“Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?”

Hip Hop Womanist writer and theologian EbonyJanice’s book of essays center a fourth wave of Womanism, dreaming, the pursuit of softness, ancestral reverence, and radical wholeness as tools of liberation. 

All The Black Girls Are Activists is a love letter to Black girls and Black women, asking and attempting to offer some answers to “Who would black women get to be if we did not have to create from a place of resistance?” by naming Black women’s wellness, wholeness, and survival as the radical revolution we have been waiting for.

About the Author: EbonyJanice is a dynamic lecturer, transformational speaker, passionate multi-faith preacher, and creative focused on Decolonizing Authority, Hip Hop Scholarship, Womanism as a Political and Spiritual/Religious tool for Liberation, Blackness as Religion, Dialogue as central to professional development and personal growth, and Women and Gender Studies focused on black girlhood.

EbonyJanice holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Political Science and a Master of Arts in Social Change with a concentration in Spiritual Leadership, Womanist Theology, and Racial Justice. She is the founder of Black Girl Mixtape, a multi-platform safe think-space centering the intellectual and creative authority of black women in the form of a lecture series, an online learning institute, and a creative collaborative.

EbonyJanice is also the founder of Dream Yourself Free, a Spiritual Mentoring project focused on black women's healing, dreaming, ease, play, and wholeness as their activism and resistance work.

*ships in 7-10 business days*

As our institutions and systems creak under the pressure of entrenched racism, renowned scholar Dr. Victor Ray explains how Critical Race Theory upholds truth amid misinformation to transcend backlash and uplift progress. On Critical Race Theory illustrates the centrality of race in American history and politics, and how the often mischaracterized intellectual movement became a political necessity.

Dr. Ray draws upon the radical thinking of giants such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois to clearly trace the foundations of Critical Race Theory in the Black intellectual traditions of emancipation and the civil rights movement. From this foundation, Dr. Ray explores the many facets that CRT interrogates, from deeply embedded structural racism to the historical connection between Whiteness and property, ownership, and more.

Dr. Ray argues that multicultural democracy is a recent and relatively fragile innovation that is under threat, in the face of the erosion of voting rights and attacks on speech at universities nationwide. He calls on readers to recall that it took the intervention of the National Guard to integrate schools as recently as 1960, that codifying racial subjugation has become the norm, and that populist demagoguery deployed racial insecurities to stir the January 6th insurrection and threaten the fabric of democracy.

In succinct and thoughtful essays, Dr. Ray explores how the conversation on CRT has expanded into the contemporary popular consciousness, showing why Critical Race Theory matters and why we all should care.

*Ship in 7-10 Business Days*

*signed books available while supplies last

A revealing, humorous, behind-the-scenes memoir from Kenny "The Jet" Smith—superstar basketball commentator, host of top-rated Inside the NBA, and two-time NBA champion. Smith reveals memorable inside stories of his playing and broadcasting careers, focusing on the star players, coaches, and mentors who inspired him along the way.

Kenny Smith was a star at the University of North Carolina before his storied NBA run, in which he won two championships with the Houston Rockets. His tremendous popularity skyrocketed when he joined TNT’s new show, Inside the NBA, which has thrived for twenty-four years and won multiple Emmys, receiving enormous acclaim for the insight, humor, social commentary, and unrivaled basketball coverage from Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Ernie Johnson, Jr. Kenny is known to fans for his laser-sharp analysis and eloquent observations of the basketball scene and culture.

In this honest and profound memoir, Kenny writes chapters about each of the extraordinary people who taught him invaluable life lessons. He illuminates the personalities, affections, and quirks of friends such as Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kobe Bryant, among others, and what he learned from each of them. He writes about his legendary UNC coach, Dean Smith, and other indelible role models through his career. And he interweaves poignant material about his upbringing in Queens, New York, his parents, his children, and his marriage, explaining the rich knowledge he obtained from the important figures around him. Kenny is also a strong, intelligent voice on race, as his fans and TV viewers will know. Ultimately this is a revealing, humorous, and powerful memoir, offering a candid glimpse inside the rarified world of elite sports and broadcasting, with inspiring takeaways.A revealing, humorous, behind-the-scenes memoir from Kenny "The Jet" Smith—superstar basketball commentator, host of top-rated Inside the NBA, and two-time NBA champion. Smith reveals memorable inside stories of his playing and broadcasting careers, focusing on the star players, coaches, and mentors who inspired him along the way.

