Nita Wiggins: Might her story help you?

A message to my dear readers

I am grateful and joyful on this occasion to invite you to enjoy my memoir. I offer a special thanks to the family of photographer Wade Livingston (a longtime photographer of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders) for giving permission for me to use his work on the cover of the book’s new edition.

Please know that I lovingly wrote Civil Rights Baby: My Story of Race, Sports, and Breaking Barriers in American Journalism for people who are seeking a spark to go forward in the face of challenges.

• “Nita has displayed strength, courage, indefatigability, and just getting your head in the right mindset to achieve your goals.” —Hermann Djoumessi, Podcaster, social media influencer, Paris, France

• “This book is a lesson for any person with astronomical goals because Nita writes about becoming a reporter on the Dallas Cowboys beat. Like athletes, she beat the odds!”—Everson Walls, Super Bowl winner and kidney donor

For younger readers, age 12 and up, I present an African American heroine for whom they can root. This is something that youthful reading advocate Marley Dias pleaded for at age 11 in 2015. Miss Dias became an author in 2018 with Marley Dias Gets it Done And So Can You. In 2020 she began hosting Netflix’s Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices program.

I share my Civil Rights Baby in a way, also, that I believe trailblazer TV journalist and interviewer Alice Dunnigan (1906-1983) would celebrate. Her book is Alone atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press, edited by Carol McCabe Booker.

The evolving rights environment in and after the watershed year of 2020 showed me that time had come to publish a new edition of Civil Rights Baby. I transcribe for readers some key parts of the testimonies that three centenarians, survivors of Tulsa / Greenwood Race Massacre, gave to U.S. Congress members in 2021.

I’m hopeful of receiving wonderful invitations to discuss the rights landscape and to instruct you in writing, publishing, and speaking your story. You may visit the Contact page.

(Watch below) The American Library in Paris invited me to present the first version of Civil Rights Baby in a 2020 virtual event.

How can my experiences help you?

I am honored that award-winning magazine Poets & Writers Sept/Oct 2022 featured my publishing journey. In writer Debra Englander’s article, I explain the crucial roles that experts Janet Walker, Marita Golden, and Martha Bullen played in the process. Click the magazine cover, above and to the right, to read the article.

Wiggins: More cherished memories to come with 2021’s new edition of Civil Rights Baby, an ebook, audiobook, and illustrated reader in development.

Delivery: How 2019’s Civil Rights Baby arrived

May 8, 2019

(PARIS, France) TV broadcaster-turned-professor Nita Wiggins delivered Civil Rights Baby in May 2019, in Paris, France. About thirty smiling well-wishers attend the joyful event on the campus of ESJ-Paris, the author’s employer since 2009. 

“The morning after the launch, I had to return to school to pick up some books because more readers were waiting for their copies. Though it was my 55th birthday, I felt eight years old! I had such glee. My laughter bubbled up—and out,” Nita says.  

“I was remembering riding my childhood blue bike with the white banana seat to my elementary school in the mid-1970s.”

Bike riding has often taken the Macon, Georgia, native where she wanted to go.

There’s long been a connection between two wheels and mobility in her life, and it tickles her to think about it. Now she’s riding one of Paris’ community bikes, a Velib, to deliver her newly-released memoir and share the details of a life of self-motivation and constant motion.

The ambitious child would briskly pedal home from school to set up her workspace on the family kitchen table. There, she routinely do seven hours of homework. From primary school forward, she focuses laser-like on becoming an acclaimed journalist in Dallas, Texas. 

She knew that achieving her bold goal started with her effort. 

She reaches her destination in Dallas, winning national and regional broadcasting honors along the way. During 21 years on American television, Nita crashes reporting barriers, lands exclusive interviews, and interacts with 20th century icons in unique and memorable ways. But it’s a career fraught with dismissive managers who disregard the Civil Rights Act which makes workplace, gender-based limitations illegal.

So Nita changes directions. She starts pedaling toward something inconceivable in her childhood dreams. And it’s in France.

Covering the grueling Tour de France (a 2,100-mile or 3,400-km) cycling championship four times piques Nita’s curiosity about living in the country. She makes the jump in 2009.  

These days, the firmly established Paris, France-based author, educator, and social commentator appears on France 24 television as a guest panelist. She specializes in the changing landscapes of politics, race, women's employment, and societal shifts in the U.S. as points of discussion.

Politically correct: 

Unlike most commentators and journalists, Nita correctly predicts the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. She says on-air during a France 24 program that ‘Hillary Clinton has not put Candidate Trump away yet—and I'm not sure she will.’ She had previously told ESJ-Paris students in 2015 that Donald Trump could win the Republican Party nomination and, that with the limitations of the two-party system in the U.S., win the General Election in November 2016.  

“I just had to take the time to let you know that your work is being noticed. Thank you so much for following your passion for sports and setting a great example for all of us viewers who love to watch.” ― Alicia J. Dallas, Texas