Book Lists
As librarians, we believe in the power of books, but we also recognize that reading alone cannot solve these problems. We hope these titles can help inspire you to action, which can lead to real change. We've broken the list out by topic, so find something you're passionate about, get reading, then take action in your community!
Check out these books in the Fitzgerald Library. You can also check your local public library's print and ebook catalog. Or, if you have the means to purchase, consider purchasing from a Black-owned bookstore.
Books on Antiracism
These books cover the crucial topic of antiracism and how to have often difficult and uncomfortable conversations about race as white people and non-Black people of color.
How to Be an Antiracist by Call Number: 305.8 K33hISBN: 9780525509288Publication Date: 2019Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. This is a work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
Stamped from the Beginning by Call Number: 305.8 K33sISBN: 9781568584638Publication Date: 2016"Americans like to insist that we are living in a postracial, color-blind society. In fact, racist thought is alive and well; it has simply become more sophisticated and more insidious. And as the author argues in this book, racist ideas in this country have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. The author chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history." - (from publisher's description)
So You Want to Talk about Race by Call Number: 305.8 O52ISBN: 9781580056779Publication Date: 2018An approachable and clarifying book, designed to help white Americans understand and discuss the complexities of race and racism. The book covers such topics as privilege, intersectionality, police brutality, microagressions, and lots more.
Backlash by Call Number: 305.8 Y21bISBN: 9781538104057Publication Date: 2018When the author penned an op-ed entitled "Dear White America" asking white Americans to confront the ways that they benefit from racism, he knew his article would be controversial. But he was unprepared for the flood of vitriol in response. In this book, he expands upon his original article and chronicles the ensuing controversy as he seeks to understand what it was about the op-ed that created so much rage among so many white readers. He challenges white Americans to rise above the vitriol and to develop a new empathy for the African American experience.
White Fragility by Call Number: 305.809 D53wISBN: 9780807047415Publication Date: 2018n this book, the author illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, the author explores how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively
Books on Imprisonment & Mass Incarceration
Understanding the issue of mass incarceration is essential to understanding modern US civil rights issues. Here are some books to help you learn more.
The New Jim Crow by Call Number: 364.973 A37ISBN: 9781595581037Publication Date: 2010Hugely influential book from 2010 which contends that the current mass incarceration crisis is, metaphorically, the new Jim Crow in the United States and that the War on Drugs is a key factor in the rise of the phenomenon.
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by Call Number: 364.973 H66ISBN: 9780674737235Publication Date: 2016This book digs deeper into the history behind mass incarceration, arguing that the real root of the crisis began with Johnson-era War on Poverty initiatives, not Reagan's War on Drugs.
Discipline and Punishment by Call Number: 365 F76ISBN: 0394499425Publication Date: 1978This is a classic work of theory on the birth of the modern prison and its role in Western society. This book is often hotly debated, but contains theory to be reckoned with when attempting to understand and address the mass incarceration crisis of today.
Solitary by Call Number: 365.6 W88ISBN: 9780802129086Publication Date: 2019"This is the life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement--in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana--for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge from his odyssey within America's prison and judicial systems with his humanity and sense of hope for the future intact is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the United States and around the world." (from publisher's description)
Locked In by Call Number: 365.973 P52ISBN: 9780465096916Publication Date: 2017This influential book argues that much of mass incarceration is caused, not by the War on Drugs, "draconian sentencing laws," or the private prison industry, but by a significant shift in prosecutor behavior. The book also describes potential solutions to the probelm.
Books on Racial Segregation & Fair Housing
These books can help inform an understanding of the lasting effects of racial segregation and discriminatory housing practices in this country.
Race for Profit by Call Number: 363.51 T24ISBN: 9781469653662Publication Date: 2019Longlisted for the National Book Award, this book, by scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, "uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned... Narrating the story of a sea-change in housing policy and its dire impact on African Americans, [this book] reveals how the urban core was transformed into a new frontier of cynical extraction." (from publisher's description)
The Color of Law by Call Number: 305.8 R84ISBN: 9781631492853Publication Date: 2017This book explains that the segregation of America's cities is due in large part to laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal government. This runs counter to the argument that individual prejudices and preferences and the discriminatory practices of banks and real estate firms were the primary drivers of segregation.
