Backtalker

A Memoir

By: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Brought to you by Penguin.

When Kimberlé Crenshaw was five years old in Ohio during the civil rights era, she was the only girl denied a lead role in her nursery play. Puzzled by her teacher's behaviour, she spoke up—and never stopped. That instinct to question power, to challenge what others accepted as fair, would shape not only her own life but the way we now understand race and gender.

In Backtalker, Crenshaw traces her journey from a spirited girl in Canton, Ohio to one of the most influential legal thinkers today. Through childhood lessons and painful reckonings—a boyfriend’s violence in college, a back door at Harvard Law, the silencing of women in the civil rights movement—Crenshaw learned to see the patterns others missed, refusing to stay behind the lines the world drew for her.

Out of those experiences came two ideas that changed everything: intersectionality, the recognition that race, gender, and class overlap to create unique forms of discrimination; and critical race theory, the argument that racism is structural. Crenshaw’s voice has since echoed through some of the most charged moments in recent history—from Anita Hill’s testimony to the rise of Black Lives Matter—insisting that true justice means seeing the whole picture.

Backtalker is both a memoir of awakening and the origin story of a transformative mind. Crenshaw’s story is ultimately about fairness and power—and the enduring battle for America’s soul.

© Kimberlé Crenshaw 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026