Michael Simmons, Zoharah Simmons and Aishah Simmons. Photo: Becca Haydu.
In 1965, two twenty-somethings, Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons, activists seasoned by Mississippi Freedom Summer and Arkansas Black sharecropper organizing, met, completely by chance, at the Atlanta office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). So began almost 60 – and counting – years of their lives and work together in what was to become known as the Black Power movement. You’re reading about Michael and Zoharah now because Dan Berger, author, professor, and public scholar, has just published Stayed On Freedom: The Long History of Black People Through One Family’s Journey. I talked to Dan about his book, about how he came to write it …