Patrisse Khan-Cullors co-founded Black Lives Matter in 2013 alongside Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, in the hours after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Five years later, she and journalist asha bandele published this memoir, tracing Khan-Cullors's childhood in a heavily policed Los Angeles neighborhood, her brother's mistreatment inside the jail and mental-health systems, and the personal and political path that led to co-founding one of the most consequential movements of the last decade. It debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and drew a real, documented backlash in some school districts over how it's taught. This review covers what the book actually is, what critics said, the real Goodreads numbers, and where the sourced pushback against it -- both critical and political -- actually comes from, so you know exactly what $17.99 buys you.
What When They Call You a Terrorist Actually Is
This is a memoir told in two braided threads. The first is deeply personal: Khan-Cullors grew up in Van Nuys, in Los Angeles, in a family repeatedly and, in her account, disproportionately targeted by police, including her brother Monte, whose undiagnosed mental illness led to years of incarceration rather than treatment -- an experience she returns to throughout the book as a direct, formative example of how the criminal justice system handles Black men in psychiatric crisis. Woven through that personal narrative is Khan-Cullors's coming-of-age as a queer Black woman, her early activism and organizing work, her time as a Fulbright scholar at UCLA studying religion and philosophy, and eventually the specific night in 2013 when she, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi turned a hashtag -- #BlackLivesMatter -- into an organizing framework in response to the Zimmerman verdict.
The book's title comes directly from Khan-Cullors's own experience of being labeled, and treated, as a threat to public safety by law enforcement and, later, by political opponents of the movement she helped build -- a label she pointedly reclaims and interrogates across the book rather than simply rejecting outright. It's part personal memoir and part political argument, and Khan-Cullors doesn't pretend otherwise: she's explicit that the book is meant to make the case for Black Lives Matter's specific organizing philosophy, including its emphasis on decentralized, non-hierarchical leadership, alongside telling her own story.
About Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Why She Wrote This
Khan-Cullors was raised in Los Angeles and has spoken publicly about being kicked out of her family's home at sixteen after coming out as queer to her parents, an experience that shaped her early understanding of marginalization well before she became a national figure. She studied religion and philosophy at UCLA, where she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, and has been recognized as a 2015 NAACP History Maker and named to Fortune's list of the World's Greatest Leaders in 2016. Beyond Black Lives Matter, she's worked for years as an artist and organizer focused on criminal justice reform, including advocacy specifically around mental health treatment inside jails, a cause directly tied to her brother Monte's experience.
She wrote the book with asha bandele, a journalist and former features editor at Essence magazine who had already published two memoirs of her own, The Prisoner's Wife and Something Like Beautiful, along with poetry collections -- experience that shows in the book's tightly controlled, often lyrical prose style, distinct from a more conventional political memoir. Khan-Cullors has said she wanted the book to do two things at once: give a fuller, more human account of her own life than the "terrorist" label ever allowed, and make an accessible case for why Black Lives Matter organizes the way it does, at a moment when the movement itself was still widely misunderstood or actively demonized in mainstream coverage.
How It Compares to The Yellow House
Both books braid a single family's personal story into a much larger structural argument about how American systems -- policing, housing, city planning -- have shaped Black communities' lives across generations. Sarah Broom's The Yellow House takes a slower, more architecturally patient approach, building outward from a single house; When They Call You a Terrorist moves at a faster, more urgent clip, driven by Khan-Cullors's activist voice and a clearer, more direct political thesis. Readers who want memoir-as-organizing-manifesto will find this the more propulsive read of the two; readers who prefer memoir that lets its argument emerge more slowly from accumulated detail may prefer Broom's approach.
What Critics Actually Said
Rather than inventing a verdict, here's what was actually published about it:
“An important account of coming of age within today's explosive racial dynamic.”— Kirkus Reviews
The New York Times Book Review, in a piece by Lovia Gyarkye, gave the memoir a genuinely engaged, positive assessment -- noting that while the book lays out the reasoning behind Black Lives Matter's specific organizing tactics, particularly its inclusivity and decentralized structure, its real power comes from the personal material: Khan-Cullors's evolving sense of her own sexual identity, her relationships, and the birth of her child, all woven into the larger political narrative rather than kept separate from it. The book also received a positive notice from Library Journal, which named it one of its Best Books of 2019, and it was selected as a New York Times Editor's Pick, debuting on the paper's nonfiction hardcover bestseller list at number twelve.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The book is openly, deliberately part memoir and part polemic -- Khan-Cullors and bandele synthesize personal narrative with an explicit political argument about policing, mass incarceration, and what the authors describe as American-style apartheid, and reviewers have noted that this dual purpose is a considered structural choice rather than an accident of a memoir wandering off course. That said, it does mean readers looking for a purely personal, apolitical memoir, with the organizing philosophy kept at arm's length, will find the book's argumentative sections more front-and-center than a conventional memoir typically allows. Separately, and more consequentially, the book has become a real flashpoint in fights over how race and policing are taught in American schools: several districts, and at least one state, have restricted or removed it from classroom curricula amid broader legislative pushes limiting how racism and Black history can be discussed in the classroom. That's a documented political controversy distinct from its critical reception, and worth knowing about directly rather than discovering only after buying a copy for a classroom or book club expecting no friction.
