Beat of a Different Drum: The Untold Stories of African Americans Forging Their Own Paths in Work and Life

In a series of insightful, probing interviews, Dax-Devlon Ross gives voice to the less-acknowledged realms of the black experience and gives us all new role models of courage, iconoclasm, and creativity. Ross, an inner-city schoolteacher who eschewed a career in law, became aware of the need for a book like this one when he came to his own career crossroads. To write it, he criss-crossed the country and even traveled to Europe, talking to black Americans who have stepped outside their comfort zones and found lives that no one had ever imagined they’d lead. In Beat of a Different Drum, you’ll meet:

Lisa Stevens, the zoo curator who cares for the pandas at the National Zoo
Johnathon Lee Iverson, the first black Ringling Brothers Circus ringleader
Jair Lynch, an Olympic athlete and real estate entrepreneur
James McLurkin, an inventor and robotics researcher
Ray Hill, a brewmeister who left a lucrative career to start his own beer company
Uchenna Smith, who, at 25, began running her own school with the KIPP-Sankofa program
Jake Lamar, an expatriate novelist
Mike Ladd, an M.C., producer, and professor
Bill Collins, a former Principal turned sailor turned world-renowned chef
Stacey Barney, a schoolteacher turned book editor

… as well as many others, each of whose stories has something unique to teach us about the search for meaning in one’s lifework, and the challenges that we must still face when we march to the beat of a different drum.