It’s been seven years since Chicagoan Anjanette Young’s home was wrongfully raided. To mark the seventh anniversary, Young commemorated the day by sharing her new book, Past the Pain: How to Emerge From Trauma with Purpose, during a special celebration and book signing on Feb. 21.
In the book, Young not only recounts what happened to her years ago, when a dozen Chicago police officers entered her West Side home without knocking and with guns drawn, but she also details the steps she has taken and the journey she’s been on to heal from that experience.
For the last seven years, her life’s work has centered on demanding justice not only for herself, but also for others who have been traumatized by police. Recently, Young has offered her support by attending court hearings for the family of Ebony Tate, whose home was wrongfully raided by Chicago police in 2018. The family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. Closing statements are scheduled for today.
Each chapter in Young’s book includes a section on reflections and mental health resources, as well as advice from her therapist, Alicia Troff-Meade, that provides a roadmap for others impacted by trauma.
“The facts are the facts. What you saw in the body camera footage and in all the news stories are the facts of what happened that night. My truth is how I own it, how I live with it, and how I choose to move forward,” Young told The TRiiBE.
Since 2021, Young has observed the anniversary of the police raid on her home by hosting a press conference outside of Chicago’s City Hall, alongside City Council members and members of the Illinois General Assembly, to demand justice and accountability . In 2025, she expressed both appreciation and frustration with the status of an ordinance that will be named in her honor; it still hasn’t been approved by the City Council.
Young also advocated for the public to weigh in on the Chicago Police Department (CPD)’s search warrant policy. The policy was approved and finalized by CPD last year without public notice. The policy doesn’t ban police officers from using no-knock warrants or from pointing guns at children, according to WTTW.
At the state level, Young and other advocates were calling for the passage of House Bill 1611, which would prevent the use of no-knock warrants for low-level offenses. The legislation, which is sponsored by Illinois State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-26th), requires officers to knock and wait at least 30 seconds before entering. It also calls for search warrants to only be executed between 9 a.m and 7 p.m. The bill was approved by the House Judiciary Committee in March 2025, and was later reassigned to the House Rules committee.
The book release ceremony was hosted at Progressive Baptist Church, where Young is a member. Before Young addressed the attendees, Mayor Brandon Johnson stopped by, spoke to the room for a few minutes, and offered his support to Young.
“From the bottom of a heart and on behalf of the city of Chicago, we are grateful to you and all of you who will read this book and help organize our city and cities across America around how government has to show up on behalf of people,” Johnson said. “When government misses the mark, it’s incumbent on all of us to make sure that transformation is the response to tragedy.”
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th Ward), who’s one of the lead sponsors of Young’s ordinance was among the attendees at the book launch celebration.
After reading a passage from her new book, the ceremony shifted to a panel discussion between Deb Gorton, a clinical psychologist; Young’s therapist Troff-Meade; her attorney Keenan Saulter and CBS Chicago investigative reporter Dave Savini, who first reported on Young’s story. Patricia Jjemba, a fellow member of Progressive Baptist Church and a civil rights attorney, moderated the panel.
The TRiiBE caught up with Young ahead of her book launch to discuss the inspiration behind the book, what she hopes readers take away from the text, and how she continues to advocate for others while ensuring that she’s taking care of herself. She’s also pushing for other people to join her as she advocates for people and families who are victims of police violence.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The TRiiBE: As I was reading the book, I read a passage where you mentioned Sonya Massey. Can you walk me through the timeline for this book’s concept and what inspired it?
Anjanette Young: I would say the beginning of the book was in 2021 when the case settled. I was more in the public eye, speaking out about reform and working with the Chicago City Council to make policy changes. I would always write a speech for whatever event I was speaking at and, over time, I had a collection of different speeches I’d written. So I took those and just started putting pen to paper, writing my own narrative and tracking the work I had done. And eventually I was like, OK, I want to turn this into a book.
I can see the intentionality throughout the book. You included reflections and mental health resources after each chapter. Why was it important for you to include those types of resources along with conversations about mental health and therapy within the book?
That was a huge part of my healing journey. As a social worker, I know what it means to experience trauma and care for people who have experienced trauma, but having my own lived trauma experience took me down a different road of understanding what that actually looked like. Therapy was so instrumental to my process of being better, feeling whole and understanding what my body was feeling. I wanted to share that with people.
This book is not about me telling the world what happened to me; the world already saw that. It made national news. This book was about what to do after you’ve had such a horrific experience. How do you reclaim your life? How do you find a path forward?
How are you able to continue to take care of yourself and advocate with other victims?
My constant connection to my faith, praying and believing that God is going to protect me. That’s the foundation. I’m also very intentional about taking care of myself. Because of my professional experience and knowledge, I know what my body is feeling when I feel it. So if I’m watching news stories and I feel my breathing getting heavy, my chest tightening, or I clench my fists unknowingly, I know those are triggers that are about to put me in a bad place. These are times when I have to minimize the news coverage I take in. When I see how a person is being treated, and it doesn’t matter the skin color, it’s all wrong.
For some people, the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents have awakened a consciousness in people to the realities Black people have endured for decades. What is your response to that?
There’s a little bit of sadness to the reality. The reality is that what we, the Black community, are seeing happening to our brown neighbors, and now what we’re seeing happening to even some of our white counterparts, [is something] we have been experiencing forever. So it’s a little saddening that it took for one of yours to die before you can start to relate to what our people have been experiencing for centuries. There is a small glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, now that it is happening to others and not just Black people, that they can start to see the importance of the fight that we’ve been in forever. The fight needs to continue. I hope, in this upcoming midterm election, that people will get out and vote and understand that if they did vote for the guy who’s there now, his policies have impacted us all.
I love the chapter about your grandmother. We didn’t call it mutual aid at the time, but everything she did, from feeding the community with food from her garden, advocating for voting rights, and taking medical classes so that she could help people in her community is what we refer to now as mutual aid. Do you see yourself modeling those same things when you stand in solidarity with other victims?
I don’t think I initially connected her work to what I’m doing now; it definitely came more to life for me as I was writing the book. I wanted to highlight that I am who I am because of her. I’m very proud of that and the work that I’m doing now. I just see it as necessary.
I am so grateful that I didn’t have to go through a trial because of everything that I did go through. I can’t even imagine what it would have been to have to go to court, testify, and listen to the other side call me lies and deny that they had harmed me. hat, in itself, is a whole different level of trauma. So, I’m thankful that I didn’t have that experience because my case settled and we didn’t go to trial. I’ve been sitting with these other families, and I feel like there’s an obligation for me to take the parts that I feel strong in and go sit with someone else in their weakest moment.
Every day that I make decisions about this advocacy walk and journey that I’m on now, I think about my grandmother. It informs every decision that I make.
What do you hope people walk away with after encountering your book?
The first thing is knowing that you can, and you should fight back, no matter how big the system is. I didn’t realize when I started this fight how big of a system I was fighting with the city of Chicago and CPD. You should fight back and others should give you support in doing so.
With the right resources, healing is possible, and you can take back your life and make it something that you’re proud of. You can live a happy, fulfilling life after such a traumatic event.
