Bruce A. Jacobs

Bruce A. Jacobs is an author and speaker. His newly revised and updated book, RACE MANNERS FOR THE 21st CENTURY: NAVIGATING THE MINEFIELD BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE AMERICANS IN AN AGE OF FEAR, offers practical advice for fair-minded people on surviving and overcoming racism and bigotry. It provides perspective on our dealing with the everyday impact of talk-show culture, racial encounters, divisive politics, fear of terrorism, the meaning of Katrina, hip-hop culture, and more. The new RACE MANNERS is available in stores and online. It also features a free downloadable DISCUSSION GUIDE. Bruce has spoken at scores of colleges, organizations, places of worship, and community gatherings from New York to Arizona to California, and has appeared on C-SPAN, NPR, Pacifica, and radio and television shows nationwide. He is a featured participant in "Race and Reconciliation in America," a series of national conversations about race convened at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Bruce is a Harvard graduate, and he has been a daily newspaper reporter, an advertising vice president, and now an author, speaker and social advocate. He is, as well, a widely-published poet, a drummer and almost-competent saxophonist, and an irretrievably fanatical fisherman.

Bruce as a Speaker

RACE MANNERS FOR THE 21st CENTURY author Bruce A. Jacobs tells it like it is – and as a speaker and writer he helps all of us to do so with clarity, conviction, and compassion. Bruce is the rare social change advocate who both lays out the big issues of racial politics and equips us to handle them in everyday life. With his dynamic presence, his plain-spoken clarity on difficult issues, and his empathy with audiences, Bruce is able to encourage people of good will to challenge all forms of bigotry and to work for the kinds of social and economic fairness that benefit us all.

Few speakers connect with an audience as intimately as Bruce does. He urges people to question our media, to turn off today's "rage talk" shows, and to dare to have real conversations. He shows that impassioned viewpoints and compassionate respect for others’ experiences are genuinely compatible. In his talks, he models how we need to care enough to hold one another accountable -- for white privilege, institutional racism, bigotry among people of color, homophobia, sexism, mistreating people by nationality or religion -- while also supporting one another in pursuing the shared things we want in a society. Bruce shows that once we begin to peel away the influence of our nation’s manufactured bigotries, we all have what it takes to start to truly know one another.

Bruce has been praised as offering "valuable insight...Many of your comments stick with me daily. My highest compliment." (Dave Brown, CEO, Owens Corning Corporation); a “catalyst for positive change” (Toi Y. Carter, Assistant V.P. for Human Resources, Loyola College, now at Howard University); “the best speaker we have brought to campus in years” (Lois Rauch Gibson, Professor of English, Coker College); “masterful” at provoking insight in audiences (Julie Schlueter, Multiculturalism and Diversity, Best Buy Co.); and someone who has “made an incredible impact on my relationships with people” (Ward Ensign, Community Organizer, Toledo, Ohio).

Bruce’s book RACE MANNERS has been hailed as “Enlightening and balanced...A 'Must-read’” (Norine Dresser, Los Angeles Times columnist); “Required reading” (Springfield Republican); “Eloquent...Wise” (Arizona Republic); “A frank, intelligent guide” (Publishers Weekly); and “the best book I have read on American race relations” (Bob Koch, WXXI-AM).

All of this is why Bruce is in demand nationally as a speaker; why he is a featured participant in “Race and Reconciliation in America,” a continuing series of national dialogues convened by former U.S. Senator William Cohen and racial justice advocate Janet Langhart Cohen; why an entire city organized a community-wide reading of RACE MANNERS; and why Bruce is a distinctive voice in national and local media.

Bruce shows all of us that we need to respect one another enough to demand the best in one another.

To inquire about Bruce for a speaking engagement, please contact:

Jodi F. Solomon Speakers Bureau
325 Huntington Avenue, Suite 112
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Tel: 617-266-3450
To email Jodi F. Solomon Speakers Bureau directly, use the email link at the left.
Or visit www.jodisolomonspeakers.com