As if the pandemic wasn't enough to deal with, white supremacy has seemed to reach a new all-time high...
For black and brown folks, the latest news is anything but new but GOD FORBID we forget ourselves for two seconds and assume that racist cops and community watchmen aren't on the hunt for their latest lynching while COVID is running loose. Adding insult to injury, we have no choice but to see these atrocities circulated on the news and on our feeds because if there isn't video evidence...does racism actually exist?
This book list includes anti-racist reads, historical literature on Black America, and varied perspectives on how we can shape change. The books below present possibilities on how we can participate in the necessary work to undo the white supremacist notions that maintain a hold over and threaten our present lives.
It is important to educate ourselves on the long history of racism in this country, but it is just as important to unlearn bias and heal from internalized hatred and any aspects of ourselves that lend to the upholding of systems of oppression.
"I still hear my brother crying “I can’t breathe,” Now I’m in the struggle saying “I can’t leave.”
We are calling out the violence of these racist police, We ain’t gonna stop until our people are free."
list curated by Deidre
“A passionate, incisive critique of the many ways in which women and girls of color are systematically erased or marginalized in discussions of police violence.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
"Poignant....important and illuminating."—The New York Times Book Review
"Groundbreaking."—Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy
From one of the world’s leading experts on unconscious racial bias come stories, science, and strategies to address one of the central controversies of our time
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Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction | One of Time Magazines's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 | Longlisted for the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards
"An entertaining quest to trace the origins and implications of the names of the roads on which we reside." —Sarah Vowell, The New York Times Book Review
Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic
Here is the courageous, groundbreaking story of Rosa Parks and Recy Taylor—a story that reinterprets the history of America's civil rights movement in terms of the sexual violence committed against Black women by white men.
"An important step to finally facing the terrible legacies of race and gender in this country.” —The Washington Post
The classic, New York Times-bestselling book on the psychology of racism that shows us how to talk about race in America.
Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy?
In the tradition of Octavia Butler, radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want.
From the New York Times bestselling author of All About Love, a brave and astonishing work that challenges patriarchal culture and encourages men to reclaim the best part of themselves.
Everyone needs to love and be loved—even men.
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An Emma Watson "Our Shared Shelf" Selection for November/December 2018 • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2018/ MENTIONED BY: The New York Public Library • Mashable • The Atlantic • Bustle • The Root • Politico Magazine ("What the 2020 Candidates Are Reading
How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life?
"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free." -Combahee River Collective Statement.
This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times).
Originally published in 1998, this shockingly prescient novel's timely message of hope and resistance in the face of fanaticism is more relevant than ever.
“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly' Slate' Chronicle of Higher Education' Literary Hub, Book Riot' and Zora
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE • WINNER OF THE PEN / HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION • Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle.
8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best · William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller!
"Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds
An essential handbook of eye-opening--and frequently myth-busting--facts and figures about the real lives of Black Americans today
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, INDIEBOUND, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, CHRONICLE HERALD, SALISBURY POST, GUELPH MERCURY TRIBUNE, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER | NAMED A BEST/MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2017 BY: The Washington Post • Bustle • Men's Journal • The Chicago Re
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016
A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016
The "powerful" (Michelle Alexander) exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools, and how we can instead orient schools toward their flourishing
This celebration of Black resistance, from protests to art to sermons to joy, offers a blueprint for the fight for freedom and justice -- and ideas for how each of us can contribute