Excerpts

"This is the story of how I loved and raised my Black son, tried to make him strong and sensitive, and keep him safe. I fell down. Often. But I got up. We fell down. Often. But we got up. This is not a how-to book, rather it is a "How I did one of the hardest things you can ever try to do, and with faith in yourself and the support of family and community and luck, do it well" book. Jesse Jackson urged us to keep hope alive. Every parent who loves their child or children knows those words as prayer and mantra and instruction. You cannot raise a Black child in America and not be an optimist, no matter what.   "We have to save our sons and daughters at a time when old-school systemic racism is now shaped and enhanced by climate change, artificial intelligence, social media turbulence, and the relentless replay of 'black death at the hands of cops' videos, along with a new outburst of White backlash. In 1969, Gil Scott Heron sang that while people had no food to eat on earth in 'Whiteys on the Moon.' Now the destination is Mars. Still. And yet. We have to raise sons and daughters who will not be the meek inheriting the earth. We will fight for them all. We will raise them to fight for their place in the sun. They are our wealth. They are our future. We have always known our Black children's lives mattered."   Excerpt from the introduction.     "At a corner table in an upscale restaurant heavy on redwood paneling, scented candles, and a retro sixties atmosphere, Elaine Ellis Comegys and I sat talking about sons. I was a visiting writer in residence at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Elaine is an associate dean of students. At noon we had set out, walking leisurely from the nearby campus to this restaurant located in 'downtown,' an area that is really no more than a five-block strip of retailers, which include a gourmet carryout, a health food store, an art supply shop, a children's bookstore, and the town's only theater. Yellow Springs possesses a vaguely aging counterculture feel and the town invoked in me fond memories of a time when my Afro hair was several inches thicker than the close, conservative natural I wore that day.   "Ebullient and warm, Elaine had given me a capsule history of Yellow Springs, population 4,000, including its status as a stop on the Underground Railroad. In May 1993 the town was bucolic, lovely, and so safe that unlocked doors along the wide tree-lined, shaded streets were common. The most serious recent crime wave anyone could remember was one spawned by a serial bicycle thief. "Psychologically, I was a long way from Washington, DC, where I returned each Thursday evening to spend the weekend with my family. I would be spending a month at Antioch, teaching a workshop on autobiographical writing, and so during lunch that day I gently grilled Elaine, in a sister-to-sister-on-a-white-campus way, to tell me everything she knew that I should know too. Over Elaine's pasta and my fish, we dredged up academic anecdotes. We had both spent much of our professional lives on historically white campuses and so the revelations and headshaking lasted awhile. But by the time we ordered dessert, we were talking about sons, ours and everyone else's.   "Elaine and I landed on the gritty shore of this topic, any resistance to it capsized by its inescapable pull on our emotions. For at that moment it was the fate and the crisis of our sons that obsessed and engaged us. Whether we were talking about the schools, a drive-by shooting, the economy, rap music, or the Knicks versus the Bullets, we were really talking about our sons. We talked about them because if we had not yet lost them, we feared we would. And looking into each other's eyes, hearing the confusion in our own voices, we wondered who could tell us how to get them back."   Excerpt from 'Part I: Calling My Name.' Excerpted from What Every Black Parent Needs to Know about Saving Our Sons: Institutionalized Racism, Society, and Raising Black Children by Marita Golden All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.