Jeffries Reads from ‘A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women,’ Feb. 26

The Department of African American Studies invites the campus community to celebrate the release of its newest faculty member’s book, A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women, on Thursday, Feb. 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Little Professors Bookstore.

The event includes a reading, a brief discussion, and a book signing by Dr. Bayyinah Jeffries, Assistant Professor of African American Studies.

A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women: African American Muslim Women in the Movement for Black Self Determination, 1950–1975 challenges traditional notions and interpretations of African Americans, particularly women who joined the Original Nation of Islam during the Civil Rights-Black Power era. This book is the first major investigation of the subject that engages a wide scope of women from “The Nation” and utilizes a wealth of primary documents and personal interviews to reveal the importance of women in this community. Jeffries reveals that women were respected in the movement and maintained a very clear and often sought after voice in the advancement of the Original Nation of Islam.

A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Women replaces the typical portrait of the subservient and irrelevant African American Muslim woman with a far more accurate picture of their integral leadership and substantial contributions to the rise of Islam and black consciousness in the self-determination movement in the United States and beyond during the Civil Rights-Black Power era.