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Black Lives Matter Reading List
There are have been so many tragic events and the only way forward is to protest and educate ourselves. Reading has so much power and the more we are able to learn about the injustices, we as black people have faced, we can make strides to fix them.
As a librarian, I am passionate about giving people information and encouraging people to make informed decisions on any subject. However this subject is home it is where I live. Reading is so powerful. Once you are done reading take action. Please Vote, write your elected officials at all levels of government, and protest in the safest way possible.
Below is the list of the 9 books with a brief summary from their publishers. I thought it best to recommend books from historical and present context and from the view point of women. Many books you will see in other list and others you will not. I have not personally read all the books but I’m planning to read the ones I have not.
We must not stop and can’t stop! I urge you to read.
Conversations in Black by Ed Gordon
- Gordon sets out to clarify what black power and excellence really look like — and shows everyone the way forward into a new age of prosperity and pride.
- Currently, I am reading this book with by bible study group and it has led to great conversations
Eloquent Rage by Britney Cooper
- Far too often, Black women’s anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that.
Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom
- Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement and its disastrous unraveling. Informed by twelve years of meticulous archival research, as well as familiarity with most of the former Party leadership and many rank-and-file members, this book is the definitive history of one of the greatest challenges ever posed to American state power.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin
- The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave a passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism.
So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo
- In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery
- Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can’t Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community’s long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination.
We Live for the We by Dani McClain
- A longtime reporter on race, reproductive justice, policy and politics, Dani McClain is now also the mother of a baby girl. Like all first time mothers, she has countless questions about raising her child to be ethical and kind, but also to be healthy, happy, and safe in what she, as a black woman, knows to be an unjust, even hostile society to people of color.
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Thank you for this list. I am so glad you included James Baldwin! I recently re-read his Notes of a Native Son. Some of the best prose I have ever read. I made a few comments on the title essay at: https://stephen-davenport.com/blog-1/f/notes-of-a-native-son-by-james-baldwin
Again, thanks for the list. Some authors I had not known before. Much appreciated.