We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

Civil rights activist Sarsour, cochair of the Women’s March on Washington, seeks to “shatter every stereotype... of Muslim women” in this tough, score-settling narrative. A Palestinian-American girl who gets “a secret thrill” in saying “I’m from Brooklyn. Don’t mess with Brooklyn,” she weds at 17 in an arranged marriage. Pregnant at 19, she starts wearing a hijab, “a visible sign” of “exactly what I was, unapologetically Muslim.” Two years later, on September 11, despite warnings that a hijab is “too dangerous,” she continues to wear hers “to represent the good in Islam, to act in opposition to the evil.” She joins the Arab American Association of New York and fights against the Muslim registry as well as government surveillance of Muslims. Her activist involvement in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases and the Black Lives Matter movement elevates her profile, and was asked to help organize the 2017 Women’s March, slated to occur the day after Trump’s inauguration. In addressing post-event accusations “of anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism (because I wore a hijab)” that were “driven by white women who claimed that we had hijacked their movement,” the tone becomes bitter. Ultimately, Sarsour’s passionate memoir powerfully captures a unifying moment of social protest. (Mar.)