KNOX COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY book Anti-Racist List We’ve based our suggested reads off Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Reading List” (The New York KNOXLIB.ORGKNOXLIB.ORG Times), and the “Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List” (New York Public Library).

FATAL INVENTION DYING OF WHITENESS REDEFINING REALNESS: How Science, Politics, and Big How the Politics of Racial My Path to Womanhood, Business Re-create Race in Resentment is Killing Identity, Love & So Much More the Twenty-first Century America’s Heartland Dorothy Roberts Jonathan M. Metzl A journalist and activist Discusses the efforts and Many lower- and middle-class outlines bold perspectives on results of the Human Genome white Americans are drawn the realities of being young, Project and describes how to politicians whose policies multi-racial, economically technology-driven science actually place them at challenged and transgender researchers are developing a ever-greater risk of sickness in today’s America, recounting genetic definition of race. and death. her disadvantaged youth and decision to undergo gender NONFICTION NONFICTION reassignment surgery. AUTOBIOGRAPHY THEIR EYES WERE LOCKING UP OUR OWN: WATCHING GOD Crime and Punishment in Black America SISTER OUTSIDER: James Forman Jr. Essays and Speeches When Janie Starks returns home, she seeks identity and Forman offers historical independence as the small background to the U.S. War The leader of contemporary southern black community on Crime’s aggressive policing feminist theory discusses buzzes with gossip about the and long criminal sentences, such issues as racism, outcome of her affair. measures which now seem to self-acceptance, and mother- be disproportionately target- and woman-hood. LITERARY FICTION ing poor black men. ESSAYS NONFICTION THE BLUEST EYE BAD FEMINIST WAITING ‘TIL THE Roxanne Gay Eleven-year-old Pecola Breed- love, an African-American girl, MIDNIGHT HOUR: A cultural examination of prays for her eyes to turn blue, A Narrative History of Black the ways in which the media so that she will be beautiful, Power in America influences self-perception, people will notice her, and her Peniel E. Joseph and discusses how society still needs to do better. world will be different. Ttraces the origins and LITERARY FICTION evolution of the influential ESSAYS Black Power movement and examines the ways in which it THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF redefined racial identity and BIASED: MALCOLM X culture. Uncovering the Hidden Malcolm X NONFICTION Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do The leader discusses his po- Jennifer L. Eberhardt litical philosophy and reveals details of his life, shedding WELL-READ BLACK GIRL: A leading expert on uncon- light on the ideas that enabled Finding Our Stories, scious racial bias examines him to gain the allegiance of a Discovering Ourselves the manifestations of still growing percentage of the Glory Edim automatic racism in contem- porary society and how they Black population. The founder of the popular influence race relations and online book club curates a AUTOBIOGRAPHY criminal justice. collection of original essays from today’s best black NONFICTION female voices. ESSAYS Descriptions provided by NoveList. KNOX COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY book Anti-Racist List KNOXLIB.ORG

CITIZEN: HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR THE COLOR OF LAW An American Lyric LIVES Richard Rothstein Claudia Rankine Saeed Jones Richard Rothstein has Collects essays, poetry, The co-host of BuzzFeed’s painstakingly documented and images that expose the AM to DM, award-winning how American cities, from San racial tensions in twenty-first poet and author of Prelude to Francisco to Boston, became century life, highlighting the Bruise documents his coming- so racially divided. Roth- slights, slips of the tongue, of-age as a young, gay, black stein describes how federal, and intentional offensives that man in an American South at state, and local governments pervade the home, school, a crossroads of sex, race and systematically imposed resi- and popular media. power. dential segregation: with un- disguised racial zoning, public ESSAYS AUTOBIOGRAPHY housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities, subsidies for DEMOCRACY IN BLACK: MEN WE REAPED builders to create whites-only How Race Still Enslaves the Jesmyn Ward suburbs, tax exemptions for American Soul Recounts the loss of five institutions that enforced Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. young men in the author’s life segregation, and support for In a book that is part-man- to drugs, accidents, suicide, violent resistance to African ifesto, part-history and and the misfortune that can Americans in white neighbor- part-memoir, a professor at follow those who live in pover- hoods. He demonstrates that Princeton University makes ty, sharing her experiences of such policies still influence the case that multiple forces living through the dying as she tragedies in places like Fergu- have conspired to deepen the searches through answers in son and Baltimore. impoverishment of black com- her community. NONFICTION munities and offers thoughts AUTOBIOGRAPHY on a better way forward. NONFICTION THE NEW JIM CROW HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST Mass Incarceration in the Age Ibram X. Kendi of Colorblindness FEEL FREE: ESSAYS Michelle Alexander From the National Book Zadie Smith Award–winning author Argues that the War on Drugs In a collection of essays, the comes a bracingly original and policies that deny convict- best-selling author discusses approach to understanding ed felons equal access to em- important questions about and uprooting racism and ployment, housing, education, our world that readers will inequality in our society— and public benefits create a immediately recognize. and in ourselves. Ibram X. permanent under caste based Kendi’s concept of antiracism largely on race. ESSAYS reenergizes and reshapes NONFICTION the conversation about racial justice in America—but even THE FIRE NEXT TIME more fundamentally, points us James Baldwin toward liberating new ways of A plea and a warning to thinking about ourselves and citizens to examine the actual each other. state of America after a centu- AUTOBIOGRAPHY ry of emancipation. NONFICTION

Knox County Public Library strives to be the essential connection for lifelong learning and information for every citizen. We are proud to support Read City USA, a collaborative initiative led by Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, to engage and empower our community to ensure that all children develop a love of reading and learning. If we, as a community, place importance on reading, we can raise children who love to read.