Arts & Humanities Campus News

Collection of essays details identity, commitment to activism

When 10-year-old Anjali Enjeti moved from her familiar Detroit suburb to Chattanooga in 1984, she was thrown into what feels like a new world. Here, she learned how to get her bearings in the Deep South and started to realize how identity can motivate, inform and shape a commitment to activism. Enjeti’s own road to evolution was a bumpy one, and along the way she wrestled with her own complicity in bigotry as an adult.

This debut collection—called “Southbound”—features 20 essays that tackle a plethora of subjects, from the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the South to voter suppression and the rise of nationalism across the globe.

Enjeti’s collection of essays is as timely as ever, and she uses her expertise as a journalist and organizer to pave the way for a path forward.