On Monte, Mental Illness, and the Case Against Mass Incarceration
The chapters concerning Khan-Cullors's brother Monte are, by most accounts, the emotional core of the book. Monte's undiagnosed schizoaffective disorder led, in Khan-Cullors's telling, to years spent cycling through jail rather than psychiatric treatment, a pattern she uses throughout the memoir as a direct, specific illustration of a much larger argument: that American jails and prisons have become, functionally, the country's largest provider of mental health "care," almost entirely by default and almost never by design. This section of the book reads less like abstract policy argument and more like sustained, specific testimony, and it's the part of the memoir that even reviewers more skeptical of its broader political framing have tended to single out as its most affecting material.
On Building Black Lives Matter From a Hashtag to a Movement
The book is unusually specific about the mechanics of how Black Lives Matter actually formed, which sets it apart from more general accounts of the movement written by outside journalists. Khan-Cullors walks through the exact night the Zimmerman verdict came down, the conversation with Alicia Garza that produced the phrase "Black Lives Matter" in a Facebook post, and the deliberate, considered decision she, Garza, and Opal Tometi made to build a decentralized, non-hierarchical organizing structure rather than a single top-down leadership model -- a structural choice explicitly meant to avoid concentrating power in one charismatic leader, the way earlier civil rights movements had. That firsthand, insider account of the movement's founding philosophy is arguably the book's most historically valuable contribution, regardless of where a given reader lands on the politics.
On the Title Itself and Reclaiming a Label
The book's title isn't a rhetorical flourish -- Khan-Cullors has described being directly, publicly labeled a domestic terrorist threat by law enforcement and political figures as Black Lives Matter grew into a national movement, a real designation with real consequences for how she and other organizers were surveilled and treated. Rather than simply rejecting the label as unfair, the memoir spends its pages methodically showing the reader the actual life behind it: a childhood shaped by over-policing, a brother failed by the mental health and carceral systems simultaneously, and years of organizing work aimed specifically at reducing the kind of state violence she and her family experienced directly. That reframing -- turning an accusation into the book's own title and then answering it with specific, lived detail rather than abstract rebuttal -- is one of the memoir's more deliberate structural choices, and it's part of what several reviewers pointed to as giving the book its emotional charge.
Key Takeaways
- Khan-Cullors is a real, documented co-founder of Black Lives Matter, alongside Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, formed in 2013
- The book debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and received a positive, engaged Times review plus a Kirkus notice
- Its 4.49 out of 5 Goodreads rating is unusually high for a political memoir of this length and intensity
- The memoir is deliberately structured as both personal story and political argument -- a considered choice, not a flaw
- It has been genuinely restricted in some school curricula amid broader fights over teaching race and policing -- a real, documented controversy
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want a firsthand, insider account of how a major modern movement actually formed, told through the lens of one co-founder's personal life -- particularly anyone interested in criminal justice reform, mental health and incarceration, or memoirs that don't separate the personal from the political. It's also a strong fit for book clubs and classrooms that want primary-source material on Black Lives Matter's founding philosophy, rather than a secondhand journalistic summary of it.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you want memoir with the political argument kept at arm's length, know going in that this book is explicitly both at once, by design -- that's a documented structural choice, not an accident. And if you're specifically looking for a more outside, journalistic history of Black Lives Matter as a movement rather than one founder's personal account, an independent reported history will likely serve that particular need better than a memoir can.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- A genuine New York Times bestseller with a positive, substantive review in the Times Book Review
- An unusually strong 4.49 out of 5 Goodreads rating from roughly 25,400 readers
- Firsthand, insider detail on Black Lives Matter's founding that outside journalism can't replicate
- Powerful, specific material on mental illness and mass incarceration through her brother Monte's experience
- Co-written with an experienced memoirist (asha bandele), giving the prose real literary control
Cons:
- Deliberately blends memoir with political argument, which won't suit readers wanting a purely personal narrative
- Has become a real flashpoint in school curriculum fights, restricted in some districts and states
- Assumes some reader familiarity with, or openness to, Black Lives Matter's organizing philosophy going in
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Patrisse Khan-Cullors a real co-founder of Black Lives Matter?
Yes. She co-founded Black Lives Matter in 2013 alongside Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin -- a documented founding, not a claim made only in the book's marketing.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.49 out of 5 from roughly 25,400 ratings as of this writing -- an unusually high average for a memoir, reflecting strong reader response even where the book's politics draw disagreement.
Who is asha bandele, the co-author?
A journalist and former features editor at Essence magazine who has written two memoirs of her own, The Prisoner's Wife and Something Like Beautiful, along with poetry collections. She co-wrote this book with Khan-Cullors.
Has this book actually been banned anywhere?
Some school districts and at least one state have restricted or removed it from classroom curricula as part of broader fights over how race and policing are taught -- a real, documented controversy, not an invented talking point, separate from the book's critical reception.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — When They Call You a Terrorist (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- The New York Times Book Review — review by Lovia Gyarkye
- Kirkus Reviews
- Library Journal — Best Books of 2019
- St. Martin's Press — publisher page
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
When They Call You a Terrorist earns its bestseller status and its strong Goodreads rating by doing something genuinely rare: giving readers a firsthand, specific account of how a major modern movement actually came together, filtered through one co-founder's difficult, honestly told personal history. The book's political and memoir strands are deliberately inseparable, and it has drawn real, documented pushback in some classrooms as a result -- that's worth knowing going in, not as a reason to avoid it, but as an accurate description of what kind of book this is. For readers willing to sit with memoir that argues as much as it narrates, it delivers both halves with real force.
Buy Day rating: 8.7/10