Book Launch: Ijeoma Oluo "Be A Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World

About the Book:

From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre, an eye-opening and galvanizing look at the current state of anti-racist activism across America.

In the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed the ways in which white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history. But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, the question is this: What can we do about them?

With Be A Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too, Oluo aims to show how people across America are working to create real positive change in our structures. Looking at many of our most powerful systems—like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more—she highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity. She also illustrates various ways in which the reader can find entryways into change in these same areas, or can bring some of this important work being done elsewhere to where they live.

This book aims to not only be educational, but to inspire action and change. Oluo wishes to take our conversations on race and racism out of a place of pure pain and trauma, and into a place of loving action. Be A Revolution is both an urgent chronicle of this important moment in history, as well as an inspiring and restorative call for action.

About the Author:

Ijeoma Oluo is a writer, speaker, and internet yeller. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race and, most recently, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. Her work has been featured in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among many other publications. She was named to the 2021 Time 100 Next list and has twice been named to the Root 100. She received the 2018 Feminist Humanist Award and the 2020 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

About Conversation Partner:

Yona Deshommes' career in book publicity spans close to 20 years. She has worked in various capacities at the top publishing houses in the world--Warner Books (now Hachette Book Group), Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster's Atria imprint.  She conceived and executed the paperback publicity campaigns of Hollywood legends Lauren Becall and Peter Lawford, and as an Associate Director of Publicity at Atria Books, conceived and executed the publicity plans for New York Times best-selling authors such as Kevin Hart, TD Jakes, Charlie Wilson, Zane, Taraji P Henson, Marc Lamont Hill, Alice Walker, Pearl Cleage, Michael Strahan, Tananarive Due and other literary luminaries.  In August 2020, she founded Riverchild Media, a public relations firm that promotes books by and for authors of color. In December of that same year, she and four other professional colleagues formed Collective 5 Entertainment, a literary, talent management, public relations, marketing/branding firm. Her most recent endeavor is her LIVING OUT LOUD literary series, where she features authors who live their lives unapologetically and purposefully. Thus far, she has hosted Eriq La Salle, Bill Bellamy, Anita Hill, Cedric the Entertainer, Courtney B. Vance, and Dr. Robin Smith, with plans to host Common in January 2024.