Open. Sincere. Honest. Unfiltered.

In early June of 2020, many of us found ourselves unable to sleep ... unable to function normally ... unable to comprehend that once again, a black man found himself unable to breathe and ultimately met his demise at the hands of the police.

You may have also found yourself in a state of shock and wanting to do something. The contributors to A Collective Breath: Stories of Being Black in America and Visions of Change found themselves in similar positions.

Their candid, personal thoughts and feelings reveal the many challenges that blacks face in America today-challenges they may not directly divulge to others but that are part of their realities, and they offer ideas for solutions and actions to pave the way to a more optimistic future.

Consisting of a wide variety of blacks who are well-educated; who are community leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals; and who are involved with their families and religious organizations, the contributors tell of what it is like to be black in America.

In A Collective Breath, the contributors do not hold back.

They take a collective breath -- the breaths that George Floyd, Manuel Ellis, Javier Ambler, Eric Garner, and so many others could not take -- to document for the world how they feel in this moment; the lenses through which they, as blacks in America, view and live their lives; and what they believe needs to change today for a different tomorrow.