Showing titles in Activists

A “powerful” (The Wall Street Journal) biography of one of the 19th century’s greatest statesmen, encompassing his decades-long fight against slavery and his postwar struggle to bring racial justice to America. Thaddeus Stevens was among the first to see the Civil War as an opportunity for...

With echoes of Just Mercy and An American Marriage, a remarkable memoir of a woman who falls in love with an incarcerated man—a poignant story of hope and disappointment that lays bare the toll prison takes not only on those behind bars, but on their families and relationships. Ebony’s...

Le 8 juin 2016, le Québec entier est en émoi. Les médias viennent d'annoncer qu'une femme a été sauvagement attaquée par un chien de type pitbull, dans la cour arrière de sa propre demeure, et qu'elle a succombé à ses blessures au terme de souffrance inimaginables. Christiane Vadnais a été cruellement tuée par une bête déchaînée – un drame infernal qui plonge sa famille dans le deuil et le désespoir.

Le 29 décembre 1976, à Buenos Aires, Silvia Labayru est séquestrée par ordre de la dictature militaire à l’ESMA, l’un des pires centres clandestins de détention du pays. Elle a 20 ans, elle est membre du groupe armé montoneros et elle attend un enfant. C’est sur une table de torture qu’elle accouchera, avant de devenir le « butin de guerre » de l’un des commandants. Deux ans plus tard, elle s’envole pour Madrid, convaincue que l’enfer est derrière elle. Mais un autre calvaire l’attend : ses compatriotes exilés la bannissent comme traître à la cause.

Longtime feminist activist and writer Lynne Segal searches for hope in her own life and in the world around her, and finds it in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective engagements, the two being intertwined. Issues of care, intimacy, education, alongside meaningful work, and social engagement, lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. Segal looks at our shared lifelong dependence on care and the well-being of others.

In the 1990s, Steve Farrell cofounded and led two high-growth technology companies based in Silicon Valley that were featured in the INC500 and spanned the United States and Europe. A New Universal Dream is the inspiring story of Steve's journey from the pursuit of wealth and traditional ideas of success toward a more fulfilling life of caring and service to others and to humanity. It's also the story of the potential each of us has for profound change.

In this dispatch from exile, Hong Kong political activist Nathan Law explores the meaning of freedom - and shows how easily freedoms can be eroded or dismantled. Freedom is fragile - it is not a given, and each generation must fight to protect it, whether in emerging democracies or in the Western world, where freedom is too often taken for granted.

William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), although still virtually unknown to the wider public, was an unlikely American hero. With the stylistic verve of a newspaperman and the unwavering fearlessness of an emancipator, he galvanized Black working-class citizens to wield their political power despite the violent racism of post-Reconstruction America. For more than 30 years, the Harvard-educated Trotter edited and published the Guardian, a weekly Boston newspaper that was read across the nation.

Nelson Mandela is a global icon of peace and justice. An influence to human rights activists in South Africa, across the continent and on the Western and Eastern hemispheres, he is seen as an example to follow. Through his resilience, he showed tremendous courage in fighting against apartheid, to enduring the harsh conditions of prison on Robben Island, to leading a free and democratic South Africa as its first Black President and as leader of the African National Congress.

Julian Castro, 2020 Presidential candidate, keynote speaker at the 2012 DNC, and former San Antonio mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, tells his remarkable and inspiring life story. In the spirit of a young Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father comes a candid and compelling...

Nevertheless, she persisted. These three words became an inspiring battle cry across the United States in 2017, but the woman to whom they refer has been fighting passionately all of her life. Raised in a tough working-class home in Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren went on to become a revered scholar, a law professor, a US Senator, and an unlikely political star.

A small-town Florida teenager discovers punk rock through a loaned mix tape, and punk music and culture slowly takes over all aspects of his life. His new passion causes him to form a band, track down out-of-print records he loves and reissue them, open a record store, start a record distribution operation as a public service, mentor a host of young musicians, and befriend all manner of punk luminaries along the way. Slowly his life's pursuit pushes him to the point of personal ruination and, ultimately, redemption.

Robert Coles first met Dorothy Day over 35 years ago when, as a medical student, he worked in one of her Catholic Worker soup kitchens. He remained close to this inspiring and controversial woman until her death in 1980. His book, an intellectual and psychological portrait, confronts candidly the central puzzles of her life.

Since she was young, Tala Raassi knew her fate lay in fashion. But growing up in her beloved homeland of Iran, a woman can be punished for exposing her hair in public, let alone wearing the newest trends. Despite strict regulations, Tala developed a keen sense of style in backroom cafes and secret parties. She never imagined her behavior would land her in prison or bring the cruel sting of a whip for the crime of wearing a mini-skirt. Tala's 40 lashes didn't keep her down - they fanned the flames of individuality and inspired her to embrace a new freedom in the United States.

In the most inspiring speech of his career, Ted Kennedy once vowed: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." Unlike his martyred brothers, John and Robert, whose lives were cut off before the...

Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight - from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year’s honey crop and building a social movement that’s still cresting.

A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first Black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film.

You are exactly what the world needs What if your search for meaning could solve the world’s problems? What if everything you are passionate about could save a life or change history? Justin Dillon argues it can, and A Selfish Plan to Change the World shows how. In this paradigm-shifting...

Changing the world--or at least your corner of it--is easier than you think. Includes audiobook-exclusive bonus commentary from the author! With so much suffering in our communities and in the world, it can feel impossible to make an impact. "What good can I possibly do?" we ask. Amy Wolff, a...

Twenty-five years old and struggling to find his way in his journalism career, the young reporter who had been covering local political stories found himself smack in the middle of the world's biggest geopolitical crisis—fleeing air raids and being questioned by militants along the way. One year later when Hamas carried out its October 7th attack, Sherman flew right back into thick of it—running from rockets and diving into Hamas tunnels in Gaza. While shrouded in the proverbial "Fog of War," it became clear to Sherman that the world isn't as simple as he thought it was.