The White Peril

“The White Peril is the book I wish I had my whole life; it is astonishing, beautiful, courageous, luminous, heartrending, inspiring, fierce, sympathetic, provocative, necessary, unflinching, and, above all else, true. Braiding together a family history, a civil rights chronicle, and a moving account of his own coming of age under the ever-present threat of whiteness, Omo Moses has written an epic reaffirmation of Black diasporic life and a clarion call for justice. The White Peril is destined to be read and cherished.” —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction recipient and author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao “In this captivating collection of stories, reflections, interviews, and sermons, Omo Moses provides readers a glimpse into the Black struggle from the son of one of America’s most important leaders, Bob Moses. Part memoir, part poetry, part biography, and much more, The White Peril gives Moses’s readers insights into what it was like to be a child of the Black struggle in Tanzania, Mississippi, and Cambridge. With unapologetic honesty and candor, he conveys both the challenges and the beauty of being raised to understand why committing oneself to the struggle for justice is not a matter of choice but one of fate and destiny. Moses shows us what it is like to live a life dedicated to the uplift of the powerless. For those who need to be inspired during these bleak days, this book is just what you need.” —Pedro Noguera, the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education “Intricately crafted, and a riveting read, this unputdownable whirlwind journeys through five generations of a Black family fighting for Black liberation, and a young man fighting to traverse the rocky distance between father and son. With sometimes lyrical, sometimes jarring prose, this moving memoir has achieved Omo’s stated goal—‘to let poetry sit side by side, sit inside the story.’ Omo has granted us a glimpse into the psyche of young Black manhood, and a window into the mind of his father, the brilliant visionary, Robert P. Moses.” —Lisa Delpit, MacArthur Fellow and author of Other People’s Children and “Multiplication is for White People”