From the son of legendary civil rights organizer Robert P. Moses: a brilliant, unflinching memoir about becoming Black in America that interweaves voices from 3 generations of the Moses family
In The White Peril, Omo Moses deftly interweaves his own life story with excerpts from both his great-grandfather’s sermons and the writings of his father, the civil rights activist Bob Moses. The result is a powerful chorus of voices that spans 3 generations of an African American family, all shining a light on the Black experience, all calling fiercely for racial justice.
Omo was born in 1972 in Tanzania, where his parents had fled to escape targeted harassment by the US government. He did not encounter white supremacy until the family moved back to America when he was 4. Here he learned what it meant to be Black. He came of age in a Black enclave of Cambridge, Massachusetts, became a passionate basketball player, lived in the shadow of his father’s Civil Rights work but did not feel like a part of it until his college basketball career came to an unceremonious end. Unsure what to do next, he took up his father’s offer to go with him to Mississippi and teach math to Algebra Project students. Omo didn’t know it yet, but it was among those young people that he would find his purpose.
This book is at once a coming-of-age story, a multigenerational family memoir, an epic father-son road trip, a searing account of the Black male experience, and a work that powerfully revives Rev. Moses’s demand for liberation.
“[A] searing adult debut . . . Moses nimbly orchestrates the interplay between his and his ancestors’ voices, bringing the book to a moving conclusion that looks forward to what his own son might accomplish. The result is a stirring blend of family history and coming-of-age narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The White Peril is . . . astonishing, beautiful, courageous, luminous, heartrending, inspiring, fierce, sympathetic, provocative, necessary, unflinching, and, above all else, true.”
—Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction recipient and author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“For those who need to be inspired during these bleak days, this book is just what you need.”
—Pedro Noguera, the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education
“Intricately crafted, and a riveting read, this unputdownable whirlwind journeys through five generations of a Black family fighting for Black liberation, and a young man’s fight to traverse the rocky distance between father and son.”
—Lisa Delpit, MacArthur Fellow and author of Other People’s Children and “Multiplication is for White People”
“An evocative and enlightening journey through America’s troubled past and hopeful future, seen through the eyes of a remarkable family.”
—Jeremy Dennis, lead artist and president of Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.
“This book is a powerful experience. The intergenerational story laces Omo’s personal narrative with archival documents and the extraordinary histories of his father and great grandfather. . . . A beautiful book. I didn’t want it to end!”
—Rachel E. Harding, co-director, Veterans of Hope Project
“A tender exploration of the spirit and flesh of one Black man and his forebears, the book is both a sweeping indictment of an old problem and an expansive call to action.”
—Margaret Burnham, author of By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners
“The White Peril is searing, honest, vulnerable, profound, and undeniable. I loved it. In the distance between Omo’s experience and mine, in the same place, at the same critical age, is the distance perhaps between black and white America.”
—Ben Affleck, actor, writer, filmmaker, and CEO, Artists Equity
“The White Peril is such an important book for this historical moment! Moses masterfully uses being a child of the Civil Rights Movement, as the eldest son of civil rights icons Bob and Janet Moses, to brilliantly contextualize this now moment!”
—Belvie Rooks, human rights advocate
Author’s Note
CHAPTER 1
In the Distance Between Us (I)
CHAPTER 2
The King of the Court
CHAPTER 3
Out of Africa
CHAPTER 4
Freedom Fighters
CHAPTER 5
Becoming Black
CHAPTER 6
Cookie and the Dust
CHAPTER 7
The Wild
CHAPTER 8
The MathLab
CHAPTER 9
American Heroes
CHAPTER 10
American Heroes, Continued
CHAPTER 11
Building Demand
CHAPTER 12
In the Distance Between Us (II)
CHAPTER 13
The King of the Port
CHAPTER 14
The White Peril
CHAPTER 15
Black Consciousness
CHAPTER 16
In the Distance Between Us (III)
CHAPTER 17
A Wave
EPILOGUE
The Young People’s Project
Acknowledgments
Notes
- “Omo Moses’s The White Peril tells a multigenerational story of activism and kinship, including his father, Bob Moses,” Boston Globe, feature piece
- “Omo Moses, educator, CEO & Founder of MathTalk - Author of The White Peril,” What’s at Risk?, podcast interview
- “Omo Moses Discusses The White Peril,” East Hampton Press, book and event summary