If you think slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation…If you think that racism died in the 1960s…If you think that all homeless people are lazy bums who deserve to live on streets…Then this is definitely a must-read.
Same Kind of Different As Me tells two stories. Ron Hall is an international art dealer regularly clearing four and five digit profits off a single transaction. Denver Moore is a son of a sharecropper forced into slavery-of-a-different-name. Ron traces his story back through his college years and meeting the love of his life, Debbie, and quickly rising to prominence as an art trader. Denver traces his story back through his childhood living in a shack, picking cotton for the white plantation owner in exchange for whatever the Man gave him. Ron’s story continues with the story of his and Debbie’s salvation, and how their newfound faith in Christ changed their outlook on life. Denver’s story continues by recounting his many years houseless (I refuse to call it homeless), even serving a decade in Angola prison. We see in Ron’s story the epitome of success and American advancement. But in Denver’s story, it is another world entirely, something the average American would expect only out of a third world country.
And yet, because of one person, these two stories intertwine. Ron’s wife, Debbie, decides to work at a local mission, dragging the not-so-willing Ron along. And that is where they meet Denver. And an unlikely friendship forms. Denver’s heart, calloused by his life of sharecropping and houselessness begins to melt under the bold persistence of “Miss Debbie”. The story that unfolds from there is heartbreaking and heartwarming.
How can one not recommend this book? My only negative comments is that in some areas, I believe the theology to be a bit incomplete, but that is not the purpose of this book. Get this book. Read it. Let your life be changed through it.
The following is a link to the official trailer for the book: