If I Perish, I Perish: A Story of Race and Civil Rights is the book I've written about my experiences not only growing up as an African-American woman in the South and in Boston, from the 1930s through the 50s but also the lawsuit I filed against the Massachusetts Department of Welfare in the 1970s after I was denied multiple promotions to positions for which I was qualified. I eventually won the case (resulting in the Barbara Jean Culbreath Consent Decree), serving as an acknowledgement of my perseverance and a touchstone for other African-Americans both in Boston and around the country who found themselves facing the ugly specter of racism in the workplace.