The Colored Waiting Room - by Kevin Shird & Nelson Malden (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

--Updated with new content--

Extraordinary conversations between a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. and a modern-day activist lead to the game-changing realizations that a second-wave civil rights movement is unfolding and that we must embrace the lessons of the past to effect lasting change.

In 1966, Nelson Malden ran for public office in Montgomery, Alabama. He was the first African American to do so. Campaigning for him was his friend Martin Luther King Jr., who had organized protests and had written the speeches that would help criminalize racial segregation and discrimination from his seat in the Malden Brothers Barbershop.

In The Colored Waiting Room, modern-day activist Kevin Shird heads from his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland to Montgomery to meet eighty-four-year-old Nelson Malden and contextualize the significance of the killings of Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin as well as the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Ferguson, Baltimore, and around the country. The result is a groundbreaking understanding of today's burgeoning second-wave civil rights movement and the urgent actions necessary for racial equality and change.

Here, Shird raises the profound question of whether blacks are still in a colored waiting room, biding their time and waiting for racial equality to be the norm. He also shares compelling personal realizations on the lost connection between African American youth and their ancestors' fight against slavery and Jim Crow laws, asking throughout this pivotal volume, how far can we go without knowing where we've come from?

Review Quotes

"This book is an important exploration of our past and a roadmap for our future. Once again, Kevin's example pushes us to be better and move faster."
--Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood Foundation and New York Times best-selling author of The Other Wes Moore and The Work

"I'm a civil rights activist, a mom, and a daughter. Dr. King's lessons still reverberate through every aspect of my life. This book is an important reminder of them."
--Tamika Mallory, national co-chair of the Women's March on Washington

"This incredible collaboration between Kevin Shird and Nelson Malden tells a story that puts our history and the civil rights movement into an important context and shares it in a way it's never been told."
--Rev. Anthony W. McCarthy, executive director, Baltimore City Chapter, NAACP

"Kevin Shird's book reminds us that it's past time to usher in the next step in our civil rights evolution. It reveals the urgency to do so."
--Mario Barrett, actor and Grammy-nominated R&B singer

"Kevin Shird has opened the door to a much-needed conversation about race in the past and race in the present, one which could transform racial issues in the future. His approach is brilliant."
--Terrie M. Williams, best-selling author and multi-award-winning activist

"Before his assassination fifty years ago, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked, 'Where do we go from here: chaos or community?' In The Colored Waiting Room, Kevin Shird provides a resounding answer to Dr. King's fifty-year-old question by depicting the liberating power of community, connecting to our history, fulfilling the dreams of our ancestors, and amplifying the voices of current young activists who are on the frontlines in the continued fight for racial justice. The Colored Waiting Room is mission fuel for the fight for those that believe we can still win."
--Shawn Dove, CEO, Campaign for Black Male Achievement

"I am thankful for scholars like Kevin Shird who provide an accurate picture of the value of the civil rights movement and the need to never forget that great sacrifices were made and that freedom of choice is a birthright not a right determined by a ruling body."
--Obba Babatundé, Emmy Award-winning actor

"The Colored Waiting Room provides a valuable glimpse of life during the first American civil rights movement, including the mistreatment of blacks on a daily basis, and a portrait of Dr. King as a person. Most importantly, it connects the past and the present, and gives us hope for the future."
--Freeman Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

About the Author

Kevin Shird is an activist, national youth advocate, public speaker, and author. Shird began dealing drugs at the age of sixteen, and later served almost twelve years in prison for drug trafficking. Today he works with young people to help them avoid the dangers of street culture and advocates for policy changes that support their safety and development. With his friend, award-winning R&B singer Mario (Mario Barrett), Shird cofounded the Do Right Foundation, a nonprofit that from 2008-2014 provided a lifeline to children living with family members abusing drugs. During the tenure of President Barack Obama, Shird worked with the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy and as part of the committee for President Obama's Clemency Project. During the protests in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, Shird was an action consultant to then-Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration. Today, Shird speaks at colleges and universities nationwide on public health policy, reentry into society after incarceration, and substance abuse prevention. He lives in Baltimore, MD.

Nelson Malden owned and worked for a half-century at the Malden Brothers Barbershop. Martin Luther King Jr. was a client of his and the reverend at his church, and the two were friends until King's assassination. During the civil rights movement, Malden distributed the Southern Courier newspaper, one of the few newspapers in the South to cover the African American community, and participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Later, Malden was the first African American to run for political office in the racially divided city of Montgomery, AL. He lives in Montgomery, AL.