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Book Summary and Reviews of Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo

Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo

Be a Revolution

How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World - and How You Can, Too

by Ijeoma Oluo

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2024, 416 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Vivid profiles in activism…an inspiring look at those fighting against the 'deep, systemic issues'….An urgent plea for individual and collective action." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Enlightening profiles of people who've put their anti-racist values into action....Readers will find inspiration and clarity." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Be a Revolution is a remarkable, inviting and even comforting manual for how people can come together to build a more peaceful world." —San Francisco Chronicle

This information about Be a Revolution was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Ijeoma Oluo Author Biography

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.

Link to Ijeoma Oluo's Website

Name Pronunciation
Ijeoma Oluo: ih-JO-muh oh-LOO-oh. The vowel sound of the I in "Ijeoma" is short, like in the word "did."

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