New Memoir Chronicles 50 Years Of Activism

In his new memoir, longtime activist Dr. Howard Fuller offers a close-up view of a lifetime spent fighting for social justice for the poorest people in our society.

The book, No Struggle No Progress: A Warrior's Life from Black Power to Education Reform, goes on sale Sept. 9, launching a nationwide tour that will take Fuller to 15 major U.S. cities over the next two months. The book launch and signing will be held at the National Press Club on Tuesday, September 9 th at 5pm. Dr. Fuller will be available for interviews before and after the event.

Fuller, one of the nation's leading advocates in the growing push to provide poor families educational options for their children, said his wide-ranging journey shows that progress toward justice in this country requires struggle.

One of today's most urgent battles, he said, is to change the educational outcomes for all children but particularly Black and Brown children from low-income and working class families. "They are the children who continue to suffer the most from our failure as a country to give them the best education possible," Fuller said.

Fuller's memoir shares some little-known stories of African American history, including that of Malcolm X Liberation University, founded by Fuller and others in 1969. The university, with its Pan-Africanist mission, became for a short while an alternative for young African Americans frustrated by white universities and traditional black colleges that refused to recognize their growing radicalism.

In the book, Fuller also tells the story of an historical event he organized in 1972, called African Liberation Day, which drew an estimated 30,000 black people to the nation's Capital to support liberation movements in Africa. It was believed to have been the largest gathering of African Americans in support of Africa since the Marcus Garvey movement in the early part of the twentieth century.

The national book launch and signing is being hosted by the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) of which Fuller is a Co-Founder and Board Chair.

"I have been interviewed at least a dozen times for other people's books that have featured different parts of my work over the years," Fuller said. "I was finally persuaded a few years ago that it was time to tell my own story, in my own way."

Marquette University Press published the book, which was co-written with former Washington Post reporter and editor Lisa Frazier Page. It opens with Fuller's earliest days, growing up with a strict but supportive mother and grandmother in Shreveport, La., and ends with his current role as one of the nation's leading activists for education reform. The pages in between capture his work in the 1960s and 70s as a community organizer for anti-poverty organizations in North Carolina and a powerful voice for change in a restless generation of young Black men and women demanding "Black Power."

For Fuller's book tour schedule, historical photos, as well as video footage of many of his speeches and television interviews, go to www.howardfuller.org.

About BAEO
BAEO is an advocacy organization whose mission is to increase access to high-quality educational options for Black children by actively supporting transformational education reform initiatives and parental choice policies that empower low-income and working-class Black families. BAEO was founded in 2000 and champions parental choice policies and programs that serve low-income and working-class Black families, but is equally focused on promoting quality to ensure that Black students have access to high-performing schools. BAEO envisions a future where low-income and working-class Black families are empowered to choose a high-quality primary and secondary education for their children that enable them to pursue the college or career path of their choice, become economically independent adults, and engage in the practice of freedom.

SOURCE Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO)

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