In the midst of loss and death and suffering, our charge is to figure out what freedom really means—and how we take steps to get there.
“In the United States, being poor and Black makes you more likely to get sick. Being poor, Black, and sick makes you more likely to die. Your proximity to death makes you disposable.”
The uprising of 2020 marked a new phase in the unfolding Movement for Black Lives. The brutal killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and countless other injustices large and small, were the match that lit the spark of the largest protest movement in US history, a historic uprising against racism and the politics of disposability that the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare.
In this urgent and incisive collection of new interviews bookended by two new essays, Marc Lamont Hill critically examines the “pre-existing conditions” that have led us to this moment of crisis and upheaval, guiding us through both the perils and possibilities, and helping us imagine an abolitionist future.
Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is currently the host of BET News. An award-winning journalist, Dr. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hill is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Prior to that, he held positions at Columbia University and Morehouse College. He is the author of Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. He is the owner of Uncle Bobbie's Bookstore in Philadelphia, PA.
Samori Coles is a Philadelphia-based music producer and audio engineer who has over 20 years of experience in the recording industry. As the owner of Lil’ Drummaboy Recordings, he has produced, recorded, edited, mixed and mastered a diverse array of musical projects over his career including Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rock, R&B, Reggae, Pop, Spoken Word and Gospel.
A voting member of the Recording Academy (Producers & Engineers Wing), Samori relishes each and every opportunity and experience that he has to share his art, craft and experience with musicians, media content creators, publishers, authors, recording and voice-over artists, and businesses.
Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is currently the host of BET News. An award-winning journalist, Dr. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hill is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Prior to that, he held positions at Columbia University and Morehouse College. He is the author of Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. He is the owner of Uncle Bobbie's Bookstore in Philadelphia, PA.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the co-founder of Hammer & Hope. Her book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book, was recently published in an expanded second edition by Haymarket Books, with a new foreword by Angela Y. Davis. Her book Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership was a semi-finalist for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and a former Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times. In 2021, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. With Colin Kaepernick and Robin D. G. Kelley, she edited Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies. Her latest book is the expanded and updated edition of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, featuring a new introduction by Taylor and a powerful new interview with Angela Y. Davis.
ISBN: 9781642594959
Publication date: November 10, 2020
“Marc Lamont Hill offers critical insights into the whirlwind pandemic and racism have reaped. We Still Here appears at a time of intense study and debate about how we got here—and, most importantly, how we get out. Politics, history, strategy, and tactics are all that our side has. Read this book and we’ll see you in the streets.”
—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
“Marc Lamont Hill doesn’t shy away from the difficult questions, and he is willing to tell the hard truth. In this powerful book, his insight and commitment to justice leap from every page. Read it, be informed, and feel fortified in these trying times. Hill models what Henry James called ‘perception at the pitch of passion.’”
—Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again
“We Still Here is a brilliant, timely, and inspirational book. Marc Lamont Hill gives a critical intersectional analysis of what got us to the present moment, but also paints a beautiful picture of possibilities for the future. This is the perfect text for students, organizers, activists, and leaders.”
—Tarana Burke, founder of Me Too
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