Sign-In
Cart
Run: The Wilmot Collins Story--From Liberian Refugee to the First Black Mayor in Montana
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralPolitical Biographies
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780700642991
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: Oct 6 2026
Pages: 168
Weight: 0.77
Height: 0.74 Width: 5.94 Depth: 8.55
Language: English
The incredible true story of how Wilmot Collins fled his war-torn African homeland to make a new home in America, becoming a community activist, a political leader, and an inspiration for hope in a time of rising anti-immigration sentiment.
Run tells the inspiring story of Wilmot Collins, who fled the brutal and bloody Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s--where over 250,000 Liberians were killed, including two of Collins's brothers--and managed to make it to Helena, Montana, one of the whitest places on the planet. Enduring and overcoming racism and xenophobia, he joined the Montana National Guard, became an active member of the Helena community, and in 2017 rose to become mayor of the capital city and the first Black mayor in Montana's history.
Collins garnered a national reputation not only as a beloved Democratic politician in a ruby red state but also as a shining example of how being a racial and political outsider in a highly partisan society can be transformed into an effective and engaging form of political leadership.
Wilmot's story highlights the tragic decision to abandon one's homeland when it turns on its people. Collins came from a highly educated family and, when civil war erupted, he was fresh out of college working as a middle school teacher at Monrovia's SOS Children's Village School. He had recently found a great companion, Maddie Muna, whom he met after college graduation. They became fast friends and soon life partners in marriage. But they first had to negotiate forces threatening their very lives.
Through extensive interviews and his masterful command of storytelling, award-winning author and filmmaker Daniel Blake Smith tells how Wilmot and Maddie, through great perseverance, plenty of ingenuity, and inspiring displays of generosity, journeyed to the United States and have made their new home a better place for everyone. Run offers an emotional, inspiring, and deeply personal story of survival, racial injustice, political hope, and the challenges one family faced to realize the American dream.
Also from
Smith, Daniel Blake
Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society
Smith, Daniel Blake
Paperback
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback