From WHITE to BLACK: One Life Between Two Worlds

by Iris Duplantier Rideau

Overview

Iris Duplantier Rideau's story is one of rags to riches-of accomplishing the nearly impossible by a Black woman born into a poor Creole family in New Orleans. Stung by the ugly hatred of racism around her, Iris learned how to "pass for white" at an early age.

Surviving horrifying and humiliating events that would have stopped most people only made Iris more and more determined to succeed. Not content to stay in her low-paying job in a sewing factory, Iris took night classes to further her education. She eventually landed a front office job with an insurance agency that didn't care about her skin color or the blood that ran through her veins, only that she was a fast typist!

After the Watts riots, Iris founded her own insurance agency, providing insurance to thousands of ineligible homeowners, Black-owned businesses, and non-profit agencies such as the Urban League that "white" insurance companies wouldn't touch. Her success caught the eye of the then-mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, who brought her on to insure the city's Federal programs and manage its supplemental pension fund. Iris successfully ran her insurance company and securities firm for the next thirty years-the first Black woman on the West Coast to have such responsibility and success.

When Iris retired, she built a home in the Santa Ynez Valley. But opportunity knocked again, and she created Rideau Winery. She introduced her Creole heritage-and famous authentic cooking to the Valley, pairing her signature dishes with her award-winning wines. Iris knew her winery would have to be the best-and it was-garnering multiple awards and accolades and bringing thousands of guests from all races and walks of life together as friends.

In 2016, Iris sold her winery and took on another challenge-writing her memoir From WHITE to BLACK about her remarkable life moving between two worlds. Photos and recipes included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734990225
Publisher:	8790 Pictures, Inc.
Publication date:	06/19/2022
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Iris Duplantier Rideau was born in the Crescent City section of New Orleans in 1936. She learned how to pass for white from her light-skinned grandmother. To escape the blatant racism of the South, Rideau convinced her mother to move to Los Angeles when Rideau was 12-years-old. Forced to drop out of school when she became pregnant at 15, Rideau enrolled in night classes, determined not to spend her life working in dead-end jobs available to women of color. On her own, she landed a front-office job at an insurance agency. In 1967, Rideau founded her own insurance business, becoming the first minority/woman-owned firm to specialize in federally funded programs. She assisted LA's Mayor Tom Bradley in developing the city's first Affirmative Action Program. In the 1970s, she founded Rideau Securities and Investment Firm that specialized in pension planning for municipalities, ultimately leading to her illustrious career as California's state director for a national pensionplanning company. She was awarded the city's Deferred Compensation Plan contract, resulting in $500 million under management by the time Rideau retired in 1999. Rideau left Los Angeles to build her dream home in the Santa Ynez Valley. Nearby, she discovered an abandoned Santa Barbara Historic Monument adobe house built in 1884 sitting on 22 acres of property. Combining her love of entertaining with her business savvy-(though nothing in the winery world!)-Rideau boldly purchased the property and restored the old house. She planted the vineyards to imported Rhone vines from the south of France, built the winery, and created the award-winning Rideau Winery, one of California's top wineries in the SantaYnez Valley. Rideau has always given back to her communities, first Los Angeles, then the Santa Ynez Valley. As a woman-owned winery, she hired female winemakers, assistant winemakers, and tasting room staff-something unheard of then. During her lifetime, Iris Rideau has proved thather belief in a higher power and her confidence in herself have guided her successful life's journey-shattering those glass ceilings one by one.