When They Call You a Terrorist
A Black Lives Matter Memoir
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4.2 • 6 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A powerful memoir of survival and resilience, exploring what it means to be Black in America and the birth of a visionary movement demanding justice.
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
New York Times Editor's Pick.
Library Journal Best Books of 2019.
TIME Magazine's "Best Memoirs of 2018 So Far."
O, Oprah's Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick Up Now."
Politics & Current Events 2018 O.W.L. Book Awards Winner
The Root Best of 2018
Raised by a single mother in an impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. Deliberately targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin's killer went free, Patrisse's outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.
Condemned as terrorists and a threat to America, these women founded a hashtag that birthed a movement demanding accountability from authorities who continually turn a blind eye to injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.
When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele's reflection on humanity. An empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, it is a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country—and the world—that Black Lives Matter.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Black Lives Matter movement has become a touchstone for people worldwide. In this captivating book, we learn how small and personal its beginnings were. BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors grew up in poverty in Van Nuys, California, with her single mother working multiple jobs to support the family. Khan-Cullors describes the systemic racism that she and her friends, family, and neighbors experienced at the hands of police from as early as she can remember with a matter-of-factness that lands like a gut punch. But her memoir is an empowering one, charting how her struggles led her to organize and fight back, eventually teaming with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi to found BLM in response to the ever-increasing dangers of what she calls “breathing while Black.” Khan-Cullors’ no-holds-barred storytelling ensures that nobody will come away from this book without a clear idea of what racism feels like. She doesn’t just speak truth to power—she spreads the word as widely as possible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black Lives Matter cofounder Kahn-Cullors brings an earnest and heartfelt tone, if not always a consistent delivery style, to the audio production of her memoir. Over the course of the book she describes how her early experiences growing up in public housing in Los Angeles led to her political activism. She reads in a conversational manner that in no way belies the emotional weight of the hardships her family endured. The most memorable portions of the narrative are about her mentally ill older brother Monte, who was in and out of prison for years. Kahn-Cullors provides a more wistful tone in describing her immediate and extended families and their devotion to work and self-improvement in the midst of worsening economic and social conditions. In the second half of the book, the narrative addresses the motivations for and tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement. Kahn-Cullors's pacing here is choppy and harder to follow. Still, the audiobook is well worth it for the first half in which listeners are privy to hearing Kahn-Cullors's personal experiences as a black person in America read in her own voice. A St. Martin's hardcover.