*ships in 7-10 business days

Award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge was frustrated with the way that discussions of race and racism are so often led by those blind to it, by those willfully ignorant of its legacy. Her response, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, has transformed the conversation both in Britain and around the world. Examining everything from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, from whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge, and counter racism. Including a new afterword by the author, this is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of color in Britain today, and an essential handbook for anyone looking to understand how structural racism works.

*ships in 7-10 business days*

Learn to establish healthy boundaries and prioritize your own needs

Many women struggle with setting boundaries—saying no, speaking up, and believing their own needs are as important as everyone else’s. This journal helps readers figure out where they need stronger boundaries, and gives them the inspiration and encouragement they need to set and maintain them, encouraging and empowering happier, healthier lives.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

This celebration of Black resistance, from protests to art to sermons to joy, offers a blueprint for the fight for freedom and justice -- and ideas for how each of us can contribute

Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight White supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

Featuring contributions from:

• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tarana Burke
• Harry Belafonte
• Adrienne Maree brown
• Alicia Garza
• Patrisse Khan-Cullors
• Reverend Dr. Valerie Bridgeman
• Kiese Laymon
• Jamilah Lemieux
• Robin DG Kelley
• Damon Young
• Michael Arceneaux
• Hanif Abdurraqib
  
• Dr. Yaba Blay
  
• Diamond Stingily
  
• Amanda Seales
• Imani Perry
  
• Denene Millner
  
• Kierna Mayo
  
• John Jennings
  
• Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
  
• Tongo Eisen-Martin

An exploration of how emergent strategies can help us meet this moment, survive what is to come, and shape safer and more just futures.

Practicing New Worlds explores how principles of emergence, adaptation, iteration, resilience, transformation, interdependence, decentralization and fractalization can shape organizing toward a world without the violence of surveillance, police, prisons, jails, or cages of any kind, in which we collectively have everything we need to survive and thrive.

Drawing on decades of experience as an abolitionist organizer, policy advocate, and litigator in movements for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice and the principles articulated by adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Ritchie invites us to think beyond traditional legislative and policy change to create more possibilities for survival and resistance in the midst of the ongoing catastrophes of racial capitalism—and the cataclysms to come. Rooted in analysis of current abolitionist practices and interviews with on-the-ground organizers resisting state violence, building networks to support people in need of abortion care, and nurturing organizations and convergences that can grow transformative cities and movements, Practicing New Worlds takes readers on a journey of learning, unlearning, experimentation, and imagination to dream the worlds we long for into being. 

Ships in 7-10 business days

In this disarming and candid memoir, cultural critic Clarkisha Kent unpacks the kind of compounded problems you face when you’re a fat, Black, queer woman in a society obsessed with heteronormativity.

There was no easy way for Kent to navigate personal discovery and self-love. As a dark-skinned, first-generation American facing a myriad of mental health issues and intergenerational trauma, at times Kent’s body felt like a cosmic punishment. In the face of body dysmorphia, homophobia, anti-Blackness, and respectability politics, the pursuit of “high self-esteem” seemed oxymoronic. 

Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto is a humorous, at times tragic, memoir that follows Kent on her journey to realizing that her body is a gift to be grown into, that sometimes family doesn’t always mean home, and how even ill-fated bisexual romances could free her from gender essentialism. Perfect for readers of Keah Brown’s The Pretty One, Alida Nugent’s You Don’t Have to Like Me, and Stephanie Yeboah’s Fattily Ever After, Kent’s debut explores her own lived experiences to illuminate how fatphobia intertwines with other oppressions. It stresses the importance of addressing the violence scored upon our minds and our bodies, and how we might begin the difficult—but joyful—work of setting ourselves free.

A riveting memoir by the former CEO of Black Entertainment Television (BET), about the glamorous and ugly moments of being a high-powered Black woman executive in the entertainment industry.

