My Vanishing Country - by Bakari Sellers

About the Book

"The CNN analyst and youngest state representative in South Carolina's history illuminates the lives of America's forgotten rural, Black working-class men and women"--

Book Synopsis

New York Times Bestseller

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 book 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, Country 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 & Women," who 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.

Review Quotes

"Bakari Sellers' My Vanishing Country is urgent and essential reading brimming with compassion and courage." --Van Jones, CNN Political Analyst

My Vanishing Country is both a timely and timeless book that sheds a light on the unseen and gives a voice to the many who are unheard.--Tyler Perry

"My Vanishing Country solidifies Bakari Sellers as a major voice for his generation. He has taken the torch from his father Cleveland Sellers and soared. His brutally honest look at the systemic racism that continues to hold back the black working class is revelatory. His ownership of being Black, Country, and Proud is refreshing."--Angela Rye, CNN Commentator and CEO of IMPACT Strategies

"A strong voice for social justice emerges in an engaging memoir."--Kirkus Reviews

"Bakari lays out a blueprint for anyone thinking just because their life starts on a dirt road in the rural south, it must end on a dirt road in the rural south. If you want to know what a black man can achieve in this country with faith in a higher power and a strong family structure, then this is the memoir you need."--Charlamagne Tha God, author of Black Privilege and Shook One

"Family trauma--even inherited trauma--can take a tremendous toll on children. But as Bakari Sellers makes plain in My Vanishing Country, family trauma can also be a source of strength."--BookPage