The White Peril: A Family Memoir

In his searing adult debut, picture book author Moses (Sometimes We Do) shares how the teachings of his father, civil rights leader Bob Moses, and great-grandfather, radical Baptist preacher William Henry Moses, shaped his political consciousness. The author begins after his family moved from Tanzania to the U.S. in 1976, which exposed Moses to racism from his peers and the local police in Cambridge, Mass. After college, Moses’s priorities shifted from basketball to education, inspired by his father, who launched a national math literacy initiative called the Algebra Project when Moses was in middle school. As Moses narrates his growing interest in teaching Black students via the Algebra Project in order to “deliver [them] to the other side of America’s cages,” he shuffles in excerpts from his father’s writings, and paints a detailed portrait of his great-grandfather, who used money he earned as an overseer on a Virginia plantation to become a nationally recognized religious leader who published fiery writings on race relations. 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. (Jan.)