As an incredible glass-ceiling breaker and the woman who brought timeless television shows like The Game and Being Mary Jane to cable, Debra Lee has been the visionary responsible for elevating Black images and storytelling for decades. Now she’s telling her own story, in an intimate and eye-opening tale about the triumphant and tricky moments of a career in entertainment.

I Am Debra Lee is a page-turner, filled with deeply personal revelations, juicy celebrity intel, and electrifying behind-the-scenes stories that reveal how she went from a girl raised in the segregated South to leading the first Black company traded on the New York Stock Exchange and how she juggled social responsibility while managing a company targeted toward the Black community. In a rousing narrative, Lee writes: “I don’t just love Black culture—the magic in our hair, the swagger in our steps, the particular way we can say ‘alright now’ to fit our changing moods—Black culture saved me.” In her exciting debut, she answers all of our questions about building an unapologetically Black enterprise as a Black woman. What to do when you’re forced to attend a board meeting eight weeks after a C-section. How to manage a team of men when you’re the first female CEO at the company. How she learned the hard way to say no to those in power when their vision didn’t align with her purpose.

I Am Debra Lee tackles lessons that women CEOs rarely dare to. She addresses her personal struggles with motherhood and “having it all,” navigating reproductive choice, fertility, and #MeToo while achieving great professional success. Being Black and a woman in corporate life isn’t easy for anyone. But Lee shows how she evolved from a shy girl who dreaded public speaking to becoming a force to be reckoned with as she helped build the leading entertainment company for Black audiences and consumers of Black culture globally.

An Oprah Daily Spring 2023 Reading List Pick

From an exciting new literary voice: a memoir that explores grief, Blackness, and recovery after the death of a dear friend.

After an unexpected phone call on an early morning in 2018, writer and model Eirinie Carson learned of her best friend Larissa’s death. In the wake of her shock, Eirinie attempts to make sense of the events leading up to Larissa’s death and uncovers startling secrets about her life in the process. 

THE DEAD ARE GODS is Eirinie’s striking, intimate, and profoundly moving depiction of life after a sudden loss. Amid navigating moments of intense grief, Eirinie is overwhelmed by her love for Larissa. She finds power in pulling moments of joy from the depths of her emotion. Eirinie’s portrayal of what love feels like after death bursts from the page alongside a timely, honest, and personal exploration of Black love and Black life.

Perhaps, Eirinie proposes, “The only way out is through.”

*ships in 7- 10 business days*

At age nineteen, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became.

With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Natasha Trethewey investigates this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief as an entry point into understanding the tragic course of her mother’s life and the way her own life has been shaped by a legacy of fierce love and resilience. Moving through her mother’s history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a “child of miscegenation” in Mississippi, Trethewey plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985.

Memorial Drive is a compelling and searching look at a shared human experience of sudden loss and absence but also a piercing glimpse at the enduring ripple effects of white racism and domestic abuse. Animated by unforgettable prose and inflected by a poet’s attention to language, this is a luminous, urgent, and visceral memoir from one of our most important contemporary writers and thinkers.

A new book by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.

Investigating topics that include the US-Mexico border "wall," Frida Kahlo, urban segregation, gangs, queer Latino utopias, and the emergence of the cartel genre in TV and film, Tobar journeys across the country to expose something truer about the meaning of "Latino" in the twenty-first century.

*ships in 7-10 business days*

This extraordinary memoir of struggle and perseverance offers new ways of envisioning economic equality for everyone—from a leading activist and fashion pioneer.

Aurora James’s story is not a “success story.” Or at least, it shouldn’t be told that way. Having dropped out of high school, struggled with body image, and dabbled in street racing, her eventual arrest might have been her rock bottom. But as a visionary and optimist, that experience became one of many that reshaped her way of thinking about the world. After a brief modeling stint, James discovered the real power in creating for the runway and started her own business in a flea market, a sustainable fashion line showcasing traditional African design that would become an award-winning international brand. Then she founded one of the fastest-growing social justice nonprofits, the Fifteen Percent Pledge. But none of this came from a desire to “succeed.” It came from a desire to forge a new creative path—and to lift others up alongside her.

