Matriarch: An Evening with Tina Knowles & Guests

‘“You are Celestine,” she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. “Like my sister and my grandmother.” And there under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.’

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that.

Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot.

But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of the world beyond. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood.

That life’s journey – through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts – is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world.

It’s one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America – and the wisdom that women pass on to each other, mothers to daughters, across generations.

Tina Knowles is an American businesswoman, fashion designer, art collector and activist. Born Celestine Ann Beyoncé in Galveston, Texas, to a longshoreman father and seamstress mother, she learned dressmaking at an early age. As a stylist, designer and mother, she helped guide the day-to-day path of Destiny’s Child – the music group comprised of Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams – to global commercial success.

She serves as chairwoman of BeyGOOD, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing economic equity through a wide array of initiatives. She is a grandmother of six and a Matriarch to many.