Read an excerpt from Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice

Table of Contents

Black Power, Black Lawyer: Memoir of Nkechi Taifa

Prologue—“Judge Not”

• Red Badge at the White House
• But They Are White Revolutionaries

Chapter One—“O-o-h Child, Things Are Gonna Get Easier”

• 1954 and Before
• White Flight and Gentrification
• Hair, Skin and Other Crude Experiments
• Media Images and Race
• The Pony Incident and Emmett Till
• Open Up the Casket
• Me Too, Long Before #MeToo

Chapter Two—“Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”

• My All-Black-Neighborhood-Jr-High-School
• African Name, Cultural Attire and Unconditional Love
• Good Gurl, Bad Boyz and “The Struggle”
• My All-White-Girls-Catholic-High-School
• Lil Militant Me
• Flirting with the Black Panther Party
• Brothers from the Nam
• The Red, Black and Green Patch
• Strolling Down Memory Lane
• Artistically Prophetic

Chapter Three—“Soul Rebel”

• College Student, Revolutionary Poet
• Jesus Was Black and Had Two Wives?
• Putting Spice in Life Is Not Always Nice
• The Garvey Movement Was Personal to Me

Chapter Four—“A Change Is Gonna Come”

• You Mean We’re Not Really U.S. Citizens?
• Who Were These Henry Brothers?
• A Black Nation in the South?
• Attack on Aretha Franklin’s Daddy’s Church
• Free the Land, the RNA-11 and COINTELPRO
• Love Me Some New Afrikan Political Science
• Manipulators and Liquidationists?
• Carry on the Tradition of Resistance

Chapter Five—“Get Up, Stand Up for Your Rights”

• Who’ll Pay Reparations on My Soul?
• Educate, Agitate, Organize
• Go On and Get That Darn Law Degree
• Sex, Lies and Videotape
• Free Southern Africa!
• Plastic Cuffs and Momentary Deprivations of Liberty
• Cutting My Legal Teeth in Prison
• The “Ketchup in My Face” Case
• The “Capitol Bombing” Resistance Conspiracy Case
• The “David v. Goliath” ABC Case

Chapter Six—“What’s Going On?”

• Give the Brother a Break?
• People’s Tribunal Mumia Abu-Jamal
• A Frying Pan, Baking Soda and Crack
• The CIA/Contra Crack Connection
• Taxation Without Representation Is Still Tyranny
• The Spirit World Is Very Real
• My Big Fat New Afrikan Wedding, and Divorce
• Miracle Birth Baby

Chapter Seven—“Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right”

• I Got the Job!
• People’s Tribunal Hurricane Katrina
• My Popular Seminars
• How Bout a Legislative Clinic?
• Doors Close So Others May Open

Chapter Eight—“I Feel Good, Like I Knew That I Would”

• Back on the Frontlines
• Tulia, Tip of the Drug War Iceberg
• Brining the Human Face to Capitol Hill
• Roots of the Reentry Bill
• Behind the Cycle
• A Husband From the Classifieds?
• “I Feel Good” Obama

Chapter Nine—“Fight the Power”

• Crack the Disparity
• Junk Food Justice
• “We’re Going To Do This Crack Thing, Wade”
• Clemency—An Inside Scoop
• Commutations, The Vision Unfolds
• Redemption, Mercy and a Slam Dunk RadioThon

Chapter Ten—“Tears of a Clown”

• Underwood Should Be Home by Now
• The Voice of Jamaica
• A Necessary Posthumous Pardon
• Rollercoaster Ride