{"product_id":"when-there-was-no-chair-helen-giddings-9781940498775","title":"When There Was No Chair: The Courage to Show Up","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eYou know what it's like to walk into a room that wasn't built for you\u003c\/strong\u003e - to be the first, the only, or the one they never saw coming, and to find that no chair was saved with your name on it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou've been talked over in the meeting. Passed over for the seat. Told, in a hundred quiet ways, that the table was already full.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHelen Giddings spent a lifetime in those rooms.\u003c\/strong\u003e The first African American executive assistant in Sears' eleven-state Southwest Territory. The first woman to chair the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce. One of a handful of Black members in a 150-seat Texas House, where she would serve for twenty-six years - and the founder of a business that now operates in airports across Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom corporate boardrooms to the Texas Capitol to the company of Nelson Mandela, she learned a truth that changed everything: \u003cstrong\u003ebelonging is rarely offered. It is earned by those who decide that a place not given can still be made their own.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn When There Was No Chair, Giddings shares the story behind the accomplishments: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe 2 a.m. prayers\u003c\/strong\u003e no one heard, and the faith that carried her through every room she entered alone.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe fight against a liquor lobby\u003c\/strong\u003e that hired seventy lobbyists and passed her home address around like a flyer - all so a child could walk to school in safety.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e$1.3 million raised in thirty days\u003c\/strong\u003e to keep the doors of a historically Black college from closing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eA university built\u003c\/strong\u003e where a city of millions had none, and Black history placed on the grounds of the Texas Capitol for the first time.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis is a memoir for every woman who has ever been underestimated.\u003c\/strong\u003e For the daughter who needs proof that the ceiling isn't where she thinks it is. For anyone who has stood at the edge of a room and wondered whether she belonged in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelen Giddings' life is not the ceiling of what's possible. It's the floor. \u003cstrong\u003eAnd if there isn't a chair waiting for you - build one.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Juxtabook Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50602945151169,"sku":"9781940498775","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0781\/5512\/0833\/files\/9781940498775.jpg?v=1789487141","url":"https:\/\/www.porchlightbooks.com\/products\/when-there-was-no-chair-helen-giddings-9781940498775","provider":"Porchlight Book Company","version":"1.0","type":"link"}