To Live Woke: Thoughts to Carry in Our Struggle to Save the Soul of America

He grew up in the Jim-Crow South. A black male, born in 1951 in deep-South Jim-Crow legally segregated, Louisiana, Nacoste has seen so much. From his education in segregated schooling, to living through the 1973 race riot aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid, Navy aircraft carrier, to his becoming a scholar of intergroup tensions, Nacoste has experienced, learned and taught so much.

To Live Woke is built upon Nacoste's experiences to help us understand--and what we can do about the fact--that America's unavoidable neo-diversity is being used by those who peddle fear of "them" to tear at the soul of America. The country is being ravaged by intentionally emboldened bigotry that we are vulnerable to because of our nation's new anxieties about how to interact with people "...not like me."

Using stories from his life and college teaching, in short essay chapters, Nacoste gives the reader think pieces about today's American neo-diversity anxieties. He lays out concrete interpersonal strategies anyone can use to confront and disempower bigotry in their everyday social interactions.

To Live Woke is a call to personal action. A call to Americans to live in a way that embraces our nation's neo-diversity. We can save the soul of America. In this book, Nacoste shows the many Americans who really want us to build that more perfect union, how each can contribute to that effort, how each of us can play our personal part in saving the soul of America, how each of us can "...live woke."

Rupert Nacoste is a black-Creole native of the Louisiana bayou country and a Navy veteran. During his time in service (1972-1976), to deal with its serious racial problems, the U. S. Navy trained him (and others) to be a facilitator of racial dialogues among sailors. From that 1974 point onward, adding academic degrees, Dr. Nacoste has worked as a scholar-activist of interpersonal and intergroup relationships. On the faculty of North Carolina State University since 1988, he is the winner of the 2013 UNC Board of Governor's Teaching Excellence award because he uses a captivating oratory style to engage people to see their own role in moments of tension in social interaction.