Shawn Dove presents I TOO AM AMERICA, with Ted Shaw at Flyleaf Books

There is no cavalry coming!​

We are the iconic leaders we have been waiting for; curators of the change we’re seeking to see.

America is currently rumbling with a reckoning on race and wonder whether it will finally reconcile its history of systemic oppression of its Black citizens, who have helped build this country. The 2020 murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, in the midst of a global pandemic ignited a wave of racial justice protests and activism analogous to how the murder of Emmett Till in August 1954 sparked the Civil Rights Movement 65 years ago.

We are facing the fierce urgency of empathy and the overdue dismantling of long-standing barriers that prevent Black people from realizing their full potential in America. Research from the Opportunity Agenda reveals that stories of our lived experiences, more so than data and numbers, is what evokes the empathy that changes hearts and minds that might push us further toward “a more perfect union.”

I Too Am America, written by Shawn Dove and Nick Chiles, delivers timely insights and inspiration that humanizes the stories of Black men and boys, while offering strategic recommendations on how together we can from our current rumblings with a racial reckoning to loving, learning and leading with and on behalf of Black men and boys.

Shawn Dove is the founder of the Corporation for Black Male Achievement, a consulting and publishing enterprise that produces community-building and leadership engagements that amplify stories of loving, learning and leading Black men and boys. Previously he led the Campaign for Black Male Achievement, a national intermediary membership organization committed to ensuring the growth, impact and sustainability of leaders and organizations committed to improving the life outcomes for Black men and boys, including supporting the launch of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management, Dove currently lives in New Jersey with his wonderful wife, Desere, and four amazing children.

Ted Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and the Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law. His research areas include the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, housing policies regarding fair housing. Among his scores of honors are the 2012 Harlem Neighborhood Defenders Office W. Haywood Burns Humanitarian Award and the 2012 Office of the Appellate Defender Milton S. Gould Award for Outstanding Advocacy. Shaw has published many book chapters, articles and essays on civil rights, including the introduction to The Ferguson Report: United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.