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Dennis, David J., Jr. & David J. Dennis Sr. The Movement Made Us: A Generational Fight for Civil Rights. Harper. May 2022. 288p. ISBN 9780063011427. $27.99. MEMOIR

Multi-award-winning freelance writer/commentator David J. Dennis Jr. serves as visiting professor of journalism at Morehouse College, while civil rights veteran David J. Dennis Sr. is one of the original Freedom Riders, traveling from Montgomery, AL, to Jackson, MS, in 1961. This father-and-son memoir travels, too, moving from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to today’s Black Lives Matter as the authors share stories of engagement and activism. At once intriguing history and a memoir of comfort, closeness, and revelation, this work was short-listed for the 2021 J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progressz Award. With a with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Jawando, Will. My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole. Farrar. May 2022. 240p. ISBN 9780374604875. $28. CD. MEMOIR

An attorney, activist, and councilman in Montgomery County, MD, Jawando was inspired by his participation in My Brother’s Keeper, President Barack Obama’s mentorship program for young men of color, to explore his own bonds with key father figures in his life. There’s Mr. Williams, the math teacher who taught him how to tie a tie; Joseph, the stepfather who taught him what family meant; Jay Fletcher, his mother’s openly gay colleague, who taught him about theater; and Mr. Holmes, the high school chorus director who taught him to sing and comforted him after a terrible disappointment. Then there’s Deen Sanwoola, who helped him connect his Nigerian heritage with his American upbringing, which eased the way to his reconciling with his biological father. A big-buzzing book; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

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