A01=Ali Velshi
act of courage
activism
Ali Velshi
apartheid
Author_Ali Velshi
Category=DNB
Category=JPVC
Category=KNT
democracy
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
equality
family history
fight for change
freedom
Here And Now
history
journalis
MSNBC
pluralistic democracy
politics
social change
social justice
South Africa
Velshi
Product details
- ISBN 9781250903693
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 135 x 208mm
- Publication Date: 18 May 2026
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Small acts of courage matter. Sometimes, they change the world. Our history books are filled with the stories of those who fought for democracy and freedom - for idealism itself - against all odds, from Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. These iconic struggles for social change illustrate the importance of engagement and activism and offer a template for the battles we are fighting today. But using the right words is often easier than taking action; action can be hard, and costly.
More than a century ago, MSNBC host Ali Velshi’s great-grandfather sent his seven-year-old son to live at Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi’s ashram in South Africa. This difficult decision would change the trajectory of his family history forever. From childhood, Velshi’s grandfather was imbued with an ethos of public service and social justice, and a belief in absolute equality among all people - ideals that his children carried forward as they escaped apartheid, emigrating to Kenya and ultimately Canada and the United States.
In Small Acts of Courage, Velshi taps into 125 years of family history to advocate for social justice as a living, breathing experience - a way of life more than an ideology. With rich detail and vivid prose, he relates the stories of regular people who made a lasting commitment to fight for change, even when success seemed impossible. This heartfelt exploration of how we can breathe new life into the principles of pluralistic democracy is an urgent call to action - for progress to be possible, we must all do whatever we can to make a difference.
ALI VELSHI is an award-winning journalist, the host of Velshi, a chief correspondent for MSNBC, and a weekly economics contributor to NPR's Here and Now. He hosts the Velshi Banned Book Club on MSNBC, and the Velshi Banned Book Club podcast. He is known for his immersive on-the-ground reporting and his interactive discussions with small groups, which form part of his ongoing series Velshi Across America. He previously worked as an anchor and correspondent for Al Jazeera America and CNN.
Born in Nairobi and raised in Toronto, Velshi holds a degree in religion and an honorary doctorate of laws from Canada's Queen's University. He serves on the boards of the National Constitution Center, the Chicago History Museum, the X-Prize Foundation, and the Philadelphia Citizen. He is the author of Gimme My Money Back and The Trump Indictments, and coauthor of How to Speak Money. Velshi has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, and is the recipient of two National Headliner Awards and a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award.
