Mary joined SONG as a member in 2009 and began organizing with the organization in 2010. Mary is the former co-director of Southerners on New Ground (SONG). Mary Hooks is a Black, lesbian, feminist, mother and Field Secretary on the field team for the Movement for Black Lives. He left lawyering to support undocumented and abolitionist organizers as a strategist and trainer, and to write. As a public interest attorney in Atlanta, she brought class-action lawsuits on behalf of people in prisons and jails. Kung Li Sun is a lifelong southerner currently based on the Gulf Coast. The resulting adventure masterfully mixes real historical figures and events with a riotous retelling of a possible history in which James must decide whether to return to his constrained but composed former life, or join the coalition of Black revolutionaries and Muskogee resistance to fight the American slavers and settlers. There and on the mainland they join forces with a diverse cast of characters, including a gender nonconforming prophetess, a formerly enslaved jockey, and a Muskogee horse trader. The formidable first mate persuades James to board his ship, on its way to the revolt in Saint-Domingue. But when he meets Denmark Vesey, James is immediately smitten. In 1793, as revolutionaries in the West Indies take up arms, James Hemings has little interest in joining the fight for liberty –talented and favored, he is careful to protect his relative comforts as Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef. Begin the World Over is a counterfactual novel about the Founders’ greatest fear-that Black and Indigenous people might join forces to undo the newly formed United States of America-coming true.

On Wednesday, August 31st at 7:00pm EDT, join author Kung Li Sun, Mary Hooks, and Charis Books & More for a book launch event celebrating the release of Begin the World Over.Ĭharis welcomes Kung Li Sun in conversation with Mary Hooks for a celebration of Begin the World Over, a revolutionary tale of Black and Indigenous insurrection.

Begin the World Over by Kung Li Sun