First published 2018
Cecile Richards opens her memoir by recalling the seventh grade day she was sent to the principal's office for wearing a Vietnam War protest armband. This act of defiance launched a lifetime of activism that would take her from organizing minimum wage workers to leading Planned Parenthood through turbulent political battles. Richards grew up in conservative Texas with hell-raising parents who used the dinner table for sorting precinct lists rather than family meals. She watched her mother Ann transform from housewife to governor while learning hard lessons about the unique challenges women face in public life. Richards describes her five-hour congressional testimony where she fielded hostile questions, her work alongside struggling laborers, and the constant fight to protect reproductive rights. She reveals how she balanced raising children with leading a movement, sharing both victories and setbacks along the way. Richards argues that those in power never surrender it willingly and that real change requires people willing to take risks and make trouble. Her story weaves together personal moments with political battles to show how one woman's refusal to stay quiet helped shape a movement.
Genres: feminism, biography-memoir, activism, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-journey, social-change
Setting: Texas
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
266 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books