The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning

The New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands surveys the deteriorating political climate and presents an urgent call for action to save ourselves and our countries.

In The Quaking of America, therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem takes readers through a step-by-step program of somatic practices addressing the growing threat of white-supremacist political violence.

Through the coordinated repetition of lies, anti-democratic elements in American society are inciting mass radicalization, violent insurrection, and voter suppression, with a goal of toppling American democracy.

Currently, most pro-democracy American bodies are utterly unprepared for this uprising. This book can help prepare us–and, if possible, prevent more destructiveness.

This preparation focuses not on strategy or politics, but on mental and emotional practices that can help us:

Build presence and discernment

Settle our bodies during the heat of conflict

Maintain our safety, sanity, and stability under dangerous circumstances

Heal our personal and collective racialized trauma

Practice body-centered social action

Turn toward instead of on one another

The Quaking of America is a unique, perfectly timed, body-centered guide to each of these processes.