about his impoverished childhood with an incarcerated father and becoming a Stanford graduate and political leader. He attributes much of his success to his “three moms,” which include his grandmother, aunt, and tenacious mother, whom he refers to as “she-daddy.” He talks about growing up in Stockton and the impact of his father, who was a casualty of California’s notorious Three Strikes sentencing law, which disproportionately affected Black men. Education and persistence characterize Tubbs’s path to broader opportunity; he describes encountering racism at his charter school, learning to advocate for himself as a teen, and chafing at racist reactions to his acceptance to Stanford, where he excelled. He writes that stints in South Africa and at the Obama White House deepened his commitment to social change. At 22, he ran for (and won) a Stockton City Council seat; four years later, he became Stockton’s first Black mayor. His experiences with local politics and community organizing are instructive and revealing, and his gratitude for the women who raised him is evident throughout.