Promise
Promise ~ A Story of Race, Culture and Black Potential
Spanning the time from emancipation of slaves to present-day, Promise explores issues of race in America and how we arrived at this moment in our racial quandary.
Told through the author’s eyes, it follows the transition from his introduction to racism as a child during the Jim Crow era and his struggle to overcome the physical and psychological barriers that often come with being Black in America—to being owner of two international corporations.
While managing to teach some important lessons, Promise also includes exciting and sometimes hilarious adventures, ranging from opening for, and performing with, such artists as Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, and Bonnie Raitt to traveling the country fighting forest fires. It follows his life’s surprising twists and turns—from facing off with the devil and seeking enlightenment—to being a successful business owner.
More than anything, this book and the experiences told, offers proof that given the chance, Black youths can rise to high levels of excellence; conversely, it also exposes the price society pays for ignoring them.
Reviews
Ron Tinsley’s memoir, Promise, is rich, entertaining, and insightful. From his growing up years in segregated Cincinnati, to his outside the law experiences in Hawaii, and on to his successful business career, he takes us inside his personal struggles with racism and low expectations. As his mother often reminded him, “Ronnie, you can do better than that.” And he did, while often light-hearted and whimsical, Ron shares how he could have gone the way of some of his friends: prison or shot on the street corner. From the perspective of more than 50 years in the legal profession, I have seen countless others who lacked his moral compass and who drowned early in a wasted life. It’s a tale worth reading, especially by those grown up with privilege.
Jack Billings
Ron Tinsley’s story is so much more than a tale of an inner-city black man “pulling himself up by his bootstraps.” Ron’s vivid description of growing up in Cincinnati paints a complex picture of both the dangers, such as witnessing murders on the street, and the pleasures to be had by mischievous boys roaming the inner city. I was also fascinated by Ron’s spiritual path that led him from successful jazz singer to wilderness hermit. However, for me, the most compelling aspect of Ron’s story is his kind and unabashed challenges to the racism he encounters. How his gentle, patient, and courageous approach works its way into opposing hearts and minds and turns animosity into genuine friendship and respect. Surely this approach was instrumental in his realization of the “American Dream.”
“Promise” is a highly educational and insightful read for all ages and all races.
Susanna
Tinsley, a Black musician, forest ranger, and entrepreneur, explores the legacy of racism in this debut memoir.
Written “to encourage and inspire the promising Black and Brown children who if given the chance, will no doubt rise up and achieve far greater successes than I have,” the author offers the inspirational story of his eclectic career. Central to his personal success, Tinsley notes, are the struggles of his ancestors, whose endurance, resilience, and familial love provided him with the foundation to succeed. Indeed, this is as much their story as it is his. His father moved to Ohio as part of the Great Migration of the early 20th century and was relegated to a janitorial position despite his intellectual prowess. On the other side of his family tree, his grandparents fled Virginia to Ohio in 1905; they were an interracial couple whose “forbidden love” between a Black man and a white woman was both illegal and life-endangering in the South.
The author recalls the travails of urban life as a teenager in Cincinnati in the 1960s, which included witnessing the murder of a man in a street fight. In 1973, a stint in the military brought Tinsley to Hawaii, where he would hone his musical skills and launch his career as a successful jazz and R&B vocalist who performed with Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, and others. While the glamour of the author’s musical career is engagingly chronicled, what stands out even more is Tinsley’s passion for the outdoors. This love of the Earth’s natural beauty eventually brought him to Oregon, where he worked as a ranger for the U.S. Forest Service and later started his own business manufacturing massage and physical therapy equipment.
The book’s final chapters offer poignant reflections on the history of racism in America and the author’s analysis of racial dynamics in the urban Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. The book’s engaging writing style effectively balances its inspiring narrative with nuanced discussions of the persistent legacy of racism.
A powerful story of personal triumph.
Kirkus Reviews
Let’s add writer to Ron Tinsley’s list of accomplishments. Ron Tinsley’s memoir, “Promise: A Story of Race, Culture and Black Potential,” is a captivating tale of his life journey. In the preface, he states, “I am not a writer. I do not have a degree in journalism, Black history, or even American history.” However, he goes on to prove himself wrong by weaving a compelling narrative that is both well-written and well-informed. He is a writer.
