Acclaimed Author Jabari Asim Presents:
We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies and The Art of Survival

Jabari Asim offers insightful and searing essays that celebrate the vibrancy and strength of black history and culture in America. These thought-provoking essays present a different side of American history, one that doesn’t depend on narratives steeped in oppression but rather reveals black voices telling their own stories.

Jabari Asim was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. For eleven years, he was an editor at the Washington Post, where he also wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture and social issues, and he has been the editor in chief of Crisis magazine, the NAACP’s flagship journal of politics, culture and ideas, since 2007. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts and the author of four books for adults, including The N Word, and six books for children.

We Can’t Breathe, On Black Lives, White Lies and The Art of Survival is a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

“A fantastic essay collection…Blending personal reflection with historical analysis and cultural and literary criticism, these essays are a sharp, illuminating response to the nation’s continuing racial conflicts.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post