Acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor shares the harrowing yet deeply hopeful story of her troubled childhood in East St. Louis—a memoir of family, faith and the power of books.
At age eleven, Goldie Taylor is out riding her bike when she is raped by a young man from the neighborhood. Unable to cope, her mother sends her to live with her aunt in East St. Louis.
Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. Goldie sleeps on the living room floor, amid cousins who abuse her. But in her trauma and pain, Goldie discovers a secret. She can find kinship among writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She can find hope in a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice. And books, she realizes, can save her life.
Goldie Taylor's debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post–Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul.
Profoundly moving, exquisitely rendered and ultimately uplifting, The Love You Save is a story about hidden strength, perseverance against unimaginable odds, the beauty and pain of girlhood, and the power of the written word.
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About the Author
Goldie Taylor is a veteran journalist, cable news political analyst and human rights activist who has written about national politics and social justice issues for over thirty years. A longtime former staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with deep Atlanta connections, she been featured on NBC News, MSNBC, ABC News, CNN, HLN, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, The Dr. Phil Show, The Steve Harvey Show, and Good Morning America, as well as NPR's All Things Considered. She has written for Salon, Creative Loafing, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Grio, Huffington Post, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Essence, and most recently as editor-at-large for The Daily Beast. Her novel Paper Gods, is currently in development with John Legend’s Get Lifted Productions and Sony Television. She lives in Boston.
About the Moderator
Brenda Wood is a veteran, Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist whose career spans 40 years reporting and anchoring television news in the South.
Over her career she has won numerous awards including 20 Regional Emmys from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast Region; 6 awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, and 7 awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters, among other professional honors. In addition, several of her "Last Word" news commentaries have gone viral on social media around the world.
Brenda was inducted into the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame in 2014 and her trailblazing career is documented in the National Archives in Washington D, C. as an African American HistoryMaker.
Brenda started her career at WAAY TV in Huntsville, Alabama in 1977. She worked at TV stations in Nashville, Memphis, and Atlanta before retiring in February 2017 from the Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA TV 11 Alive, leaving the anchor desk as one of Atlanta's most prominent and trusted newscasters.
She now works as a media training consultant in the local market, and occasionally shows up in cameo appearances on national tv shows.
Brenda remains a steadfast supporter of many non-profit and civic organizations in Metro Atlanta including the National Black Arts Festival, the N-SORO Foundation which provides college scholarships and life skills for youth who’ve aged out of the foster care system; and the Alzheimer’s Association Atlanta. In fact, she danced in the Association’s Dancing Stars of Atlanta helping to raise nearly a million dollars for Alzheimer's and winning Judges’ 1st place Choice Award with her Cha Cha!
Brenda is the mother of two married daughters and 2 grandsons, ages 4 and 6 months.