Books by Opal
When The Water Is Safer Than The Land
Opal’s contributions and ideas–starting with her having been the one to spark the movement on social media and across the internet in the wake of the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer– have been recognized as among the most significant in the Black Lives Matter movement. Her journey to becoming an activist is also unique: the daughter of Nigerian immigrants raised in the Arizona desert, as an 8th grader Opal lived through her parents’ deportation trial, a deeply traumatic experience that informs the way she thinks about the ongoing violence against Black people and the nature of activism. Her work as the head of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) for the last seven years allows her to connect the struggles of African-Americans in America to those of Black people and immigrants around the world. In this book, Opal will write about the plight of immigrants and the issue of immigration from a perspective only she can.