Synopses & Reviews
As a young, black, MIT-educated social scientist, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo landed her dream job at the EPA, working with Al Gores special commission to assist postapartheid South Africa. But when she tried to get the government to investigate allegations that a multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadiuma vital strategic mineralthe agency stonewalled. Coleman-Adebayo blew the whistle.
How could she know that the liberal agency would use every racist and sexist trick in their playbook in retaliation? The EPA endangered her family and sacrificed more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africabut her fight against this injustice also brought about an upwelling of support from others in the federal bureaucracy who were fed up with its crushing repression.
Upon prevailing in court, Coleman-Adebayo organized a grassroots struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing discrimination and retribution from the government. The No FEAR Coalition that she organized waged a two-year-long battle with Congress over the need to protect whistleblowersculminating in the passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century. This book is her harrowing and inspiring story.
Review
"The No Fear Act is the most significant civil rights development since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the Rosa Parks of the 21st century, and her memoir is the most important black narrative since The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Congressman Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy
Review
"Inside Marsha Coleman-Adebayo there's a streak of Rosa Parks. Certainly, her decade-long struggle to clean up the racially toxic atmosphere at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could make history." TIME
Review
"Intensely gripping. . . . Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's story refuses to leave the reader's memory. She is a cool force of nature whose example teaches how to stand down fear and victoriously stand up for what is right. More will be right when others join her." —Ralph Nader
Review
"A remarkable book: absolute must reading for anyone who cares about civil rights, whistleblowers, and justice." —Stephen M. Kohn, executive director, National Whistleblowers Center
Review
"A taut legal thriller…Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's memoir No Fear had me hooked from the first lines." —Essence
Synopsis
Retracing the steps of the first civil rights and whistleblower act of the 21st century, this chronicle follows young, black, MIT-educated social scientist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, shortly after she landed her dream job at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The account illustrates how the author attempted to convince the government to investigate allegations surrounding a multinational corporation, suspecting that they were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans who were mining vanadiuma vital strategic mineral. Documenting Coleman-Adebayo’s shocking discovery that the EPA itself was the first line of defense for the corporation in question, this record depicts how the agency stonewalled, prompting the author to expose them. The agency’s brutal retaliation is captured in detail, revealing their use of every racist and sexist trick in their playbook, costing the protagonist her career, endangering her family, and sacrificing more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa. Finishing on a hopeful note, the recollection concludes with the upwelling of support the author received from others in the federal bureaucracy, detailing how her subsequent grassroots struggle to protect future whistleblowers ended in victory.
About the Author
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the founder and president of the No Fear Institute. She served as the executive secretary of the EPAs Environment Working Group, working with their delegation to the Gore/Mbeki Binational Commission during the Clinton administration. Her victory in the Title VII complaint of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in Coleman-Adebayo vs. Carol Browner inspired the passage of the No Fear Act of 2002.
Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned linguist and social critic considered by many to be the worlds foremost intellectual. He is the author of 120 books.
Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy is a former liaison to Congress and three former presidents for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He organized the I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in 1963, was a cofounder of the Congressional Black Caucus, and was the District of Columbia's sole congressman in the House of Representatives for 20 years.