3.4: "They Can't Kill Us All" Feat. Wesley Lowery — Bri Books Podcast

If you’re interested in my post-college story, I want to let you know I’m sharing all of my tips on the post-college job search, nailing informational interviews, and more on the Bri Books Podcast Newsletter.

Welcome to Bri Books podcast! I knew that reading Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery’s book “They Can’t Kill Us All : Ferguson, Baltimore and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement” would knock me off my feet, but I wasn’t expecting that on the day this episode was recorded, (8/11/17), exactly two days to the date of Michael Brown’s murder in my hometown (Ferguson, MO), that same evening hundreds of grown men and women in Charlottesville, VA would march on a college campus in the name of white supremacy and racism. That reality is hanging over this episode, and I hope the book we discuss, “They Can’t Kill Us All,” encourages and challenges you. I can’t recommend the book enough.

If you’re interested in my post-college story, I want to let you know I’m sharing all of my tips on the post-college job search, nailing informational interviews, and more on the Bri Books Podcast Newsletter. @BriBooksPod - Instagram @BriBooksPod - Twitter What are you reading?! Show and tell using #bribooks Editor’s Note: "Welcome to Bri Books podcast! I knew that reading Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery’s book “They Can’t Kill Us All:Ferguson, Baltimore and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement” would knock me off my feet, but I wasn’t expecting that on the day this episode was recorded, (8/11/17), exactly two days to the date of Michael Brown’s murder in my hometown (Ferguson, MO), that same evening hundreds of grown men and women in Charlottesville, VA would march on a college campus in the name of white supremacy and racism. That reality is hanging over this episode, and I hope the book we discuss, “They Can’t Kill Us All,” encourages and challenges you. I can’t recommend the book enough. Let’s get into it. Resources: Ju-Hyun Park’s essay on thefader.com, “Love Needs Fury to Defeat Hate” DeRay McKesson’s podcast “Pod Save The People,” “BONUS: CHARLOTTESVILLE” @wesleylowery – Twitter, Washington Post SHOW NOTES As I prepared to read Wesley’s book, I first read “Wars of Reconstruction” by Douglas Egerton, to remind myself of the systemic obstruction of police and black self-advocacy that immediately followed Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s assassination. The book talks about how the time post-Emancipation Proclamation was the most violent yet politically progressive time in America’s history for freed blacks, as literacy rates and involvement in political and social office grew exponentially. The inclusion of African-Americans in the Union Army definitively helped the Union clinch the war. I wanted to read “The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era,” by Douglas Egerton. 1:03 – Wesley’s first book is a reporter’s notebook of sorts, chronicling his work as a reporter dispatching from Ferguson, MO at the height of the shooting death of Mike Brown. From there he found himself flying to Cleveland, Baltimore, and too many cities to cover too many people who had become hashtags in the light of police violence and the death of black men and women at the hands of police 1:30 I knew Wesley’s book would knock me off my feet but I wasn’t expecting that on the day we recorded, 3 years and 2 days to the date of Brown’s death, hundreds of men and women would march on a college campus in the name of white supremacy and racism. That very real pall is hanging over this episode, and I hope our conversation encourages and challenges you. 2:00 – Resources: Ju-Hyun Park’s essay on thefader.com, “Love Needs Fury to Defeat Hate” DeRay McKesson’s podcast “Pod Save The People,” “BONUS: CHARLOTTESVILLE” 3:15 – This episode has special place in my heart because Ferguson is my family hometown. My mom grew up there at a time when her own mom was the first black person to live on the block. By the time my grandmother died when I was 18, there were no white people left in the entire neighborhood. 3:55 – Wesley thanks for being on this episode. Watching my hometown become a hashtag was interesting for me. Tell us about where you grew up. 4:10 – Thank you! It’s important to me, as someone who writes about places I’m not from to really listen and learn the context of those places. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in STL and Ferguson before having to write about it in a longform way. I had dozens, then hundreds, of conversations that hopefully help me portray things that are accurate and right true to the people who lived the lives I’m depicting. 4:45 – Wesley spent his childhood in 2 places, first in a Jersey suburb until...

As I prepared to read Wesley’s book, I first read “Wars of Reconstruction” by Douglas Egerton, to remind myself of the systemic obstruction of police and black self-advocacy that immediately followed Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s assassination. The book talks about how the time post-Emancipation Proclamation was the most violent yet politically progressive time in America’s history for freed blacks, as literacy rates and involvement in political and social office grew exponentially. The inclusion of African-Americans in the Union Army definitively helped the Union clinch the war. I wanted to read “The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era,” by Douglas Egerton.

Wesley’s first book is a reporter’s notebook of sorts, chronicling his work as a reporter dispatching from Ferguson, MO at the height of the shooting death of Mike Brown. From there he found himself flying to Cleveland, Baltimore, and too many cities to cover too many people who had become hashtags in the light of police violence and the death of black men and women at the hands of police.