Never forget our people were always free : a parable of American healing

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Title:

Never forget our people were always free : a parable of American healing

Author:

Jealous, Benjamin Todd, 1973- author.

ISBN:

9780062961747

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

x, 243 pages ; 24 cm

Contents:

Trouble in the air -- Who is my family? -- History as a riddle -- Discovering the roots of race -- Making it to twenty-one -- Finding friends in Mississippi -- The personal perils of peacemaking -- Making the wounded whole -- A pandemic ignored -- Beyond black and white -- A forgotten history of race -- Politics and betrayal in black and white -- Serial (killer) mistakes -- One in the White House, one million or two in the big house -- The NAACP in the whitest state in the union -- Courage and solidarity -- The first state south of the Mason-Dixon -- A race war begins and ends -- An American parable -- A holler from the hollers -- Rising up together.

Personal Subject:

Jealous, Benjamin Todd, 1973-

Corporate Subject:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -- Biography.

Subject Term:

African American civil rights workers -- Biography.

African American politicians -- Biography.

Civil rights workers -- United States -- Biography.

African Americans -- Social conditions.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Race relations.

United States -- Politics and government -- 21st century.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Summary:

"'One of the nation's most prominent civil rights leaders' (Washington Post), a New York Times bestselling author, community organizer, investigative journalist, Ivy League professor, and former head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous draws from a life lived on America's racial fault line to deliver a series of gripping and lively parables that call on each of us to reconcile, heal, and work fearlessly to make America one nation. Never Forget Our People Were Always Free illuminates for each of us how the path to healing America's broken heart starts with each of us having the courage to heal our own. The son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal, Ben Jealous' lively, courageous and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply-cut divisions and recognize we are all in the same boat now. Along the way Jealous grapples with hidden American mysteries, including: Why do white men die from suicide more often than black men die from murder? How did racial profiling kill an American president? What happens when a Ku Klux Klansman wrestles with what Jesus actually said? How did Dave Chappelle know the DC Snipers were Black? Why shouldn't the civil rights movement give up on rednecks? When is what we have collectively forgotten about race more important than what we actually know? What do the most indecipherable things our elders say tell us about ourselves? Told as a series of parables, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free features intimate glimpses of political, and faith leaders as different as Jack Kemp, Stacey Abrams, and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and heroes as unlikely as a retired constable, a female pirate from Madagascar, a long lost Irishman, a death row inmate, and a man with a confederate flag over his heart. More than anything, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free offers readers hope America's oldest wounds can heal and her oldest divisions be overcome"--

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	323.092 JEA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	323.092 JEA	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	323.092 JEA	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"One of the nation's most prominent civil rights leaders" (Washington Post), a New York Times bestselling author, community organizer, investigative journalist, Ivy League professor, and former head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous draws from a life lived on America's racial fault line to deliver a series of gripping and lively parables that call on each of us to reconcile, heal, and work fearlessly to make America one nation.

Never Forget Our People Were Always Free illuminates for each of us how the path to healing America's broken heart starts with each of us having the courage to heal our own.The son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal, Ben Jealous' lively, courageous and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply-cut divisions and recognize we are all in the same boat now. Along the way Jealous grapples with hidden American mysteries, including:

Why do white men die from suicide more often than black men die from murder How did racial profiling kill an American president What happens when a Ku Klux Klansman wrestles with what Jesus actually said How did Dave Chappelle know the DC Snipers were Black Why shouldn't the civil rights movement give up on rednecks When is what we have collectively forgotten about race more important than what we actually know What do the most indecipherable things our elders say tell us about ourselves

Told as a series of parables, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free features intimate glimpses of political, and faith leaders as different as Jack Kemp, Stacey Abrams, and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and heroes as unlikely as a retired constable, a female pirate from Madagascar, a long lost Irishman, a death row inmate, and a man with a confederate flag over his heart.

More than anything, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free offers readers hope America's oldest wounds can heal and her oldest divisions be overcome.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Unity across racial lines will save America from its corrosive contemporary politics and widening social divisions, according to this inspiring memoir. Former NAACP national president Jealous (Reach) presents a series of insightful personal anecdotes that touch on a wide range of social issues, including mass incarceration, racial profiling, social isolation, drug addiction, and mental health. Highlights include a trip to visit his godbrother, comedian Dave Chappelle, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, at the turn of the millennium; working with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to tackle mass incarceration as part of a Republican-Democratic coalition; forging an unlikely friendship in rural Mississippi with an elderly white man who helped stop the state from turning a historically Black college into a prison; and listening with Georgia politician Stacey Abrams to heart-wrenching testimony from the son of a former Klansman. Elsewhere, Jealous relates the story of a white inmate who risked his life to expose corruption in a Mississippi prison and get justice for a murdered African American inmate, details the links between skyrocketing university tuitions and mass incarceration, and notes that colonial America's first rebellions pitted white indentured servants together with enslaved Africans against "the ruling elite." Fluidly interweaving autobiography, politics, and history, this is a rousing song of hope. (Dec.)

Kirkus Review

How a series of representative stories can teach us about political collaboration and racial reconciliation. Jealous, a prominent civil rights leader and former head of the NAACP, delivers a series of "parables" meant to illustrate plausible strategies for overcoming the most formidable obstacles to social justice in America. The author reflects on his own experiences with discrimination and his career as an academic and activist, and he considers the history of racism in America and the racialized failures of its criminal justice system. Some of the personal anecdotes are tendentious, and the dialogue attributed to revelatory encounters with allies and enemies is often stilted, but the text comes alive when Jealous examines the paradoxes of American freedom and the potential of specific approaches to eradicating bigotry. The author, who edited the collection Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding, is particularly perceptive on the cruelty of mass incarceration, the massive human toll of the so-called "war on drugs," and the warping effect of racist assumptions involved in criminal profiling. Most striking is the discussion of how, over the past half-century, prison systems have siphoned off money formerly devoted to state educational institutions and how politically diverse coalitions have achieved, however haltingly, key reversals of this process. Ultimately, Jealous makes resonant appeals for the importance of prioritizing confrontations with systemic racism and memorably underscores the great promise revealed by past efforts at working cooperatively. In pointing to historical instances of shared resistance to oppressive power structures among enslaved Blacks and indentured White servants, for instance, the author drives home his central, persuasive thesis: "Black and White people can work together to create a fairer, free society." Ultimately, Jealous seeks a nation "where the very American tradition of denying the humanity of people of a darker hue does not exist." A thoughtful, informed set of reflections on America's past and future struggles for social equity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

Born to a Black mother and a white father forced to leave Maryland, where their marriage was illegal, Jealous has since returned and been named Marylander of the Year for helping to secure marriage equality, abolition of the death penalty, and passage of the DREAM Act there. He's also a former NAACP president, now heading up People for the American Way, and aNew York Times best-selling author ( Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living). Here he uses parable format to examine enduring social divides and ways to bridge them. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Library Journal Review

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