Sharing her storied career spanning five decades, a legendary Emmy Award-winning journalist presents this collection of groundbreaking reportage, from the Civil Rights Movement through the election and inauguration of America’s first Black president and beyond, chronicling the Black experience through trials, tragedies and triumphs and everyday lives. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Sharing her storied career spanning five decades, a legendary Emmy Award-winning journalist presents this collection of groundbreaking reportage, from the Civil Rights Movement through the election and inauguration of America's first Black president and beyond, chronicling the Black experience through trials, tragedies and triumphs and everyday lives. - (Baker & Taylor)

“Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an eminent Dean of American journalism, a vital voice whose work chronicled the civil rights movement and so much of what has transpired since then. My People is the definitive collection of her reportage and commentary. Spanning datelines in the American South, South Africa and points scattered in between, her work constitutes a history of our time as rendered by the pen of a singular and indispensable black woman journalist.”-Jelani Cobb

From the legendary Emmy Award-winning journalist, a collection of ground-breaking reportage from across five decades which vividly chronicles the experience of Black life in America today.

At just nineteen years old, Charlayne Hunter-Gault made national news after she had mounted a successful legal challenge that culminated in her admission to the University of Georgia in January 1961—making her one of the first two Black students to integrate the institution. As an adult, Charlayne switched from being the subject of news to covering it, becoming one of its most recognized and acclaimed interpreters.

Over more than five decades, this dedicated reporter charted a course through some of the world’s most respected journalistic institutions, including The New Yorker, NBC, and the New York Times, where she was often the only Black woman in the newsroom. Throughout her storied career, Charlayne has chronicled the lives of Black people in America—shining a light on their experiences and giving a glimpse into their community as never before. Though she has covered numerous topics and events, observed as a whole, her work reveals the evolving issues at the forefront of Black Americans lives and how many of the same issues continue to persist today.

My People showcases Charlayne’s lifelong commitment to reporting on Black people in their totality, “in ways that are recognizable to themselves.” Spanning from the Civil Rights Movement through the election and inauguration of America’s first Black president and beyond, this invaluable collection shows the breadth and nuance of the Black experience through trials, tragedies, and triumphs of everyday lives.

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* American civil rights activist and award-winning journalist Hunter-Gault presents a sound collection of articles that vividly chronicles five decades of the African American and Black experience. While writing pieces for the New Yorker and working as a foreign correspondent for NPR and CNN, she was committed to highlighting civil rights issues, solutions, and Black lives during the civil rights movement. She now notes how many of the same problems continue to plague the community. She also shares commentary about people and events in Harlem, New York; her memories of living in South Africa for almost two decades; and stories about Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis. Throughout the years, Hunter-Gault has provided readers with stories about Black people not usually covered by mainstream media. She introduces readers to inspirational stories about fearless African American women leaders at the forefront of the women's liberation and civil rights movements, healthcare reform, and politics, including those striding toward democratic freedom during South African apartheid. My People is an inspirational collection and a must-read for aspiring writers interested in honing their craft and readers who want to become knowledgeable about Black lives past and present. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

New York Times investigative journalists, Pulitzer Prize-winning Bogdanich and George Polk Award-winning Forsythe pool their talents to explain what it means for businesses and government agencies when international consulting firm McKinsey Comes to Town. Chronicling the murder of often-censored Mexican journalist Regina Martínez in 2012 after she uncovered shocking evidence regarding the disappearance of thousands of Mexican people, former AP Mexico bureau chief Corcoran plumbs crucial issues of freedom of the press with In the Mouth of the Wolf (60,000-copy first printing). From a Bronx culinary collective, John Gray and others' Ghetto Gastro Black Power Kitchen celebrates Black cuisines and cultures (100,000-copy first printing). Determined to make her immigrant family proud, Higgins worked hard enough to become a managing director at Goldman Sachs; Bully Market describes her encounters with a toxic environment characterized by extravagantly high living and, most disturbingly, discrimination against women and people of color. With My People, celebrated Emmy Award-winning journalist Hunter-Gault collects five decades' worth of reportage, from the Civil Rights era to today, to offer an overview of recent Black American history (75,000-copy first printing).

Library Journal Reviews

A nonchronological collection of reporting and essays, from the late 1960s through the present, by Emmy-winning broadcast journalist Hunter-Gault (New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance), who in 1961 was one of two Black students to desegregate the University of Georgia; she's been telling stories and taking part in civil rights activism ever since. Her writing vividly describes the twinning of her own embodied and intellectual lives ("Along with my clothes, I packed my racial consciousness," she writes) and documents watershed moments while retaining a clear-eyed perspective of racial narratives in the United States. In some of the texts, it's painful to see unbridled optimism countered by enduring racist efforts to whitewash history, but Hunter-Gault has organized the book in a way that balances disenchantment with hope. This collection compounds Hunter-Gault's impact by delivering a version of American history that is complex in its backward and forward glimpses and that reinforces the enduring need for telling old stories, so readers can relearn what they should have gotten right decades ago. VERDICT Hunter-Gault's book makes it easy to revisit difficult historical moments and envision better choices, better outcomes, and better futures.—Emily Bowles