Passionate for Justice

In Passionate for Justice: Ida B. Wells as Prophet for Our Time, Catherine Meeks and Nibs Stroupe embark upon a brave and hopeful mission. Having come by separate life paths, this African-American woman and this white American man seek to stand together upon common ground, the revolutionary witness of an extraordinary, and too-little recalled black journalist and churchwoman. This would be an important book at any time, but it is critical for such a time as this. --Leonard Pitts, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, novelist and columnist Our nation needs this kind of wisdom now more than anything in a time of crisis and national moral failure. The progress of the past 50 years is so fragile. Here are two brave and honest southern voices--one black, one white--drawing wisdom from their own histories in a segregated society, seeking guidance in the words and deeds of a legendary defender of justice. --Douglas A. Blackmon, winner of the Pulitzer Prize book Slavery By Another Name Ida B. Wells was a courageous truth-teller, and so too is this book. As Catherine Meeks and Nibs Stroupe tell the story of Wells, they deftly expose the truth about our nation, which our nation has long avoided--to its peril. This is the prescient truth of racial, gender and class privilege fueling the violence of lynching. Meeks and Stroupe have given us a book for all time. For those who seek the truth of who we are as a nation--Ida B. Wells: A Prophet for Our Time is a must read. --The Very Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas, Ph.D., Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary The authors take a unique and daring approach to narrating the life of Ida B. Wells. They draw parallels, lessons, and inspiration from Wells' encounters with injustice to illuminate and better understand their own struggles and encounters with racism and sexism. What makes this book so different from all earlier tributes to Wells is the fact that Meeks (a black woman) and Stroupe (a white man) are able to independently weave threads of insights from nearly a century earlier into accounts of their own very personal journeys. The approach is novel, the challenge is considerable - and the read is well worth it. --Troy Duster, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley In this hard-hitting yet heartfelt analysis, historians Meeks and Stroupe use Gilded Age reformer Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) as a touchstone for a discussion of 21st century racism. In simple language, Meeks and Stroupe present a cogent, persuasive blueprint for achieving racial justice and equality in America. --Publishers Weekly We see the name Ida B. Wells in the title of this most special book, and, immediately, we think the book will be written in the third person point of view, traditionally required for biographical writing. Meeks and Stroupe, however, choose otherwise, and for reason. They are writing not only about Ida B. Wells, activist of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, but also about Ida B. Wells, the messenger we need for this present moment. Her courage and vision for justice are central to the dialogue, the prayers, and the confessions that bring Meeks and Stroupe together in free and inspired conversation on the guiding question of the book: 'What does it mean to be a liberated person?'