American Apartheid by Call Number: 305.8 M41ISBN: 0674018206Publication Date: 1993This older, yet still valuable, work "clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities...[and] shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations." (from publisher's description)
Books on the Police & the Black Community
Black and Blue by Call Number: 363.2 P37bISBN: 9781633882577Publication Date: 2017Recent police killings of Black civilians "are just the latest examples of the long-standing rift between law enforcement and people of color in the United States. In this book, the author provides unbiased facts, statistics, and perspectives from both sides of the community-police divide." - (from publisher's description)
The Use and Abuse of Police Power in America by Call Number: 363.23 U84ISBN: 9781440843723Publication Date: 2017"This book provides an investigation of how U.S. law enforcement carries out its public safety and crime fighting mandates. It provides a single-volume, go-to source for insight into police-citizen relations in the United States, from the 17th century through to today. It documents major turning points and historical events influencing the evolution of police power." - (from publisher's description)
Blackhood Against the Police Power by Call Number: 363.232 W89ISBN: 9781611863185Publication Date: 2019"This book addresses the punishment of "race" and the disavowal of sexual violence central to the contemporary "post-racial" culture of politics. Here the author asserts that the post-racial presents an antiblack animus that should be read as desiring the end of blackness and the black liberation movement's singular ethical claims. The book explores these lines of inquiry to pinpoint how the history of racial slavery wraps itself in a new discourse of disavowal. In this way, the book responds to a range of tests, policies, practices, and representations complicit with the police power." - (from publisher's description)
When Police Kill by Call Number: 363.232 Z76ISBN: 9780674972186Publication Date: 2017"This book provides an analysis of the use of lethal force by police in the United States and how its death toll can be reduced. The author compiles data to provide a comprehensive picture of how, when, where, and why police resort to deadly force. Of the 1,100 killings in the United States in 2015, he shows, 85 percent were fatal shootings and 95 percent of victims were male. The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population." (from publisher's description)
Books on Black Feminism & Intersectionality
Begin to explore the rich tradition of Black feminism in the United States with these seminal works by Black women.
Ain't I a Woman by Call Number: 305.42089 H78ISBN: 0896081303Publication Date: 1981Titled after Sojourner Truth's famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, hooks examines the effects of racism and sexism on black women, along with the civil rights and feminist movements. It is considered a classic and groundbreaking work in both gender studies and Black studies.
Black Feminist Thought by Call Number: 305.48896 H64ISBN: 9780415964722Publication Date: 1990"Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of... prominent Black feminist thinkers." (from publisher's description)
Women, Race, and Class by Call Number: 305.42 D26wISBN: 9780394713519Publication Date: 1983"A powerful study of the women’s liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. From the widely revered and legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis." (from publisher's description)
A Black Women's History of the United States by Call Number: 305.48896 B53ISBN: 0807033553Publication Date: 2020"Black women's history is expansive, dating back before the arrival of African captives on these shores, and Black women remain at the center of shaping our country. The authors have compiled over four hundred years of Black women's stories, highlighting the versatility of their experiences and celebrating Black womanhood, and Black women's resilience, from past to present." (from publisher's description)
Books on Black History in the United States
This list is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of brilliant scholarship on the history of Black people in the United States. Pick one up and learn something new today!
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Call Number: 305.8 O77ISBN: 9780807013106Publication Date: 2018"Spanning more than two hundred years, this book is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. The author shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism."
Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 by Call Number: 325.26 D81ISBN: 9780684856575Publication Date: 1935"This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic." (from publisher's description)
The Warmth of Other Suns by Call Number: 304.873 W68ISBN: 9780679444329Publication Date: 2010This award winning book chronicles the history of the Great Migration of Black Americans from the South to the West, Midwest, and Northeast. The book combines a broad history with the stories of three Black Americans' migration experiences.
My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered by Call Number: 323.4 R15ISBN: 0399118535Publication Date: 1977A book of oral history compiled by journalist Howell Raines that tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Interviewees include Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, and many more.
