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Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice
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About This Book
Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, that will inspire us all to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice. They didn't know who they had. So begins Yusef Salaam telling his story. No one's life is the sum of the worst things that happened to them, and during Yusef Salaam's seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five, he grew from child to man, and gained a spiritual perspective on life. Yusef learned that we're all "born on purpose, with a purpose." Despite having confronted the racist heart of America while being "run over by the spiked wheels of injustice," Yusef channeled his energy and pain into something positive, not just for himself but for other marginalized people and communities. Better Not Bitter is the first time that one of the now Exonerated Five is telling his individual story, in his own words. Yusef writes his narrative: growing up Black in central Harlem in the '80s, being raised by a strong, fierce mother and grandmother, his years of incarceration, his reentry, and exoneration. Yusef connects these stories to lessons and principles he learned that gave him the power to survive through the worst of life's experiences. He inspires readers to accept their own path, to understand their own sense of purpose. With his intimate personal insights, Yusef unpacks the systems built and designed for profit and the oppression of Black and Brown people. He inspires readers to channel their fury into action, and through the spiritual, to turn that anger and trauma into a constructive force that lives alongside accountability and mobilizes change. This memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation's inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam's message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.
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Reviews
"Just as Ava Duvernay's renowned series about their story, When They See Us, serves as a powerful counter to the more than 400 articles written vilifying the teens in 1989, so does this book continue to illuminate just how wrong the American justice system can go."
"An important memoir and call to action that sheds light on the personal injustices of mass incarceration."
"Punctuating his prose with memorable images, Salaam denounces a system of injustice built on the backs of Black people, demonized as born criminals."
"It's easy to see how Salaam became a motivational speaker, writing throughout the book of transforming traumatic experiences: 'you must take the emotions that come up in your reflection and move that energy into something purposeful.' An uplifting and hopeful book about a terrible miscarriage of justice and the lives impacted."
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