Wesley Lowery

One of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016 -- Publishers Weekly One of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016--Elle 11 Fall Books We Can't Wait to Read -- Seattle Times A best book of fall 2016--Boston Globe One of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's 20 Books to Watch, fall 2016 A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community's long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They Can't Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.

Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement

They Can't Kill Us All

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery confronts the sickness at the heart of American society: the cyclical pattern of violence that has marred every moment of racial progress in this country, and whose bloodshed began anew following Obama's 2008 election. In 2008, Barack Obama's historic victory was heralded as a turning point for the country. And so it would be--just not in the way that most Americans hoped. The election of the nation's first Black president fanned long-burning embers of white supremacy, igniting a new and frightening phase in a historical American cycle of racial progress and white backlash. In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Obama's victory--and both profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump. Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping firsthand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is carrying us into ever more perilous territory, how the federal government has failed to intervene, and how we still might find a route of escape.

A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress

American Whitelash

The Washington Post

From the Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post comes a meticulously detailed, insightful report on the killing that brought the nation's attention to a city coming apart at the seams. 12:00PM: Officer Darren Wilson turns his Chevy Tahoe police cruiser left on Canfield Drive. 12:01PM: Wilson orders two young men, Dorian Johnson and Michael Brown, to get out of the street. 12:04PM: Michael Brown lays dying from bullet wounds. Three minutes in middle America shook a nation to its foundation. To many, it shone a spotlight on the frequently violent, often deadly interactions between young men of color and police departments. It highlighted the racial disparity in policing techniques, in response to crime, and in how race relations are perceived in an America where many incorrectly pride the country on being "post-racial." Renowned journalist Wesley Lowery has pulled together a vast and troubling panorama of reportage on the Ferguson slaying, and the aftermath--the marches, the clashes, and the slow, painful process of building trust between a devastated community and a police department tasked with serving and protecting it. Challenging and necessary, Ferguson engages America in a frank and necessary dialogue about race relations, about legacies of bigotry that continue to this day, and about a path forward as one nation, equal under the law. Contributors include: Joel Achenbach, Mark Berman, Lindsey Bever, Jeremy Borden, Amy Brittain, DeNeen L. Brown, Philip Bump, Jessica Contrera, Jahi Chikwendiu, Niraj Chokshi, Robert Costa, Alice Crites, David A. Fahrenthold, Darryl Fears, Marc Fisher, J. Freedom du Lac, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Chico Harlan, Dana Hedgpeth, Peter Hermann, Scott Higham, Peter Holley, Sari Horwitz, Greg Jaffe, Sarah Kaplan, Kimbriell Kelly, Kimberly Kindy, Sarah Larimer, Carol D. Leonnig, Jerry Markon, Michael E. Miller, David Montgomery, Brian Murphy, David Nakamura, Abby Phillip, Steven Rich, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Robert Samuels, Sandhya Somashekhar, John Sullivan, Julie Tate, Krissah Thompson, Neely Tucker.

Three Minutes that Changed America

Ferguson

LA Times winner for The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose A New York Times bestseller A New York Times Editors' Choice A Featured Title in The New York Times Book Review's "Paperback Row" A Bustle "17 Books About Race Every White Person Should Read" "Essential reading."--Junot Diaz "Electric...so well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of a man who has not grown a callus on his heart."--Dwight Garner, New York Times, "A Top Ten Book of 2016" "I'd recommend everyone to read this book because it's not just statistics, it's not just the information, but it's the connective tissue that shows the human story behind it." -- Trevor Noah, The Daily Show A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community's long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They Can't Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.

Barack Obama's election in 2008 was a moment of true, unabashed hope. But after two terms shadowed by a growing white supremacist movement, Obama was replaced by an openly nativist administration. So what the hell happened? In Whitelash, Wesley Lowery places a decade of American carnage in historical context, uncovering the horror that racial violence has wrought in our era. As he looks to America's past to understand the rise of Donald Trump and the 'whitelash' following the election of Barack Obama, a frightening pattern emerges. Every period of perceived black advancement has triggered a violent reaction by white Americans, the old system's beneficiaries. But while America's historical racists were conservatives, fighting to maintain their dominance in the status quo, those Lowery meets today are revolutionaries, self-styled soldiers in a holy war to bring the white race back from what they see as the brink of extinction. Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping first-hand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is entering ever more perilous territory, and how the United States still might find a route of escape.

Wesley Lowery

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