Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

A searing tribute of sisterhood and family, a moving memoir of profound love and loss from the acclaimed author of The World According to Fannie Davis.

In Love, Rita Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her beloved older sister Rita, who knew Bridgett before she knew herself. Just four years apart in age, as the two sisters grew into young adulthood they left behind their childhood rivalry and became best friends.

Rita was a vivacious woman who attended Fisk University at age sixteen, and went on to become a car test driver, an amateur belly dancer, an MBA, and later a popular special ed teacher; in doing so, she modeled for her younger sister Bridgett how to live boldly. And in the face of family tragedy, the two sisters leaned on each other to heal; their closeness grew, until Rita’s life was cut short by lupus when she was forty-four. This led Bridgett to ask the simple, heartbreaking question: Why Rita?

Love, Rita is a brave and beautiful homage that not only celebrates the special, complex bond of sisterhood but also reveals what it is to live, and die, as a Black woman in America.

This moving memoir, full of joy and heartbreak, family history alongside American history, uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women—and the men they love. This poignant, deeply resonant portrait of an unforgettable woman and her impact on those she left behind is essential reading on the Black experience in America.

How does one woman’s life reflect a nation’s story?

• The Bond of Sisterhood: Follow Bridgett and Rita’s journey from childhood rivalry to an unshakeable friendship that offered strength in the face of family tragedy.
• A Portrait of Black Womanhood: Celebrate Rita, a vivacious woman who lived boldly as a car test driver, an MBA, and a beloved teacher, modeling a life of boundless possibility.
• Grief and Healing: Navigate the heartbreaking question of “Why Rita?” and the author’s search for meaning after her sister’s life was cut short by lupus at forty-four.
• Sharp Social Commentary: Examine the persistent effects of racism through the lens of one family’s story, revealing the deep connection between personal history and American history.