BLACK POWER,
BLACK LAWYER
My Audacious Quest For Justice
Memoir of Nkechi Taifa
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Can you confront the injustice and hypocrisies of society and still survive it? Can you be a "Woke Black Girl Magic Superwoman" and still have personal frailties? Can you challenge the dominant culture while remaining true to your political and spiritual beliefs, don an African name, keep your hair in its natural state, maintain a quality family life, and still kick ass?
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Black Power, Black Lawyer describes the rebellious journey of a young woman coming of age during the Black Power era and the social justice lawyer she becomes.
IN THE PRESS
December, 2020
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"The human rights lawyer wants Black people to get their “40 acres and a mule.” As a commissioner of the National African-American Reparations Commission, she helped draft the Slavery Reparations bill that had a hearing on Juneteenth."
March/April, 2022
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"The work of an attorney is a never-ending balancing act, so it also makes sense that the scale of justice represent the legal system. The image also fits Nkechi Taifa when it comes to the many hats(headwraps) she wears as a civil rights lawyer, business owner, media pundit, advocate, professor, and author ."
"Taifa’s life reflects the dual story of a reformer on the inside of a discriminatory system and that of a Black Nationalist revolutionary. As such, her memoir takes readers to dining room tables accompanied by Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, to early Kwanzaa celebrations at the Temple of the Black Messiah, and to behind-the-scenes meetings of the Black separatist Republic of New Afrika, while later taking them to the Roosevelt Room of the White House, to meetings with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and to Taifa’s work as a policy analyst...
It is, in her own words, “part memoir, part textbook, part study guide, part exposé,”[xii] as she weaves her own story into the wider history of Nationalists like H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Chokwe Lumumba, and Assata Shakur. The work also discusses a more internal struggle of a Black Nationalist woman who spent years “on the cutting-edge of revolutionary action,” but whose legal career for change inside the system often requires her to play the part of a “responsible” reformer...
An engaging memoir of not just a fascinating woman, but a history of a movement."
- KIRKUS REVIEWS
"This book has been decades in the making because it is an act of massive remembering; the altar she brings is huge and contains multitudes. So before Taifa returns to where the wind began, she has made sure to document—to call up into being and freeze them in mid-action—those Ancestors who never made The New York Times and Washington Post obit pages: decolonized New Africans (and some whites) who were so serious about revolution they have been placed permanently outside of polite Black memory, exiled into near historical and mental non-existence.
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Throughout, Taifa is trying to articulate what she innately knows—and ultimately winds up saying without saying: that love for one’s own is more consistent and creates more momentum than rage against The Man, that work is more important than critique, that organizing within organizations beats mobilizing every time, that disappointment is inevitable but always temporary, and that time itself is globular, nonlinear, so the key is to be encircled within it."
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- Todd Steven Burroughs, Ph.D,
REVIEWS: iMiXWHATiLiKE!
"In these pages we get the behind the scenes account of her meetings with key leaders in the Black Nationalism and Black Power movements, and as a policy analyst for billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. Her connections to Black leaders and change makers run the gamut from Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, to Congresswoman Maxine Waters among many others. Taifa also recognizes freedom fighters in the Black Power movement—Chokwe Lumumba, Geronimo Pratt, Kwame Ture (AKA Stokely Carmichael), Reverend Dr. Ishakamusa Barashango, and Kwame Afo, whose untimely deaths have all but removed them from the annals of history.
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The true transformative power of Black Power, Black Lawyer, is that it weaves together personal memoir, social justice, and compelling often untold historical narratives, into a rich tapestry that moves Black history to the center of American history, where it belongs. A phenomenal woman in her own right, Taifa’s life and experiences as a social justice defender and legal advocate, tell a broader more inclusive story of our history and people, through the lens of one of its staunchest defenders."
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- Carol Taylor
REVIEWS: AALBC
(African American Literature Book Club)
Author Bio
Nkechi Taifa is President and CEO of The Taifa Group, LLC, a social enterprise firm whose mission is to advance justice. She also convenes the Justice Roundtable, an advocacy coalition advancing progressive justice system transformation. In addition to Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice, Nkechi is also the published author of several classic books for children - Shining Legacy: Storypoems and Tales for the Young, So Black Heroes Forever Will be Sung (1983); Three Tales of Wisdom (1983); and The Adventures of Kojo and Ama (1992).
Nkechi Taifa co-authored, along with Dr. Imari Obadele and Attorney Chokwe Lumumba, the pioneer book, Reparations Yes (1987). Attorney Taifa is also the author of numerous scholarly works, including law review articles, book chapters and white papers.
She received her Juris Doctorate from George Washington University Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Howard University. She is the proud mother of a daughter, Mariama Taifa-Seitu.
Contact
Thank you for your interest in reaching out to Nkechi Taifa. Attorney Taifa is no longer engaged in the private practice of law and,
as such, is not able to respond to individual requests for assistance. Thank you for your understanding.​
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For additional information, contact agent at
Email | Tel: 1-888-245-4789
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