Testimonials

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In POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS, Mr. McClure draws on his skills as a cultural analyst, negotiator, and bridge builder. As a young African-American from a large, loving, deeply spiritual family, he learned to balance the realities of the "streets," his own moral compass, and the dynamics of power as viewed from his shoeshine box at elite Yale University. From these experiences, he developed the concept of the "U-S-A" and utilizes it to weave together the impact of people's personal views on their professional practices, the value of listening to and including the "other," and the necessity for institutional commitment to diversity through creation and enforcement of corporate civil rights conflict management policies at the municipal and departmental levels. He also offers some "how-to" guidance.

Frank Amoroso
New England Regional Director, US Department of Justice/Community Relations Service; retired chief of police, Portland, Maine; Civil Rights Committee/International Association of Chiefs of Police

POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS, Edward McClure's third book, reinforces his nature-centric philosophy that "diversity is normal" and utilizes his concept of a second U.S.A., the "University of the Streets and Academia" (U-S-A), to shed light on the past, current, and future of police/community relations in America.

Brian Searles
Former chief of police, South Burlington, Vermont, and Executive Director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council

In POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS, Mr. McClure brings a whole new perspective to the dialogue by connecting the English and Irish conflict four centuries ago to the history of the institution of slavery and the roots of policing and police/community relations in the U.S.A. With this historical understanding, he highlights a number of examples of police / community friction and interventions he utilized over 25 years with the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Relations Service.

Robert Wintersmith
Ph.D., conflict resolution consultant

POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS' FRECKLES Nature-Centric "Think Peace" Pieces are tools to promote thinking and honest dialogue among people of all colors about how we view each other, the impact of our social history on our modern personal and professional lives, and our institutional patterns of inclusion or exclusion. It can stimulate the candid discussion about race recently called for by international, national, and local leadership.

Mel King
Community organizer and former Director, Community Fellows Program, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Most of us have learned the hard way that it is easier to build airfields or move mountains than to change the landscape within the human heart. FRECKLES is a little book. Reading it is like planting a small seed behind the inch or two of bone separating one mind from another, so that the thoughts brought to life by Mr. McClure's deceptively simple prose may sprout, mature, and spread around the world. Using FRECKLES as the symbol of differences in human skin color, the author offers a sampling of interactive situations where the thoughts provoked resemble nothing in recent literature so much as the meditations growing out of reading Kahlil Gibran's THE PROPHET.

Robert L. Birch
National Agricultural Library, U.S. Department of Agriculture

As I further reflect on the intent of your book, FRECKLES, I feel tremendous empathy with the subject of power struggle and race relations. Having been reared an Indian in a British community, I have encountered numerous episodes of antagonism vs. harmony. During these experiences I remember feeling a complete lack of self worth. I knew I was different by virtue of color, but I failed to understand how people could be intentionally malicious. I resented them. Now I stand afar almost happy, for the hurt I felt, for through the hurt I feel harmony.

Bubeeta
Reader response to FRECKLES

FRECKLES is a marvelous book. It takes all the fables, myths, and socio-economic reasons that surround the subject of racism and distills them down to the simple central madness of racism through the ages - i.e. that any human being should be judged by the pigmentation of his skin. To be aware of that central sickness of the mind is the first step towards its eradication and FRECKLES does it beautifully.

James Whitmore
Award winning stage and Oscar nominated screen actor. Productions include: Black Like Me (1964), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Twilight Zone (1963) and Bully: An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt (1978), among others.

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I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am at my son's basketball practice. I just read the final chapter of WE LOVE YOU MAMA. It moved me to tears. It blows me away to think this was written in1979 (I was 8 years old.) Through all the trials and tribulations of my life, the most influential and defining person is my mother. She continues to inspire, motivate and make me laugh! I will pass this book onto her. Again, I was touched by your kindness. Like Mom says, you have one chance to do it right! It is the most important job in the world. What a beautiful book.

Ann Delduchetto
Mother - January 26, 2010

WE LOVE YOU MAMA hits a fundamental core of what is often missing in our lives, the loss of family-centered upbringing for our children and our disconnect with Mother Nature and her rhythms. So often today both parents must work to support their family or the family is comprised of a single working parent. Parents are exhausted, and thus surrogate parenting enters the family in the form of television, the internet, video games. With all this cyber-space connectedness, the spiritual component of life is being shouted down so we are often unaware that it exists. Cyberspace can never fill our inner spiritual nurturing need. As babies, our first experience with Mother Nature is with our mothers; it is there that we receive unconditional love. To be attuned with our mother's unconditional love and thereby with nature's rhythms, can lead us to inner peace. In WE LOVE YOU MAMA, Mr. McClure describes and develops this human and spiritual need for the unconditional love of our mothers in a poignant way. I highly recommend this book.

Jessica Loring
Mother, author of "The Virtual Child," lawyer and conservationist - September 1, 2009

Thanks for the great book, WE LOVE YOU MAMA. I've almost finished reading it and have been warmed and inspired by it. Having decided to be home full-time with the big bambino was a decision that took a great deal of thought, but I know that I've made the right choice for me, my son and husband.

Anne Short
Mother - October 22, 2002

WE LOVE YOU MAMA helps clarify the confusion of today's caretakers. Mr. McClure discusses the great need for mothering and the overpowering forces that get in the way. His understanding of the racial and cultural influences that strive to thrive through the conflicts of financial stressors and the changes in family roles are clear. This book would be an excellent tool to help young people to assess what nurturing they need, what they have gotten, and how and why they may be looking to satisfy unmet needs. There are many opportunities presented to engage in cultural, personal, and societal assessments throughout the book.

Marguerite A. Murphy, LICWS
Psychotherapist/Private Practice - May 27, 2009

WE LOVE YOU MAMA was easy and fast reading. No frills or long stories - direct and to the point. It told me you hold a lady in high esteem You have a great love and respect for your mother and your wife, Diana. No matter our nationality, Mother is universal - extended to the father. I could read the love when you told us about the birth of your child and Diana's concern, "I want to hear him!"

Joan Mackey
Mother, human services worker - June, 2009

The Freckles Concept

The book Freckles started from a simple question of the author, “Why are you so dark-skinned and I’m so light-skinned? My teacher told me you’re one big freckle.” Mr. McClure starts with a clear explanation that whether light, medium or dark, we are all part of Nature’s mosaic – each of us has some degree of melanin. Just as flowers are red, blue, yellow, or pink, the diversity of Nature’s design includes people of all colors.

Each of Edward McClure’s books - Freckles, We Love You Mama, and Police Community Relations - starts from a nature-centric view of Mother Earth and Father Sky, in recognition of a power greater than humankind. The books are meant to stimulate thinking and dialogue about how everyone’s interpersonal social and business transactions are influenced by their vision of nature. We all fall somewhere along a continuum of seeing ourselves in harmony with the diversity of nature or in an antagonistic relationship. The extent to which we see ourselves as a part of that whole affects how we view our obligations to each other as well as to a higher authority, whether in spirit or in the secular world. That vision is translated into how we handle relationships in our families, communities, on our jobs, as a nation and in the world.

Mr. McClure’s books are meant to stimulate discussion around public policy, civil rights obligations, race and diversity from top leadership to the average person on the street.