Already a rising star in fashion and the first Black American female designer to win a CFDA Award, James was inspired by the activism that swept the nation in the summer of 2020 to think bigger about how to empower Black business owners. With an idea and an Instagram post, she founded the Fifteen Percent Pledge, which challenges retailers to commit 15% of their shelf space and spending power to Black businesses. To date, more than two dozen of the world’s most recognized retailers have taken the pledge, redirecting $10 billion in revenue to Black brands.

Empowering and full of heart, Wildflower is the story of how Aurora James got to where she is now and a rallying cry for those eager to make change.

*Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

Decolonizing the Body explores the traumatic physical and emotional effects of colonization and systemic racism on the body and mind. Written by a woman of color for women of color, it offers body-centered somatic practices to free women from internalized oppression, so they can reclaim confidence, dignity, and self-worth.

Powerful, body-based practices to help you reclaim confidence, dignity, and self-worth.

As a woman of color, you are more likely to experience oppression, discrimination, and physical or sexual violence in your lifetime. In addition, your family may have experienced generational trauma and systemic racism going back for centuries. This old and new trauma can manifest in both the mind and body. However, there are ways you can free yourself from this trauma, build confidence in yourself and your abilities, and restore your powerful sense of self.

Written by a woman of color for women of color, Decolonizing the Body offers proven-effective somatic, body-centered practices to help you heal from systemic oppression, trust the profound wisdom of your own body, and reconnect with your true self. And by slowing down, cultivating a daily ritual, and setting strong boundaries, you can reclaim your inherent dignity and worth—as well as those aspects of yourself that you may have cast aside in an effort to survive.

With this empowering guide, you’ll discover:

• How bodies are colonized through systems of oppression
• Why slowing down is essential for healing
• How to listen to what your body needs
• How to create a space for ritual in your daily life
• How to strengthen feelings of capability
• How to cultivate community—starting with yourself

To decolonize the body is to become whole again, and to come home again. Let this book be your guide on this crucial journey.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

An invigorating exploration of impactful feminist movements and strategies for replicating their success

In The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact-Driving Movements We Need Now More than Ever, accomplished feminist activist and executive Latanya Mapp Frett delivers a powerful and practical exploration of the factors that make a feminist social movement impactful in its place and time. In the book, you'll discover popular and not-so-popular social movements and the leaders, art, research, and narratives that drove them.

The author explains what made these social movements so effective and explains the steps that organizations, nonprofits, and social impact professionals can take to replicate that success on the ground and in the present.

The book also includes:

• Discussions of the importance of feminist funds in bankrolling critical feminist movements
• Explanations of the roles played by men and boys in building a feminist future
• Actionable and straightforward advice applicable to everyone trying to make a difference for women around the world

An essential text for feminist advocates who find themselves in an increasingly challenging political and social environment, The Everyday Feminist is the practical blueprint to social change that lawmakers, activists, entrepreneurs, and non-profit professionals have been waiting for.

A gritty, down-to-earth guide for real-life couples 

Conflict is a natural part of any intimate relationship. Yet most couples either avoid it or try to smooth over their differences. This often results in at least one partner compromising their integrity—and stunting their own growth.

Monsters in Love challenges the idea that conflict between partners is unhealthy or something to avoid. Instead, it encourages both people to stand by what they need and who they are—but to do so with compassion rather than competitiveness or vengefulness. 

This book is about the reality of committed, intimate relationships, which are designed to inspire both people to grow up. It challenges some common misperceptions about what makes for a successful partnership. It also rocks the boat of psychotherapy, calling out therapists who don't bring their best to their clients. 

Instead of comforting fantasies or false promises, Monsters in Love offers you and your partner a chance to make your relationship—and your lives—much bigger and more emergent. 

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

A debut illustrated manifesto by Rinny Perkins (@RinnyRiot) about what she's learned as a queer Black woman through the art of self-validation.

In this graphic collection of mini essays, comedian Rinny Perkins illustrates her experiences as the owner of a popular online shop while she figures out antidepressant prescriptions and the seemingly never-ending dating-app cycle.
 
Rinny shares what she's learned across topics like mental health, work, sex and dating, and family and friends. Featuring funny, real reflections from experiences in her hometown of (Third Ward!) Houston, Texas to Los Angeles — the author traces her journey to understanding that whether through a friendship break-up or saving up for a Telfar bag, the only person who can truly validate us is ourselves.
 
