LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST โขย NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE โข Aย โpowerful and devastatingโ (The Washington Post)ย call to free those buried alive by Americaโs legal system, and an inspiring true story about unwavering belief in humanityโfrom a gifted young lawyer and important new voice in the movement to transform the system.
โAn essential book for our time . . .ย Brittany K. Barnett is a star.โโVan Jones,ย CEO of REFORM Alliance,ย CNN Host, andย New York Times bestselling authorย
Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life foreverโthat of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of Americaโs devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without paroleโfor a first-time drug offense. In Sharanda, Brittany saw haunting echoes of her own life, asย the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother.ย As she studied this case, a system came into focusย in whichย widespread racial injustice forms the core of Americaโs addiction to incarceration. Moved by Sharandaโs plight, Brittany set to work to gain her freedom.
ย
This had never been the plan. Bright and ambitious, Brittany was a successful accountant on her way to a high-powered future in corporate law. But Sharandaโs case opened the door to a harrowing journey through the criminal justice system. By day she moved billion-dollar deals, and by night she worked pro bono to free clients in near hopeless legal battles. Ultimately, her path transformed her understanding of injustice in the courts, of genius languishing behind bars, and the very definition of freedom itself.
Brittanyโs riveting memoir is at once a coming-of-age story and a powerful evocation of what it takes to bring hope and justice to a system built to resist them both.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYย KIRKUS REVIEWS