Tinsley takes us on a journey through his life, starting with his upbringing in the inner city of Cincinnati, which was then the roughest place in America. Despite the odds, he went on to become a successful jazz singer, businessman, and most importantly, a happy family man. With an important stop in Hawaii, his life trip goes from Cincinnati to Eugene, Oregon, where he has lived for over 40 years. It’s a testament to him. Part of his story takes us on a journey to show us how it took a while to get his head in the right place, but he had the advantage of always having his heart in a good place.
I have had the pleasure of knowing Ron personally, and I can attest that his book is a must-read, even if you don’t know him in real life. Not only is it a tale of a life well-lived, but it’s also enlightening to see how his life experiences have impacted his perceptions and views. Even though my route has been so different from his, I found it intriguing that we would reach such similar conclusions on the meaning of it all. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in reading a well-written memoir that is both captivating and informative.
Steven Modee
Ron Tinsley’s book was so compelling, I couldn’t put it down. It is an incredibly honest memoir of a very interesting life, well lived. He reflects on issues such as race, religion and spirituality, ethics and simply being a good person as he takes us through his formative years in Cincinnati, his military career, his life in Hawaii, and into his adult years of marriage, children and living on the west coast. Throughout the book, Ron’s reflections have a candor and heart that is refreshingly frank and insightful.
It’s an important book that I hope will be included in curriculum throughout our country. Humble and matter a fact, his humanity comes through as he addresses essential issues that hold gravity in our world.
Meg
I’m not usually a memoir reader, but all it took was reading the first chapter, and I was hooked. This author has led an amazing life–growing up surrounded by racism and danger, becoming a military police officer, working as a professional singer, meditating in a valley on Maui, putting out forest fires, starting and running a successful business!
Mr. Tinsley writes about these adventures while also observing and dealing with the racism that surrounds us. He shows what that racism looks like to a black man who has the family foundation and self-confidence to forge ahead through barriers that keep recurring all along the way.
In this book, he shares much wisdom about “race, culture and black potential,” as the subtitle says.
Highly recommend.
Jill Engledow
In 1990 or thereabouts, some new neighbors moved into the house next to ours in south Eugene. We were pretty immediately taken with the Tinsleys — and not merely because their daughter, Jazmin, was the perfect baby-sitter age for our young daughter.
I remember thinking that the dad, Ron, seemed very chill and trusting and joyful — and I frankly wondered how that could be for a Black man in a town as lily-white as ours. I was even more impressed with his vibe after he shared that, before buying his house, he walked to another home just a few doors down the street to talk to a man who, reportedly, had expressed concerns about an interracial couple moving into the neighborhood.
Ultimately, Ron and I both left that neighborhood and lost touch. But we found ourselves reunited several years ago as members of the same book club. Then, about two years ago, Ron announced that he was leaving the book club, temporarily, to focus on completing a writing project.
That writing project was his now-published memoir, “Promise,” which answers most of my questions about how he built such a full and fascinating life in a world steeped in systemic racism.
Growing up in an extremely tough section of Cincinnati (“By the time I was 16, I had seen five people killed,” he writes), Tinsley would embark on life journeys that included serving in the U.S. Army, building a successful career as a jazz and R&B vocalist, embracing the life of a surfer dude and backwoods hippie in Hawaii, fulfilling a lifelong dream of being a forest ranger and wildland firefighter, and obtaining a business degree before starting a $6 million, multi-employee business. And that’s only a partial resume.
The racism, of course, was always there. He devotes one chapter, for example, to his struggles with “impostor syndrome,” a pervasive feeling of “faking it” despite his successes — brought on in part by the internalization of racist slights. But he also offers clues on how he hasn’t let racism overtake him — assuming the best in others, refusing to have “that kind of poison in my heart,” deciding when he does and doesn’t want to address a microaggression or be an “ambassador” for his race.
Tinsley was still relatively young when he first learned that some White people hate Jewish people. “You mean they hate each other, too?” he remembers thinking. “I thought they just hated us! What the hell is wrong with these people?”
In a chapter called “Church on Sunday,” Tinsley recalls his “failed indoctrination into Christianity” as a youngster and recounts a variety of other religious traditions explored and spiritual experiences encountered. He raises a question I have long wondered about: How and why have so many Black Americans ultimately embraced the religion of their historic enslavers? I’ve never been able to figure that out. Turns out, neither has Tinsley.
Today, Tinsley identifies the “great outdoors” as his religion — especially if it’s along the Oregon Coast, or any river or stream where he can go fishing.
I really have only one quibble with Tinsley’s book, and it’s a lone sentence in his Preface: “I am not a writer.” I beg to differ.