Sister Souljah

The quotation was later reproduced in the media, and she was widely criticized. Presidential candidate Bill Clinton publicly criticized that statement—and Jesse Jackson for allowing her to be on his Rainbow Coalition—thus the Sister Souljah moment was created.

I’m a college graduate, and if I read something like Romeo and Juliet, I’m reading about a gang fight, I’m reading about young love, young sex, longing. I’m reading the same themes that I’m writing in my books. So if somebody comes along and says, “Yours is street literature”—what was Shakespeare’s?”

Souljah was the executive director of Daddy’s House Social Programs Inc. for seven years. It is a not-for-profit corporation for urban youth, financed by Sean “Diddy” Combs and Bad Boy Entertainment. Daddy’s House educates and prepares youth, aged 10–16, to be in control of their academic, cultural, and financial lives. The students progressing through the program earn support to travel throughout the world.

An indirect sequel of the novel, Midnight: A Gangster Love Story, originally scheduled for October 14, 2008, was published on November 4, 2008. It entered The New York Times bestseller list at No. 7 its first week of publication and remained there As of February 2009. Another sequel, Midnight and the Meaning of Love. , was released on April 12, 2011, and another novel, A Deeper Love Inside: the Porsche Santiaga Story, originally scheduled for October 23, 2012, was published January 29, 2013. A third Midnight novel, A Moment of Silence, was published on November 10, 2015. As of March 2016, it had sold over 2 million copies. This novel follows the main character, Midnight, as he attempts to reclaim his innocence and his identity while in prison.

In 1999, she made her debut as a novelist with The Coldest Winter Ever. Souljah said that she was the pioneer for starting “a renaissance, or what Chuck D of Public Enemy would call a revolution, of reading.” As of March 2016, Souljah had been on the New York Times Bestseller List three times. The Coldest Winter Ever was widely acclaimed for making the second wave of the genre known as street literature more popular. About this, Souljah said:

In 1995, Sister Souljah published a memoir titled No Disrespect.

Souljah appeared on several tracks as a featured guest with the hip-hop group Public Enemy, and she became a full member of the group when Professor Griff left the group after making anti-Semitic remarks. In 1992, she released her only album, 360 Degrees of Power.

Souljah became infamous for her statements about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In an interview conducted May 13, 1992, she was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”

In 1985, during her senior year at Rutgers University, she was offered a job by Reverend Benjamin Chavis of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. She spent the next three years developing, organizing, and financing programs such as African Survival Camp, a six-week summer sleepaway camp in Enfield, North Carolina. She also became the organizer of the National African Youth-Student Alliance and outspoken voice against racially motivated violence in cases such as Howard Beach, Yusuf Hawkins, and more.

As a community activist, Souljah organized a number of service programs. In 1985, during her senior year at Rutgers University, she developed and financed the African Youth Survival Camp for children of homeless families, a six-week summer sleep-away camp in Enfield, North Carolina. This program ran for more than three years. She has been a motivating force behind a number of hip hop artists’ efforts to give back to the community, organizing major youth events, programs, and summer camps with artists such as Lauryn Hill, Doug E. Fresh, and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Souljah disliked what American students were being taught in school systems across the country. She felt that the school systems intentionally left out the African origins of civilization. Also, she criticized the absence of a comprehensive curriculum of African American history, which she felt that all students, black and white, needed to learn and understand in order to be properly educated. She felt that she was being taught very little of her history, since the junior high school and high school left out Black history, art, and culture. “I supplemented my education in the white American school system by reading African history, which was intentionally left out of the curriculum of American students.” From 1978 to 1981 she attended Dwight Morrow High School, which had a relatively even distribution of black, Latino, and Jewish student enrollment and a majority-black administration during the time of her studies. She was a legislative intern in the House of Representatives. Souljah was also the recipient of several honors during her teenage years. She won the American Legion’s Constitutional Oratory Contest, for which she received a scholarship to attend Cornell University’s Advanced Summer Program.

Sister Souljah (born Lisa Williamson, on January 28, 1964, in the Bronx, New York) is an American author, activist, recording artist, and film producer. She gained prominence for Bill Clinton’s criticism of her remarks about race in the United States during the 1992 presidential campaign. Clinton’s well-known repudiation of her comments led to what is now known in politics as a Sister Souljah moment.