Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist

The more you understand someone's history, the better you can see their humanity. This is true for individuals as well as for society at large. Race relations have suffered because of the erasure of important Black history and cultural context. As we fill in the gaps of our collective knowledge, communities can grow in understanding, empathy, and solidarity.

Terence Lester shares the buriedhistory of the struggles Black people have faced against unjust systems. He tells powerful stories of courage, injustice, pain, and triumph, including ones from his own history. He also unpacks the sociological and cultural dynamics of unconscious bias and inattentional ignorance that keep us apart, and how they can be overcome. This honest account of what it's like to be Black in America paves the way for the church to move beyond showing support from a distance toward loving one another in long-term solidarity, advocacy, and friendship.



Terence Lester (PhD, Union Institute and University) is a storyteller, public scholar, speaker, community activist, and author. He is the founder and executive director of Love Beyond Walls, a nonprofit organization focused on raising awareness about poverty, homelessness, and on community mobilization. He also serves as the director of public policy and social change and as a professor at Simmons College of Kentucky (HBCU). He is the author of I See You, When We Stand, andAll God's Children, and he coauthored with his daughter, Zion, the children's book, Zion Learns to See. He and his family live in Atlanta.







Daniel Hill is the founding and senior pastor of River City Community Church, a vibrant, multiethnic church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. He is the author of 10:10: Life to the Fullest.Prior to starting River City, Danielworked in the business world before serving five years on the staff of Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago suburbs. He has a business degree from Purdue University, an MA in theology from Moody Bible Institute, a certificate in church-basedcommunity and economic development from Harvard Divinity School, and a DMin from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married to Elizabeth, who is a professor of psychology, and they are the proud parents of two children.



Foreword by Daniel Hill



Introduction: Everyone Has a Story

1. A Past I Could Not Touch

2. A History Few Wanted to Understand

3. God Is Justice

4. Confronting Buried History

5. Unpacking Biases

6. Engaging Differences

7. Engage Your Community

8. Practice Proximity

9. Sit at Another's Table

10. Break the Silence

Conclusion: Be the Solution



Afterword by Vonnetta L. West

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Notes