Kimberlé Crenshaw

is a pioneering legal scholar, movement leader and fearless advocate who changed the way the world thinks about race and gender.

For the first time, she is revealing the personal stories, connections and context that shaped her and created the modern lens through which we understand social justice, politics and the law.

Dr. Crenshaw always has taught that knowledge of history makes legible our current struggles and path forward to a better future.

Now, in Backtalker: An American Memoir, she is sharing her personal history to help provide a roadmap to the next generation of backtalkers—the leaders and resisters in the ongoing fight for democracy who will help carry the torch.

New Book: Backtalker

  • “A searing, defiant and deeply inspiring memoir for our times from one of America's greatest architects of justice.”

    —V (formerly Eve Ensler)

  • “A beautifully written, compelling and insightful memoir from the extraordinary intellectual, activist and scholar who has shaped critical discourse in America.”

    —Bryan Stevenson

  • “Here is a compelling account of the making not only of a visionary mind on the front lines of change, but of the ‘we’ that binds us to one another in families, communities, and in the nation as a whole.”

    —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

  • “This in-depth self-portrait reveals a woman of great depth, courage, and conviction—a truth teller and justice seeker. It is a tale as unique and compelling as its author, a much needed story for our times and beyond.”

    —Farah Jasmine Griffin

Backtalking definition: the act of turning a critical eye to things we are told are unfixable or just the way things are.
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“I’ve been called a public intellectual because I have fashioned some words you may have heard about, like ‘intersectionality’ and ‘critical race theory.' But if your vision of an intellectual brings to mind The Thinker’s pose … that’s not me at all. My thinking starts from the bottom up, from … experiences across my entire life that have made me feel some type of way. It’s a feeling that tells me to pay attention, to ask some questions, to struggle to put into words something that needs to be said. That’s what these stories are.”

—from Backtalker