A More Beautiful and Terrible History by Call Number: 323.1196 T39ISBN: 9780807075876Publication Date: 2018In this book, Theoharis challenges the national mythology of the civil rights movement to tell the true story, making "us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering." (from publisher's description)
Books of Essays
From James Baldwin to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Audre Lorde to Tressie McMillan Cottom, discover your new favorite essay collection on the African American experience.
Thick: And Other Essays by Call Number: 301.0973 C85ISBN: 9781620974360Publication Date: 2019"
In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, the author embraces her role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society." (from publisher's description)
We Were Eight Years in Power by Call Number: 305.896 C65ISBN: 9780399590566Publication Date: 2017This collection of essays originally published in The Atlantic from 2008-2016 spans the eight years of the Obama presidency and covers topics including reparations, mass incarceration, and the legacy of the Obama presidency.
The Fire Next Time by Call Number: 305.896073 B18ISBN: 9780679744726Publication Date: 1963This book of two essays in letter form is considered a classic on race and racism by one of America's most celebrated writers and thinkers.
The Souls of Black Folk by Call Number: 305.896073 D81s 1997ISBN: 0312091141Publication Date: 1903This book by the legendary activist and scholar Du Bois is both a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African American literature.
Sister Outsider by Call Number: 814 L86ISBN: 9781580911863Publication Date: 1984"In this collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Audre Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change." (from publisher's description)
Memoirs & Autobiographies
Soul on Ice by Call Number: 301.451 C62sISBN: 9780385333795Publication Date: 1968"The now-classic memoir that shocked, outraged, and ultimately changed the way America looked at the civil rights movement and the black experience." Cleaver wrote this book while incarcerated at Folsom State Prison before joining the Black Panther Party. (from publisher's description)
Negroland by Call Number: 305.896 J45ISBN: 9780307378453Publication Date: 2015"This memoir is a meditation on race, sex, and American culture through the prism of the author's rarefied upbringing and education among a black elite concerned to distance itself from whites and the black generality while tirelessly measuring itself against both." (from publisher's description)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Call Number: 320.546 X1ISBN: 0345379756Publication Date: 1965This classic book is a work of collaboration between Malcolm X and the journalist Alex Haley. The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative that outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. It is the source material for the Spike Lee film Malcolm X.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Call Number: 973.6 J17ISBN: 0156443503Publication Date: 1861Considered one of the classic slave narratives. In this book, Jacobs tells her story of living in slavery and gaining freedom for herself and her children.
Books in Education
Race Talk in Age of Trigger Warning: Recognizing and Challenging Classroom Cultures of Silence by Call Number: General Collection - Lower Level 370.89 G78ISBN: 9781475851601Publication Date: 2020Drawing upon original research, Mara Lee Grayson tracks the rise of the trigger warning within historical and contemporary educational contexts; explores its potentialities, limitations, and abuses as praxis; and offers curricular suggestions for high school and college instructors seeking to implement equitable, antiracist pedagogies that simultaneously encourage students' well-being, provoke intellectual and emotional growth, and challenge the cultures of silence that maintain inequity on school campuses.
Unconscious Bias in Schools: A Developmental Approach to Exploring Race and Racism by Call Number: General Collection - Lower Level 371.829 B47ISBN: 9781682533697Publication Date: 2019"Regardless of the amount of effort, time, and resources education leaders put into improving the academic achievement of students of color," the authors write, "if unconscious racial bias is overlooked, improvement efforts may never achieve their highest potential." In order to address this bias, the authors argue, educators must first be aware of the racialized context in which we live. Through personal anecdotes and real-life scenarios, Unconscious Bias in Schools provides education leaders with an essential roadmap for addressing these issues directly.
The School to Prison Pipeline by Call Number: General Collection - Lower Level 370.89 H47ISBN: 9781440831119Publication Date: 2016This book offers a research and comparison-driven look at the school-to-prison pipeline, its racial dynamics, the connections to mass incarceration, and our flawed educational climate--and suggests practical remedies for change.
