Trymaine Lee Book Launch "A Thousand Ways to Die"

About the Book:

A deeply personal exploration of the generational impact of guns on the Black experience in America.

A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had to confront what almost killed him—the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist, to relentless Black death; and of a family history scarred by enslavement, lynching, the Great Migration, the also insidious racism of the North, and gun violence that stole the lives of two great-uncles, a grandfather, a stepbrother, and two cousins.In this powerful narrative, Lee weaves together three strands: the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence, tallying the costs and riches generated by both the legal and illegal gun industries; and his own life story. With unflinching honesty he takes readers on a journey, from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to tracing the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors’ footsteps, to confronting the challenges of representing his people in an overwhelmingly white and often hostile media world, and most importantly, to celebrating the enduring strength of his family and community.In A Thousand Ways to Die, Lee answers Nola and all who seek a more just America. He shares the hard truths and complexities of the Black experience, but he also celebrates the beauty and resilience that is Nola’s legacy.

About the Author:

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award winning journalist and MSNBC Contributor. He’s the host of the “Into America” podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the “1619 Project”, he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book.

About the Conversation Partner:

The Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, III, is one of the country’s most renowned and beloved spiritual and civil rights leaders. He built his ministry on community empowerment and social justice activism, as evidenced through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hailed as one of the “twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world” by Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, he has been cited by Chicago Magazine as one of the city’s thirty most influential people. He is an NAACP Image Award recipient, award-winning filmmaker and Professor of Homiletics at Mercer University McAfee School of Theology.

As the Senior Pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Dr. Moss spent the last two decades practicing and preaching a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problem of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic apartheid. Dr. Moss preaches a theology of liberation rooted in a Black Spirituality of love and justice. His passion for African American culture and history combined with a deep appreciation for jazz and hip hop, have culminated in a unique message of hope and healing through a jazz narrative on American democracy.

As a preacher, poet, activist, author and filmmaker with an eye toward justice and equality, he founded The Unashamed Media Group, a faith-based, justice centered agency committed to producing and curating stories to inspire the heart and challenge the mind. He is married to Monica Brown Moss, and they are the proud parents of two children, MK and Eli.

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