Every Day in the USA:: 30 Black Moments

By Anika Nailah and C. Andrew Williams

Does your life as an African American in the USA seem a bit insane? Are you asking yourself questions and having racial encounters every day about which white folks have no clue? This book lets you know that you're neither crazy nor alone. In addition, if you're a white person seeking to show up as an accomplice to African Americans, you

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Thomas
• Release date: Oct 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780692197776

Anika Nailah

Whether bringing together homeless women to write poetry around a kitchen table at a day shelter in Cambridge, MA, facilitating the publishing of young people's work in a public housing community, or performing liberation poetry in cross-racial environments, Anika Nailah, a cultural liberationist, social justice consultant, performer, and author, helps people bring forth the voice within that longs for expression. She has taught fiction and creative nonfiction at Wheaton College, adult basic literacy and thesis research skills at Cambridge College, and anti-racism at Smith College's School for Social Work. Anika is also the founder and former director of Books of Hope, a Boston-based, youth literacy program, that engages young people to write, publish, and sell their own books. A Black Writers Alliance Gold Pen Award Nominee, her first book, Free and Other Stories, was chosen as one of the best short story collections of 2002 by Black Issues Book Review and was selected for inclusion in The New York Public Library's 2003 Books for the Teen Age List. Her short story, Draggin' the Dog, was also published in Gumbo: An Anthology of African American Writing and broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Americana series. Currently residing in New England, providing social justice consulting and writing coaching, she holds healing space to interrupt racism across the USA.

Book preview

Every Day in the USA:

30 Black Moments

EVERY DAY IN THE USA:

30 Black Moments

BY ANIKA NAILAH

ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. ANDREW WILLIAMS

New York, NY

First Printing August 2018

Copyright ©2018 Anika Nailah, C. Andrew Williams

ISBN: 978-0-6921977-7-6 (e-book)

All Rights Reserved

Book Design and Cover Art: C. Andrew Williams

Illustrations: C. Andrew Williams

Printed in the United States of America. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This book contains some works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To all the Black folks in the USA who rise above their sadness and pain and still find joy.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my ancestors and parents for all the sacrifices they made for me. Many thanks as well to all our pre-readers who muddled through our early draft and took the time to offer invaluable feedback and insights. Real