Ashley D. Farmer’s Queen Mother is a powerful, necessary biography that restores the legacy of Audley Moore—an influential yet overlooked figure in the Black radical tradition. I was familiar with Moore’s name through my studies of Black reparations and Garveyism but this was the first time I encountered such a nuanced and intimate portrait of her personal and professional life.

Farmer brings Moore’s story into sharp focus from her early years in Louisiana, where she sacrificed her own aspirations to support her sisters, to her evolution into a revolutionary thinker shaped by class shifts, racial violence, and political ideology. As someone who identifies as both African American and Puerto Rican, I was especially moved by Moore’s solidarity with Puerto Rican liberation, a detail that is rarely spotlighted in mainstream histories.

The book skillfully traces how Moore’s communist roots informed her Black nationalist vision, even as political tides shifted. Her relationships with leaders like Malcolm X (who gave her the name “Queen Mother”) and her global reach from Harlem to the African continent are a testament to her continued impact on liberation movements.

Queen Mother is both a deeply immersive biography and a reclamation. I'm grateful this book exists to ensure Audley Moore’s legacy is never again relegated to the margins.