Trymaine Lee | A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America

In Conversation with James Peterson and local gun violence prevention organizers:

Chantay Love, EMIR: Every Murder Is Real,
Pastor Carl Day, Culture Changing Christians Worship Center
Tasnim Sulaiman, Black Men Heal

A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had to confront what almost killed him—the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist, to relentless Black death; and of a family history scarred by enslavement, lynching, the Great Migration, the also-insidious racism of the North, and gun violence that stole the lives of two great-uncles, a grandfather, a stepbrother, and two cousins.

In this powerful narrative, Lee weaves together three strands: the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence, tallying the costs and riches generated by both the legal and illegal gun industries; and his own life story. With unflinching honesty he takes readers on a journey, from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to tracing the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors’ footsteps, to confronting the challenges of representing his people in an overwhelmingly white and often hostile media world, and most importantly, to celebrating the enduring strength of his family and community.

In A Thousand Ways to Die, Lee answers Nola and all who seek a more just America. He shares the hard truths and complexities of the Black experience, but he also celebrates the beauty and resilience that is Nola’s legacy.

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist and MSNBC contributor. He’s the host of the “Into America” podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the “1619 Project”, he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book.

James Peterson, Ph.D. is a writer, educator, and consultant. Dr. Peterson is the Host of “Evening WURDS” on WURD (900AM and 96.1FM) in Philadelphia, PA. He is the author of several books, including The Hip Hop Underground and African American Culture, Prison Industrial Complex for Beginners, and Hip-Hop Headphones: A Scholar’s Critical Playlist. He is a columnist for The Philadelphia Citizen and has written for Fortune.com, Newsweek.com, The Guardian, The LA Times, Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Grio. Dr. Peterson is also a professional wordsmith who has ghostwritten and edited projects for a variety of individuals and corporate entities across a wide spectrum of professions.

Recorded September 11, 2025

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