Edited by Lynn Lewis
City Lights Books
8/29/2023, paperback
SKU: 9780872868748
Nine women who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for social justice--movement leaders, organizers, and cultural workers--tell their life stories in their own words. Sharing their most vulnerable and affirming moments, they talk about the origins of their political awakenings, their struggles and aspirations, insights and victories, and what it is that keeps them going in the fight for a better world, filled with justice, hope, love and joy.
Featuring Loretta Ross, Hilary Moore, Roz Pelles, Vanessa Nosie, Betty Wu, Malkia Devich-Cyril, Priscilla Gonzalez, Therese Howard, and Yomara Velez.
Reviews:
"I love this book. I love that every chapter is the voice of an incredible woman at the forefront of social justice, sharing her story directly with me and in her own words. And I love that each woman gave me new ideas about everything from organizing and family life to how I think about grief. This is a necessary and radical book for our collective futures." -- Daisy Hernández, co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
"Lynn Lewis has gifted us with a treasure of powerful narratives by nine brilliant, fierce, and caring women dedicated to social justice--some that I know, some I now know better, and some I want to know. Their individual and collective journeys leave me with radical hope that each of us can and will do what is necessary to keep changing the world." -- Lynn Roberts, co-editor of Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique
"Lynn Lewis knows that listening and asking questions can spark a revolution. These stories contain all the clues we need to build a better world." -- James Tracy, co-author of No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today's Movements
About the Contributors:
Lynn Lewis (editor) is an oral historian, educator, and community organizer. She is the author of Love and Collective Resistance: Lessons from the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project and is the former executive director and past civil rights organizer at Picture the Homeless. Lewis is the recipient of many honors and awards, including a 2022/2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Oral History Fellowship. She lives in New York City.
Malkia Devich-Cyril (interviewee) is the founding director of the Media Justice, and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network. Raised in New York City, Devich-Cyril now lives in Oakland, California.
Priscilla Gonzalez (interviewee) currently serves as the Program Director at the Center for Empowered Politics, a practitioner-led movement capacity organizations that trains and develops new leaders of color. Gonzalez now lives in West Texas.
Terese Howard (interviewee) is the founder of the former Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL), which was formed to defend the rights of people without housing targeted by the police. She is also the founder of Housekeys Action Network Denver focused on housing as a human right, and lives in Denver.
Hilary Moore (interviewee) was an environmental justice organizer with Rising Tide and Mobilization for Climate Justice West. She now works for Showing Up for Racial Justice, and lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Vanessa Nosie (interviewee) is a member of Apache Stronghold, a partner of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Roz Pelles (interviewee) is currently the Strategic Advisor to the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Pelles currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Loretta Ross (interviewee) has co-founded several groundbreaking organizations, coalitions, and formations with a Black feminist lens to ensure the inclusion of a radical Black women's perspective in feminist discourse. She teaches at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender and curates the Feminist Oral History Project. Ross's latest book is Calling in the Calling Out Culture, and she resides in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Yomara Velez (interviewee) currently works with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, supporting the development of local organizing chapters across the U.S. Yomara was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Miami, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the Bronx where she spent many years organizing. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Betty Yu (interviewee) is a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade, a cultural collective using art to advance anti-gentrification organizing, and teaches video, social practice, art and activism at Pratt Institute, Hunter College, and The New School. Betty was born and raised in New York City, and grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where she lives today.