Two Minds One Rhythm
Healing America's Divide through the Redemptive Power of Shared Purpose
Book Release Coming October 6, 2026. Audiobook to be announced.
The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, a New York Times reporter called trial attorney Edward Blackmon, Jr. with one question:
What should the rest of America expect?
This book is their answer.
Two lives devoted to justice. One shared purpose.
Mississippi gave Edward and Barbara Blackmon—and the generations before them—a vantage the rest of the nation is only now beginning to feel. What Americans are living through today is not a new reality improvised in real time. It is the same ancient machinery that has always been here.
They spent their lives inside a system built to contain them: segregated schools and courthouses, voting maps drawn to dilute Black power, courtrooms that treated justice as a privilege. Locked as a teenager in a Canton jail during the civil-rights struggle, Edward decided then to become a lawyer so the law could serve as a shield rather than a weapon. He served more than four decades in the Mississippi House of Representatives and helped redraw the state’s political maps, more than doubling Black representation. The National Law Journal twice named him one of the nation’s top ten litigators.
Barbara Blackmon broke barriers of her own. She earned her degree from Jackson State University at nineteen, an MBA from the University of Alabama, a law degree from the University of Mississippi, and an LL.M. in taxation from New York University. She became the first Black woman to represent Madison, Yazoo, and Holmes counties in the Mississippi Senate from a majority-white district, later won the Democratic nomination to run for lieutenant governor, and, with her husband, built a statewide law practice in Canton that took the fight from the Capitol floor to the courtroom.
Two Minds One Rhythm is the story of how two formidable minds learned to move together toward goals that serve humanity—and why we must unite now to heal a fractured nation before it is too late. This book does not stop at diagnosis. It offers a path forward: work, faith, education, and shared purpose. See the other side without surrendering yours. Rebuild trust. Choose courage over fear. The fractures can still be closed—not if we wait until the rest of the world finishes watching us come apart.
Book Release Coming October 6, 2026. Audiobook to be announced.
Why This Book?
Why Now?
America has never been more divided.
Political polarization, racial tension, economic uncertainty, and growing distrust have left many wondering whether the country can ever find common ground again.
Edward and Barbara Blackmon believe it can. Not because they are idealists, but because they have spent a lifetime confronting division at its source. Their work changed Mississippi. Their lessons speak to the entire nation.
At a moment when many believe America's differences are impossible to overcome, the Blackmons offer something increasingly rare: hope grounded in experience.
Early Reviews
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is one of Dr. King’s most famous statements. But it doesn’t bend toward justice on its own; it bends because of the work and lives of people like Ed and Barbara Blackmon. Two Minds One Rhythm is essential reading to see the obstacles, the hate, the hurt, the discrimination they faced. But it is also essential in showing the power of work and faith to overcome these barriers, and the optimism to continue to believe that the places where we are fractured can be fixed and that America is worth the fight.
This is a must-read for the nation; it all begins in Mississippi.
Barbara, Ed, and I share many remarkable experiences trying to improve our state. While they grew up on “the wrong side of the track,” I grew up in perhaps the poorest county in Mississippi, the child of day laborers in the brutal 1950s forestry industry.
Ed served as Chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee—when he spoke, the chamber fell attentively silent. Barbara’s intellect, talent, and work ethic were undeniable from the day she was sworn in as the Senator from Madison County. I was proud to appoint her Vice Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and when the Republican Chairman suffered a heart attack, she became interim Chairman. Under her leadership, the committee never missed a beat—even though she was a Democrat. This kind of integrity almost never happens in today’s vehemently partisan legislatures.
In my fifty years as an attorney and legislator, no one I worked with was more respected by both parties than the Blackmons. As you read Two Minds One Rhythm, you will come to know, respect, and appreciate them as I always have.
Two Minds One Rhythm doesn’t just tell the story of a divided nation—it makes you feel the pulse of it. As someone who has spent his career stepping into other people’s truths, on-screen from Shameless to Walker to Mercy to Nemesis, I know what it takes to make an audience believe that two different perspectives can share the same heartbeat. Barbara and Edward Blackmon have done something rare here: they’ve written with two distinct voices and found the rhythm that holds them together. This book doesn’t ask you to pick a side. It asks you to listen—really listen—to a story America needs right now. Two Minds One Rhythm is honest, courageous, and deeply human. I’m proud to stand behind it.
Truth without bitterness. Hope without illusion. A powerful call to rediscover our way to saving our fractured nation before the chance slips away.
The Blackmons have gifted us a literary diamond. Not since Brother to a Dragonfly has such a meaningful accounting of Mississippi memory been inked on paper. Well done, Barbara and Ed!
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Book Release Coming October 6, 2026. Audiobook to be announced.
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Written in two distinct voices, united by one mission
For more than four decades, Edward and Barbara Blackmon have fought landmark legal battles, reshaped political representation, and opened doors that many believed would never exist.
Edward Blackmon, Jr.
Edward Blackmon, Jr. is a nationally recognized trial attorney, former Mississippi State Representative, and longtime advocate for voting rights and equal representation. A graduate of Tougaloo College and The George Washington University Law School, he co-founded Blackmon & Blackmon, PLLC, with his wife and law partner, Barbara, in Canton, Mississippi.
During four decades in the Mississippi House of Representatives, Edward helped lead legislative and judicial redistricting efforts that dramatically increased Black representation in the state legislature and judiciary. He broke at-large elections, drew maps that more than doubled Black representation, and created Mississippi’s first majority-Black judicial subdistricts. He won landmark verdicts—$177 million—and fifty criminal trials without a loss. Twice named one of the Nation’s Top Ten Litigators by The National Law Journal, he has received numerous honors for his legal and public service, including the J. William Fulbright Distinguished Public Service Award and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators State Nation Builder Award.
Edward and Barbara married in 1986 and raised four children, two of whom now serve in the Mississippi Legislature.
Blackmon & Blackmon, PLLC
Barbara Blackmon
Barbara Blackmon is a trailblazing attorney, former Mississippi State Senator, and Managing Partner of Blackmon & Blackmon, PLLC, the law firm she built with her husband, Edward. She holds degrees from Jackson State University, the University of Alabama, the University of Mississippi School of Law, and New York University, where she earned an LL.M. in Taxation.
In 1992, she became the first Black woman elected to represent Madison, Yazoo, and Holmes counties in the Mississippi State Senate—a majority-white district. She broke barriers as the first woman named Vice Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the first woman and first Black senator to chair an Appropriations subcommittee, and the first woman from the Senate appointed to the Legislative Budget Committee. In 2003, she made history as the first Black Mississippian to win the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.
An attorney, mentor, philanthropist, and lifelong advocate for education, Barbara has received numerous honors for her public service. Together, she and Edward have contributed more than $1.7 million to Tougaloo College and Jackson State University and supported scholarships for dozens of students.
Blackmon & Blackmon, PLLC
Together, Edward and Barbara Blackmon have devoted their lives to advancing justice, strengthening communities, and proving that lasting change is built through courage, conviction, and collaboration. Their legacy continues through their family, their legal work, and the countless lives they have impacted.
Even in the most divided times, two people and one shared purpose can change the course of history.
Pre-order your autographed copy of Two Minds One Rhythm today and discover a blueprint for choosing courage over fear.
Book Release Coming October 6, 2026. Audiobook to be announced.