My Vanishing Country - Bakari Sellers

My Vanishing Country

By Bakari Sellers

  • Release Date: 2020-05-19
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 86 Ratings

Description

New York Times Bestseller

What J. D. Vance did for Appalachia with Hillbilly Elegy, CNN analyst  and one of the youngest state representatives in South Carolina history Bakari Sellers does for the rural South, in this important book that illuminates the lives of America’s forgotten black working-class men and women.

Part memoir, part historical and cultural analysis, My Vanishing Country is an eye-opening journey through the South's past, present, and future.

Anchored in in Bakari Seller’s hometown of Denmark, South Carolina, Country illuminates the pride and pain that continues to fertilize the soil of one of the poorest states in the nation. He traces his father’s rise to become, friend of Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King, a civil rights hero, and member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) , to explore the plight of the South's dwindling rural, black working class—many of whom can trace their ancestry back for seven generations.

In his poetic personal history, we are awakened to the crisis affecting the other “Forgotten Men & Women,” who the media seldom acknowledges. For Sellers, these are his family members, neighbors, and friends. He humanizes the struggles that shape their lives: to gain access to healthcare as rural hospitals disappear; to make ends meet as the factories they have relied on shut down and move overseas; to hold on to precious traditions as their towns erode; to forge a path forward without succumbing to despair. 

My Vanishing Country is also a love letter to fatherhood—to Sellers' father, his lodestar, whose life lessons have shaped him, and to his newborn twins, who he hopes will embrace the Sellers family name and honor its legacy.

Reviews

  • Enjoyed it!

    5
    By Consta ance
    Enjoyed reading this book over the holiday.
  • My Vanishing Country

    4
    By Bethany Panda
    I like how he tied the past to the present, if you don’t know the past, you can’t change the future.
  • Amazing book

    5
    By JustoFromTheMo
    Honestly did not know who Bakari Sellers was before I read this book. I’ve learned so much about South Carolina and a deep dive into his life. This book was incredible and I would recommend this book to anyone
  • Please read!

    5
    By grandma judes
    I loved this book. It was interesting, informative, heart-breaking and heart-warming. Bakari Sellers is a wonderful writer.
  • Great read!

    5
    By MariaTM24
    Baraki Sellers writes so wonderfully and simplicity, telling the story of life. He has such an old soul and deep feeling for people. I highly recommend reading this perspective from a modern black man on his views on race in today’s society.

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