Sign-In
Cart
The Promise We Broke: Racism, Power, and the Cost of America's Unfinished Ideals
Paperback
General EducationGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesSocial Movements
Publisher Price: $17.99
Publisher: Brandy H. Williams
Published: May 11 2026
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.48
Height: 0.33 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Every morning, millions of Americans stand, place their hands over their hearts, and recite the same promise:
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The words are simple. The reality is not.
What happens when a nation continues to repeat a promise it has never fully kept?
In this bold and unflinching work, Brandy H. Williams challenges the stories we tell ourselves about progress, merit, and equality-and exposes how systems of racism are not relics of the past, but active forces shaping everyday life.
From classrooms to courtrooms, from housing to hiring, this book reveals a truth many would rather avoid:
Inequality is not accidental.
It is constructed.
It is maintained.
And it is normalized.
This is not a book about what we already know.
It is a book about what we continue to ignore.
And it asks a question that cannot be answered with silence:
If the promise still matters-
what are we willing to do to make it real?
1 different editions
Also available
The Promise We Broke: Racism, Power, and the Cost of America's Unfinished Ideals
H. Williams, Brandy
Hardcover
Also from
H. Williams, Brandy
The Promise We Broke: Racism, Power, and the Cost of America's Unfinished Ideals
H. Williams, Brandy
Hardcover
Also in
General Racism & Ethnic Studies
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Iton, Richard
Paperback
Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
Hyde, Anne F.
Hardcover
Homosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity
Corber, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Fleming, Crystal M.
Hardcover
Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics
Bergman, Klas
Paperback
The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization
Farmer, Crystal Byrd
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Paperback
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers
Barragán, Carlos
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Thompson, Heather Ann
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
P Fkn R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance
Díaz, Vanessa
Rivera-Rideau, Petra R.
Paperback
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Menakem, Resmaa
Paperback
The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States
Silverman, David J.
Hardcover
Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
Williams, Elliot
Hardcover
The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth
Fowler, Jermaine
Paperback
The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression
Bradley, Michael
Paperback
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
Lichtblau, Eric
Hardcover
Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises
Green, Erica L.
Benner, Katie
Hardcover
Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America
Solomon-Simmons, Damario
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Revised Edition: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Hardcover
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic (Large Print Edition)
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paperback
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Sack, Kevin
Hardcover
Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Ewing, Eve L.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
Crime Fictions: How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction
Gonzalez Van Cleve, Nicole
Hardcover
The Japanese Way of Parenting: And What It Taught Me about Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
Katayama, Lisa
Paperback
Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America
Phillips, Steve
Hardcover
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
Man-Made: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right
Reuther, Karen Korellis
Hardcover
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E.
Paperback
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas
Newman, Brooke N.
Hardcover
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Dodson, Angela P.
Days, Michael I.
Hardcover
A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past
Ford, Clyde W.
Hardcover
Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
Hazareesingh, Sudhir
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge from the American Library Association
American Library Association (ALA)
Paperback
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color
Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, Prisca
Paperback
Was That Racist?: How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life
Carter, Evelyn R.
Hardcover
When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land
Eubanks, W. Ralph
Hardcover
Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Robinson, Cedric J.
Paperback
Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul
Shetterly, Aran
Hardcover
Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
Beety, Valena
Hardcover
Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success
Fritzgerald, Andratesha
Paperback
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paperback
The Talmud Unmasked: The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians
Pranaitis, I. B.
Paperback
White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better
Jackson, Regina
Rao, Saira
Paperback
The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins
Romanelli, Fr Gabriel
de Dieuleveult, Guillaume
Paperback
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Bloom, Joshua
Martin, Waldo E., Jr.
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy Angela
Paperback
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Fayer, Steve
Hampton, Henry
Paperback
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law
Lew-Williams, Beth
Hardcover
Blackinese: Reflections on Race and Ethnicity from a Biracial Millennial
Moore, Patricia Bradby
Hardcover
Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too
Oluo, Ijeoma
Paperback
Stamped from the Beginning [Graphic Edition]: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Christian Gill, Joel
Paperback
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race
Tatum, Beverly Daniel
Paperback
Yoruba Mythology: Stories of the Orisa from West Africa and the Diaspora
Ogunnaike, Ayodeji
Hardcover
The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate
Dozier, Curtis
Hardcover
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Freeman, Andrea
Paperback
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O.
Paperback
A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19
Bonhomme, Edna
Paperback
Black, White, Colored: The Hidden Story of an Insurrection, a Family, a Southern Town, and Identity in America
Noble, Lauretta Malloy
Noble, Leeanet
Hardcover
Immigration Detention Inc.: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants in America
Hiemstra, Nancy
Conlon, Deirdre
Paperback
Christ, Science, and Reason: What We Can Know about Jesus, Mary, and Miracles
Spitzer, Robert
Paperback