Len Cooper — Speaking Engagement Topics

1. The Watcher — Peonage and Slavery in 20th-Century America

• The hidden system of forced Black labor after slavery

• Based on family history and deep historical research

• Trauma, resistance, survival, and legacy

2. The Children of My Knee — Coming of Age in Jim Crow Alabama

• Growing up Black in segregated Alabama

• Family trauma, racism, faith, and resilience

• From childhood pain to spiritual and creative awakening

3. Black–Jewish Historical Connections

• Shared histories of persecution and survival

• Holocaust memory and Black American experience

• Moral responsibility, memory, and resistance

4. Writing, Survival, and Resilience

• From homelessness to award-winning writer

• Writing as testimony and resistance

• How trauma becomes voice

5. Faith, Grief, and Healing

• Spiritual struggle and endurance

• Loss, doubt, and meaning

• Faith beyond institutions

6. Colonialism and the Roots of Nazi Ideology

• German genocide of the Herero and Nama (Shark Island)

• Racial science and Eugen Fischer

• How colonial brutality shaped Nazi racial laws

7. From Colonial Camps to Concentration Camps

• Direct historical links between Africa and Europe

• Race theory, extermination policy, and genocide

• Moral lessons for today

8. History as Warning: Memory and Moral Responsibility

• Why history must be told

• The danger of silence

• Storytelling as justice