The Fire Inside

“I have followed and admired Rima Vesely-Flad’s work for years. She istapping resources that all of us can access for greater hope and change.”—MICHELLE ALEXANDER, author of The New Jim Crow“This groundbreaking work is a gift of love reminding us of how Black liberation struggle, like the dharma itself, has always been about everyone getting free.”—LAMA ROD OWENS, author of Love and Rage and The New Saints“This is a read not to miss… . I find my own embers of wellness, justice, and harmony stoked with her joy of expression from the heart and mind on behalf of us all.”—LARRY WARD, Buddhist teacher, author, and cofounder of The Lotus Institute“This book is a fire that both illuminates and refines, a call to engage with the truth of our times while drawing strength from ancestral wisdom.”—RUTH KING, author of Mindful of Race

Rima Vesely-Flad, PhD, is the author of:

• Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022)
• Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017)

She is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Visiting Affiliate Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Culture, Society, and Religion. Dr. Vesely-Flad is the former Founding Director of the Inside Out Prison Education Program, a partnership between the Swannanoa Correctional Institution for Women and Warren Wilson College. She also taught college-level courses at Sing Sing Prison in New York State. She was a Fulbright Scholar and Awardee in South Africa and Ghana.