
My Vanishing Country
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Bakari Sellers
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By:
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Bakari Sellers
About this listen
What J. D. Vance did for Appalachia with Hillbilly Elegy, CNN analyst and one of the youngest state representatives in South Carolina history Bakari Sellers does for the rural South, in this important audiobook that illuminates the lives of America’s forgotten Black working-class men and women.
Part memoir, part historical and cultural analysis, My Vanishing Country is an eye-opening journey through the South's past, present, and future.
Anchored in in Bakari Seller’s hometown of Denmark, South Carolina, Sellers illuminates the pride and pain that continues to fertilize the soil of one of the poorest states in the nation. He traces his father’s rise to become, friend of Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King, a civil rights hero, and member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) , to explore the plight of the South's dwindling rural, Black working class - many of whom can trace their ancestry back for seven generations.
In his poetic personal history, we are awakened to the crisis affecting the other “Forgotten Men and Women” whom the media seldom acknowledges. For Sellers, these are his family members, neighbors, and friends. He humanizes the struggles that shape their lives: to gain access to healthcare as rural hospitals disappear; to make ends meet as the factories they have relied on shut down and move overseas; to hold on to precious traditions as their towns erode; to forge a path forward without succumbing to despair.
My Vanishing Country is also a love letter to fatherhood - to Sellers' father, his lodestar, whose life lessons have shaped him, and to his newborn twins, who he hopes will embrace the Sellers family name and honor its legacy.
©2020 Bakari Sellers (P)2020 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
- By: Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Avery Kidd Waddell
- Length: 23 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America—it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history.
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My review can’t do this justice
- By tiffanyrene on 01-05-25
By: Ibram X. Kendi
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The Black Cabinet
- The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt
- By: Jill Watts
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 19 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 20th century, most African Americans still lived in the South, disenfranchised, impoverished, terrorized by white violence, and denied the basic rights of citizenship. As the Democrats swept into the White House on a wave of Black defectors from the Party of Lincoln, a group of African-American intellectuals - legal minds, social scientists, media folk - sought to get the community's needs on the table.
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Brilliant, important, and little known history
- By Barry on 06-21-20
By: Jill Watts
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The Yellow House
- By: Sarah M. Broom
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
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Great book. I wish the pictures had been included.
- By Lindsay on 02-28-20
By: Sarah M. Broom
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The Mis-Education of the Negro
- By: Carter Goodwin Woodson
- Narrated by: Anthony Stewart
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is an unapologetic look into the factors that have caused so many Blacks to think and act in the negative way they do towards themselves and others. This timely body of work is from a man well versed in the American educational system, as well as educational systems throughout the world.
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A Classic and Unexpected Delight
- By Theo Horesh on 02-28-13
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White Rage
- The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
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Good History, Was Hoping For More Insight
- By Mike on 09-08-16
By: Carol Anderson
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Lies About Black People
- How to Combat Racist Stereotypes and Why It Matters
- By: Omekongo Dibinga PhD
- Narrated by: Omekongo Dibinga PhD
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In this honest and welcoming book, diversity and inclusion expert, professor, and award-winning speaker Dr. Omekongo Dibinga argues that we must embark on a massive undertaking to re-educate ourselves on the stereotypes that have proven harmful, and too often deadly, to the black community.
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Very interesting and eye opening
- By La'Dona on 04-10-25
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The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
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Comprehensive and Cutting
- By Thomas Ray on 12-30-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
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Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
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LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
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Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
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Knots and Crosses
- Inspector Rebus, Book 1
- By: Ian Rankin
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Detective John Rebus' city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders…and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. As the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer - he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle…
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I've Read Mixed Reviews and Can Marry Them
- By Steve Mac on 02-13-16
By: Ian Rankin
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Bad Law
- Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times bestselling author brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to offer a brilliant takedown of ten shocking pieces of legislation that continue to perpetuate hate, racial bias, injustice, and inequality today—an urgent yet hopeful story for our current political climate
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Chicken Soup for the Political Soul
- By Gracie on 05-22-25
By: Elie Mystal
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Who Is Government?
- The Untold Story of Public Service
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis, Sarah Vowell, John Lanchester, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone. Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in finding someone doing an interesting job for the government and writing about them.
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Imagine what we could achieve if we actually understood
- By Anonymous User on 03-24-25
By: Michael Lewis
A must read.
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Informative
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Amazing
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Emotional, Powerful, Eye Opening
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Understanding the man behind the commentary.
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Great
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Great story
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Inspiring Man
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Good Listen.
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Earnestly heartfelt!
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