With 1970s-inspired graphics like a "When To Quit Your Job" checklist and Microaggressions Bingo, Not Everyone's Going to Like You is a long DM of affirmations from Rinny to herself on how to get through life. Her advice? Stop ignoring your intuition, ignore perfection, and leave them on read.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

In Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life, cultural critic and historian Tavia Nyong’o surveys the conditions of contemporary black artistic production in the era of post-blackness. Moving fluidly between the insurgent art of the 1960’s and the intersectional activism of the present day, Afro-Fabulations challenges genealogies of blackness that ignore its creative capacity to exceed conditions of traumatic loss, social death, and archival erasure.

If black survival in an anti-black world often feels like a race against time, Afro-Fabulations looks to the modes of memory and imagination through which a queer and black polytemporality is invented and sustained. Moving past the antirelational debates in queer theory, Nyong’o posits queerness as “angular sociality,” drawing upon queer of color critique in order to name the gate and rhythm of black social life as it moves in and out of step with itself. He takes up a broad range of sites of analysis, from speculative fiction to performance art, from artificial intelligence to Blaxploitation cinema. Reading the archive of violence and trauma against the grain, Afro-Fabulations summons the poetic powers of queer world-making that have always been immanent to the fight and play of black life.

*This item will ship or be ready for pick up in 7-10 business days

Uncovers the often overlooked stories of the women who shaped the black freedom struggle

The story of the black freedom struggle in America has been overwhelmingly male-centric, starring leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey Newton. With few exceptions, black women have been perceived as supporting actresses; as behind-the-scenes or peripheral activists, or rank and file party members. But what about Vicki Garvin, a Brooklyn-born activist who became a leader of the National Negro Labor Council and guide to Malcolm X on his travels through Africa? What about Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman?

From Rosa Parks and Esther Cooper Jackson, to Shirley Graham DuBois and Assata Shakur, a host of women demonstrated a lifelong commitment to radical change, embracing multiple roles to sustain the movement, founding numerous groups and mentoring younger activists. Helping to create the groundwork and continuity for the movement by operating as local organizers, international mobilizers, and charismatic leaders, the stories of the women profiled in Want to Start a Revolution? help shatter the pervasive and imbalanced image of women on the sidelines of the black freedom struggle.

Contributors: Margo Natalie Crawford, Prudence Cumberbatch, Johanna Fernández, Diane C. Fujino, Dayo F. Gore, Joshua Guild, Gerald Horne, Ericka Huggins, Angela D. LeBlanc-Ernest, Joy James, Erik McDuffie, Premilla Nadasen, Sherie M. Randolph, James Smethurst, Margaret Stevens, and Jeanne Theoharis.

A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.

What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.

Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.

A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundan

Paperback Release: April 22, 2025

The critically acclaimed author of In the Wake, "Christina Sharpe is a brilliant thinker who attends unflinchingly to the brutality of our current arrangements . . . and yet always finds a way to beauty and possibility" (Saidiya Hartman).

A singular achievement, Ordinary Notes explores profound questions about loss and the shapes of Black life that emerge in the wake. In a series of 248 notes that gather meaning as we read them, Christina Sharpe skillfully weaves artifacts from the past—public ones alongside others that are poignantly personal—with present realities and possible futures, intricately constructing an immersive portrait of everyday Black existence. The themes and tones that echo through these pages, sometimes about language, beauty, memory; sometimes about history, art, photography, and literature—always attend, with exquisite care, to the ordinary-extraordinary dimensions of Black life.

At the heart of Ordinary Notes is the indelible presence of the author’s mother, Ida Wright Sharpe. “I learned to see in my mother’s house,” writes Sharpe. “I learned how not to see in my mother’s house . . . My mother gifted me a love of beauty, a love of words.” Using these gifts and other ways of seeing, Sharpe steadily summons a chorus of voices and experiences to the page. She practices an aesthetic of "beauty as a method,” collects entries from a community of thinkers toward a “Dictionary of Untranslatable Blackness,” and rigorously examines sites of memory and memorial. And in the process, she forges a brilliant new literary form, as multivalent as the ways of Black being it traces.

*ships in 7 - 10 business days*

Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan “Black Power” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.

In gripping, novelistic detail, Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC.

Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama, and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black history.