First, Best : Lessons in Leadership and Legacy from Today's Civil Rights Movement Hardback

As a proud son of a civil rights leader, Steven L. Reed grew up hearing stories about how his father integrated Montgomery lunch counters and took advice directly from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. However, it wasn t until Reed was in the fourth grade and received a death threat against his father that he began to understand more fully the importance of the lessons his father was trying to impart.

At this pivotal moment, his father explained, 'My job is to prepare you to be a cross-bearer and not just a crown-wearer.

Bigotry has no place in our household. It will only hold you down and make you small.' First, Best is an essential antidote to the perpetual dehumanization and distortions of Black men in our culture and media.

By sharing the story of forging his own path, Reed offers an alternative narrative to Black men coming of age, catalyzing their hope and sense of possibility.

Although Reed took a circuitous path to the office of mayor that began by forgi