Titoli in Attivisti

Some would call this an autobiography. Others would say it’s a hell of a story. I call it my life. Living it had become the norm, but choosing to write about it wasn’t easy. It’s one thing to react to whatever life throws at you, and another to reflect on it. I’ve been sentenced to life...

She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world in which white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children. And she was denied the most basic of all rights in America—the right to cast a ballot—in a state in which Blacks constituted nearly half the population. And so Fannie Lou Hamer lifted up her voice.

"This book has the important element that is missing in most of the books and articles on Garvey - a political analysis of what the Garvey Movement was about." (John Henrik Clarke, The Black Scholar) A classic study of the Garvey movement, this is the most thoroughly researched book on Garvey's ideas by a historian of Black nationalism.

The Heart of Atlanta Supreme Court decision stands among the court’s most significant civil rights rulings. In gripping detail built from exclusive interviews and original documents, Heart of Atlanta reveals the saga of the case’s rise to the US Supreme Court, which unanimously rejected the segregationists.    

Undercurrents: Channeling Outrage to Spark Practical Activism brings the perspective of experienced global social innovation leader, scholar and speaker, Steve Davis, to bear on some of the most powerful and helpful macrotrends rippling through society today. The book teaches listeners how to harness their outrage and capitalize on global trends to instigate and encourage change across the world. 

When Ohio newspapers published the story of Alice Chenoweth's affair with a married man, she changed her name to Helen Hamilton Gardener, moved to New York, and devoted her life to championing women's rights and decrying the sexual double standard. She became one of the most sought-after speakers on the 19th-century lecture circuit, published seven books and countless essays, supported herself, hobnobbed with the most interesting thinkers of her era, visited 22 countries, and was celebrated for her audacious ideas and keen wit.

In the wake of one of the most tumultuous conventions in Republican history, the party of Lincoln nominated in 1940 a prominent businessman and Wall Street attorney for president. Though Wendell Willkie would lose to FDR, David Levering Lewis reveals in this news-making reclamation that the story of this Hoosier-born corporate chairman's life is the story of an America that could have been. Popular for his down-home Midwestern charm and unaffected candor, Willkie possessed a supple intellect and a concealed disdain for political opportunism that, had he not died prematurely, would have revolutionized American politics with its advocacy of bipartisanship and social responsibility.

Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death, Barres (born Barbara Barres in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments. Barres recounts his early life and felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. It was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated.

Times of great change did not occur by man's desire for change, but through protest and persistence. Across the globe, it seems we are in an era of protest and drive. Not since the '60s have we seen political divides and awareness of this magnitude, and it is shaping all aspects of our day to day life. While some feel lost in despair and fear, we can look to the past and rise up ourselves. Protest changes the world like nothing else has to date. What change do you want to fight for?

Watching the towers crumble, few remembered America had been attacked on 9/11, once before. Kathleen Murray Moran's own September 11th 25 years earlier occurred when her husband Brian, a member of the New York City Bomb Squad was killed defusing a bomb Croatian freedom-fighters placed in a Grand Central Station locker before hijacking TWA flight 355 from La Guardia airport. Life Detonated is the story of how that bomb ripped through Kathleen's life.

Super Bowl Champion and two-time Pro Bowler Michael Bennett is an outspoken proponent for social justice and a man without a censor. One of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, he is also a fearless activist, grassroots philanthropist, and organizer. Bennett, a defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks, has gained international recognition for his public support for the Black Lives Matter movement and women's rights. 

When philosophy professor Adam Briggle moved to Denton, Texas, he had never heard of fracking. Only five years later, he would successfully lead a citizens' initiative to ban hydraulic fracturing in Denton - the first Texas town to challenge the oil and gas industry. On his journey to learn about fracking and its effects, he leaped from the ivory tower into the fray. In beautifully narrated chapters, Briggle brings us to town hall debates and neighborhood meetings where citizens wrestle with issues few fully understand.

One ordinary spring morning in Reykjavik, Iceland, Thordis Elva kisses her son and partner good-bye before boarding a plane to do a remarkable thing: fly 7,000 miles to South Africa to confront the man who raped her when she was just 16. Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia, Tom Stranger nervously embarks on an equally life-changing journey to meet Thordis, wondering whether he is worthy of this milestone.

The powerful and inspiring story of a man who, instead of despairing over his own impoverished plight or the systems that make it hard for others to climb out of poverty, created a solution that's breaking cycles of poverty and bringing hope to a new generation.

At the age of 17, Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was living in Nazi-occupied Paris, using forged documents to hide in plain sight. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and his ability to masterfully reproduce official documents with an artistic eye, he was recruited to join the Jewish underground. He soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, working tirelessly with his network to create papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women, and children from certain death.

Shenandoah Chefalo is on a wholly dysfunctional journey through a childhood with neglectful, drug- and alcohol-addicted parents. She endures numerous moves in the middle of the night with just minutes to pack, multiple changes in schools, hunger, cruelty, and loneliness. Finally at the age of 13, Shen had had enough. After being abandoned by her mother for months at her grandmother's retirement community, she asks to be put into foster care. Surely she would fare better at a stable home than living with her mother?

In the decades since his execution by the Nazis in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, theologian, and anti-Hitler conspirator, has become one of the most widely read and inspiring Christian thinkers of our time. Now, drawing on extensive new research, Strange Glory offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern icon.

In 2018, 34 people were shot at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Jaime Guttenberg, a 14-year-old, was the second to last victim. That she and so many of her fellow students were struck down in cold blood galvanized many to action, including Jaime's father, Fred, who has become an activist dedicated to passing common-sense gun-safety legislation. This book is not about gun safety or Parkland. Instead, it tells the story of Fred Guttenberg's journey since Jaime's death and how he has been able to get through the worst of times thanks to the kindness and compassion of others.

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale.

In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot. Some of them barely knew one another, having come together briefly to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the war in Vietnam. First dubbed the "Conspiracy 8" and later the "Chicago 7", the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale, but also a little-known community activist and social worker named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was called.