This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Sports host and commentator Jamel Hill

was catapulted into a political fire storm in September of 2017. When she wrote a series of tweets

that included the words, Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself

with other white supremacists. Hill, who at the time was a co-host for ESPN's Sports Center,

went on to tweet that she thought Trump was a threat to democracy and unfit to be president.

Critics attacked Hill for what they called ESPN's liberal bias and Trump called for the sports

network to fire her. But as Hill writes in her new memoir Up Hill, long before those tweets,

she was speaking her mind as a sports writer and columnist in ways that both galvanized and polarized

her readers and the public. Jamel Hill is now a contributing writer for the Atlantic,

and she sat down to talk about her new book with our guest interviewer, Tanya Mosley, host of the

podcast Truth Be Told. There's a childhood memory that Jamel Hill often comes back to.

She's seven years old and the backseat of her mother's car on the way to see the movie ET.

When someone crashes into the side of their car, the impact propelled Jamel out of the back windshield

and into the trunk. And for a few brief moments, Jamel believes she actually died.

Growing up, she'd often ask herself, why did God bring me back to life? What was my purpose?

One thing she knew, even at seven, is that she wanted to live the life her mother, father,

and grandmother dreamed about, but were unable to. A life of travel, experiences, success.

That desire set Jamel on a singular path as a sports journalist. For a time, the only black woman

to have a sports column in a newspaper, an anchor for ESPN, and the voice of opinion on some of the

most divisive topics and cultural divides of our time. Jamel's journey began in the place where she

was born, Detroit, Michigan, to a teen mother and a heroine addicted father. Hills escape from her

circumstances came through writing and a deep desire to explore the world. Her memoir, Uphill,

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