Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and a six-time NBA champion. He is also one of a handful of influential and respected black men in America who has a national platform as a regular contributing columnist for the Washington Post and Time Magazine where he shares his thoughts on some of the most socially relevant and politically controversial topics facing our nation today. After 50 years as an athlete, activist, and New York Times bestselling author, he offers his perspectives on how we can work together to solve some of these issues as a nationally recognized speaker who appears regularly on the lecture circuit.

His new political book, Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White will be released August, 2016 by Time Books and offersmhis personal perspectives on political issues facing America today. In 2012, Kareem was appointed to be the U.S. Cultural Ambassador by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Currently he serves as the chairman of his Skyhook Foundation whose mission is to “Give Kids a Shot That Can’t be Blocked” by bringing educational opportunities to under-served communities through innovative outdoor environmental learning. Kareem’s most recent projects include the HBO Sports documentary, Kareem: Minority of One, which debuted in early November, 2015 as HBO’s most watched and highest rated sports documentary. His debut novel Mycroft Holmes—a mystery novel and the first of an action/mystery series based on Sherlock Holmes’s savvy older brother—was released by Titan Publishing in September 2015. Following the success of his novel, the comic, Mycroft Holmes & the Apocalypse Handbook was released during Comic-Con in San Diego this past July 2016. In 2016, he was nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

www.kareemabduljabbar.comABOUT HIS BOOK WRITINGS ON THE WALL

At a pivotal time in our history and in the midst of a Presidential race that is dividing our nation, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores the origins of bias and inequality through the most socially relevant issues of our day—politics, race, religion, gender, class struggle, sports, media, seniors, and the next generation—in his relevant new book, WRITINGS ON THE WALL: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White (Liberty Street; August 23, 2016; Hardcover; $27.95; 256 pages).

In 1964, Abdul-Jabbar, a budding journalist still in high school, was given a chance to participate in a press conference with Martin Luther King Jr. A few weeks later he walked out of the 125th Street subway station and right into a race riot which his local paper quickly covered. His inquisitiveness followed him through his career in sports and brought him right back to becoming a vital part of the cultural and political conversation writing hundreds of articles, several history books, autobiographies, children’s books and novels. In his own words, Abdul-Jabbar is “an American, a father, a businessman, an education advocate, a journalist, a philanthropist, a history and jazz buff, a filmmaker, a novelist, a former global Cultural Ambassador for the U.S., a political activist, and an active member of his community.” He has also become a much needed public intellectual, drawing wide attention for opinions that are unconventional yet disarmingly rational in a time of political absurdity. Declared the Post in a 2015 profile: “He has become a vital, dynamic and unorthodox cultural voice” and has just been nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In the book, Kareem discusses the most pressing issues our nation is facing today that stubbornly remain a part of America 240 years after its founding document declared that all Americans are created equal. He contends that a prime cause is that many Americans, out of fear and sometimes ignorance, make too many false assumptions about fellow citizens who aren’t like them. Abdul-Jabbar brings to the darker aspects of America a bright spotlight of reason and curiosity, illuminating the way to a more unified country. Writings on the Wall is masterful, urgently needed, and has the potential to stimulate conversation in a season when Americans are taking stock of their country’s values and future.