The Story of Black Lives Matter

They Can't Kill Us All

**Winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose** 
 
'A devastating front-line account of the police killings and the young activism that sparked one of the most significant racial justice movements since the 1960s: Black Lives Matter ... Lowery more or less pulls the sheet off America ... essential reading' Junot Díaz, The New York Times, Books of 2016 
 
'Electric ... so well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of a man who has not grown a callus on his heart' Dwight Garner, The New York Times, 'A Top Ten Book of 2016' 
 
'I'd recommend everyone to read this book ... it's not just statistics, it's not just the information, but it's the connective tissue that shows the human story behind it. I really enjoyed it' Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' 
 
A deeply reported book on the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, offering unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America, and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it 
 
In over a year of on-the-ground reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled across the US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. 
 
In an effort to grasp the scale of the response to Michael Brown's death and understand the magnitude of the problem police violence represents, Lowery conducted hundreds of interviews with the families of victims of police brutality, as well as with local activists working to stop it. Lowery investigates the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with constant discrimination, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. 
 
Offering a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, They Can't Kill Us All demonstrates that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. And at the end of President Obama's tenure, it grapples with a worrying and largely unexamined aspect of his legacy: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to the marginalised Americans most in need of it.

A courageous chronicle of how police violence sparked a political movement ... A century and a half after slavery, and 50 years since the end of legal segregation, They Can't Kill Us All impressively brings us up to date with America's fraught history of racial injustice

A devastating front-line account of the police killings and the young activism that sparked one of the most significant racial justice movements since the 1960s: Black Lives Matter. In his quest to understand how and why this movement sprang up when it did, Lowery seems to have been everywhere and spoken to everyone (his interview of Alicia Garza is especially noteworthy). Lowery more or less pulls the sheet off America, exposing the malign disavowals and horrendous racial structures and logics that make the unjust deaths of young men like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Sean Bell not only possible but inevitable. As a primer for the Black Lives Matter movement and as a meditation on the death-grip that white supremacy has on the American soul, "They Can't Kill Us All" is essential reading

Electric... So well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of a man who has not grown a callus on his heart... Valuable for many reasons

Lowery is unflinchingly honest...a skillful reporter and storyteller. He takes the reader through the laborious task of reportage with a humanity and forthrightness, making this book more than just a catalog of tragedy. He succinctly presents a story of human grief

You've really captured it. One reason I'd recommend everyone to read this book is because it's not just statistics, it's not just the information, but it's the connective tissue that shows the human story behind it. I really enjoyed it

Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show'

Wesley Lowery

Wesley Lowery chronicles the most existential racial story of our time: the racist political violence that followed Obama's election, fueled Trump's rise, and continues to threaten our very existence. American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is

Ibram X. Kendi, author of HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST

The rise of white supremacist violence is one of the most important stories in American life today. In American Whitelash, Wesley Lowery guides the reader through the social, psychological, and historical realities that animate this violence. It is both a brilliant and unsettling examination of a part of America that many Americans would prefer to look away from. This book reminds us that we cannot look away. American Whitelash is an essential text, one that further demonstrates why Lowery is one of our country's most important and gifted journalists

Clint Smith, author of HOW THE WORD IS PASSED

An incredibly thoughtful and provocative and interesting book

The Resurgence of Racial Violence in Our Time

In 2008, Barack Obama's historic victory was heralded as a turning point for the USA. And so it would be - just not in the way that most Americans hoped. The election of the nation's first Black president fanned long-burning embers of white supremacy, igniting a new and frightening phase in a continuous historical cycle of racial progress and white backlash. 
 
In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Obama's victory - and both profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump. Drawing on gripping first-hand reporting, he investigates four incidents of white violence since 2008: the killing of an Ecuadorian immigrant in a working-class town in Long Island, a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, an attack on a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, and the murder of Oscar Grant, the first in an unrelenting series of police shootings that would lead to the largest sustained protest movement in the US since the Civil Rights era. 
 
Interweaving deep historical analysis with interviews with both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is entering into ever more perilous territory, and how the country still might find a route of escape.

Wesley Lowery

Praise for American Whitelash

Wesley Lowery chronicles the most existential racial story of our time: the racist political violence that followed Obama's election, fueled Trump's rise, and continues to threaten our very existence. American White ...

The rise of white supremacist violence is one of the most important stories in American life today. In American Whitelash, Wesley Lowery guides the reader through the social, psychological, and historical rea ...

An incredibly thoughtful and provocative and interesting book

Wesley Lowery chronicles the most existential racial story of our time: the racist political violence that followed Obama's election, fueled Trump's rise, and continues to threaten our very existence. American White ...

The rise of white supremacist violence is one of the most important stories in American life today. In American Whitelash, Wesley Lowery guides the reader through the social, psychological, and historical rea ...

An incredibly thoughtful and provocative and interesting book

Wesley Lowery chronicles the most existential racial story of our time: the racist political violence that followed Obama's election, fueled Trump's rise, and continues to threaten our very existence. American White ...

The rise of white supremacist violence is one of the most important stories in American life today. In American Whitelash, Wesley Lowery guides the reader through the social, psychological, and historical rea ...

An incredibly thoughtful and provocative and interesting book

Books by Wesley Lowery

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