The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee describes how government harassment led a 54 year old psychiatrist, single mother and social activist, to close my 25 year Seattle practice to begin a new life in New Zealand. It begins by describing the fifteen years of covert harassment I experienced when I used my financial and social position, as a doctor, to assist two former Black Panthers who were occupying an abandoned school to transform it into an African American Museum. What began as unrelenting phone harassment and illegal break-ins, progressed to six attempts on my life and an affair with an undercover agent who railroaded me into a psychiatric hospital.
My main motivation for writing the book was the murder of a postal worker and union activist I worked with named Oscar Manassa. As I recount in my book, Manassa also experienced extensive covert harassment prior to his brutal murder. His death was a personal epiphany ? as I recognized that Americans who challenge powerful government or corporate interests are denied the protection of the US criminal justice system. The Seattle police were blocked from undertaking a homicide investigation when the US Postal Inspectors (who are actually an intelligence arm of the federal government) seized Manassa?s evidence file.
The Most Revolutionary Act won a 2011 Allbooks Review Editor?s Choice award.
The intended audience for this book is activists of all political stripes and persuasion.