when they call you a terrorist: a black lives matter memoir
By Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, is an outspoken activist fiercely defensive of her people – the people who are living Black lives in America. In this memoir, she paints a vivid picture of what it’s like to grow up Black and poor in America as the War on Drugs rages, what it’s like for your mom to work several jobs to keep a roof over the family and food in their bellies, what it’s like when your older brothers are harassed by the police as soon as they hit their teens, what it’s like to lose your beloved brother in the carceral system and, when you find him, to see him even more damaged by the mistreatment he’s suffered while incarcerated with mental illness. We learn of her passionate support of many who are caught up in the police nets of that time. We read the names of so many Black people killed by the police and feel her anguish over each one. And we begin to wonder, as she most certainly intended us to wonder: Just who are the terrorists?
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, writes: “this is a must-read for all of us; it forces us to face the consequences of the choices our nation made when we criminalized a generation.”