Zoharah Simmons/ Stayed on Freedom

Today we talk to Dan Berger who is the author of the really beautifully written book Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey, 

and we are joined by Dr.  Zoharah Simmons who is one of the subjects of this book and has been a veteran of the civil rights movement,  the black power movement and more recently the feminist movement especially around Women and Islam  and who has been a tireless activist for over 50 years.  

The Black Power movement which is  often associated with its iconic spokesmen, derived much of its energy from the work of people whose stories have never been told. Stayed On Freedom brings into focus two unheralded Black Power activists who dedicated their lives to the fight for freedom.  

 Stayed on Freedom also  serves as a corrective to the idea that the Black Power movement was Northern-led when in fact it was activists like Zoharah and Mike Simmons who were leaders in SNCC  in Atlanta who first brought Black power into the civil rights movement.  

Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons fell in love while organizing tenants and workers in the South. Their commitment to each other and to social change took them on a decades-long journey that traversed first the country and then the world. In centering their lives, historian Dan Berger shows how Black Power united the local and the global across organizations and generations.  

Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita from the University of Florida where she was an assistant Professor of Religion and affiliated faculty in the Women Studies Department. Simmons received her BA from Antioch University in Human Services and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion with a specific focus on Islam from Temple University as well as a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. Simmons’ primary academic focus in Islam is on the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) and its impact on Muslim women, contemporarily.

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