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Title details for On the Other Side of Freedom by DeRay Mckesson - Available

On the Other Side of Freedom

The Case for Hope

by DeRay Mckesson
DeRay Mckesson
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
"On the Other Side of Freedom reveals the mind and motivations of a young man who has risen to the fore of millennial activism through study, discipline, and conviction. His belief in a world that can be made better, one act at a time, powers his narratives and opens up a view on the costs, consequences, and rewards of leading a movement."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR and Esquire
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award
From the internationally recognized civil rights activist/organizer and host of the podcast Pod Save the People, a meditation on resistance, justice, and freedom, and an intimate portrait of a movement from the front lines.
In August 2014, twenty-nine-year-old activist DeRay Mckesson stood with hundreds of others on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, to push a message of justice and accountability. These protests, and others like them in cities across the country, resulted in the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, in his first book, Mckesson lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and political framework for a new liberation movement. Continuing a conversation about activism, resistance, and justice that embraces our nation's complex history, he dissects how deliberate oppression persists, how racial injustice strips our lives of promise, and how technology has added a new dimension to mass action and social change. He argues that our best efforts to combat injustice have been stunted by the belief that racism's wounds are history, and suggests that intellectual purity has curtailed optimistic realism. The book offers a new framework and language for understanding the nature of oppression. With it, we can begin charting a course to dismantle the obvious and subtle structures that limit freedom.
Honest, courageous, and imaginative, On the Other Side of Freedom is a work brimming with hope. Drawing from his own experiences as an activist, organizer, educator, and public official, Mckesson exhorts all Americans to work to dismantle the legacy of racism and to imagine the best of what is possible. Honoring the voices of a new generation of activists, On the Other Side of Freedom is a visionary's call to take responsibility for imagining, and then building, the world we want to live in.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 4, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525639428
      • File size: 107569 KB
      • Duration: 03:44:06

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      DeRay Mckesson's lilting voice can be hypnotic and endearing as narrates this mixture of memoir and call to action. He explores how he decided to stand at the front lines in the Ferguson, Missouri, protests and ultimately quit his job to pursue greater racial equality through the Black Lives Matter movement. Whether he's discussing the police misconduct he witnessed, his own insecurities, or the amazing mentors, friends, and heroes he's met along the way, Mckesson's energy proves warm and positive. His is a welcoming tone, given the ugliness he and others have experienced in the face of structural inequality. Even when recounting his darkest experiences, Mckesson avoids too harsh a tone so as to keep his narration in line with the hopeful message of his prose. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 23, 2018
      In this thoughtful collection of essays, activist and podcaster Mckesson reflects on what he’s learned from protest, family upheaval, racial inequality, homophobia, community organizing, abuse, and love. He explains the origins of the phrase “black lives matter”; his decision to leave Minneapolis to join the protests of Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Mo.; and why he wears his trademark blue down vest. Calmly but with conviction, he lays out a philosophy of future-oriented action, asserting that “our power can never be defined by the things we destroy by the things we build” and “when we see that lives can be improved through actions we can feasibly take, we must take them.” Mckesson uses extended metaphors to illustrate currents in American life—a childhood experience with a bully serves as a synecdoche for political injustice; “The Choreography of Whiteness” features an unusual but apt metaphor about a hypothetical school’s response to finding out that a subset of students failed a test because they were intentionally sold defective rulers; and “the quiet,” an alternative to “the closet,” is imagined as a library (“a place of exploration that says don’t speak... but there are always... people finding ways to have voice despite the rules”). He asserts that the quiet leads those “in power believe that they’re... the sum total of humanity.” The volume’s nonaccusatory tone and focus on structure and culture make it a welcoming, accessible, and inspiring entrance point to social justice work.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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