BLACK LIVES MATTER

BOOKS

• Black Feminist Thought (Patricia Hill Collins) https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Black_Feminist_Thought.html?id=cdt YsU3zR14C&redir_esc=y

Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She not only provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, Alice Walker, and , but she shows the importance of self-defined knowledge for group empowerment.

• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (Dr. Brittney Cooper) https://read.macmillan.com/lp/eloquent-rage/

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.

• Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon) https://www.kieselaymon.com/heavy

Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling.

• How To Be An Antiracist (Dr. Ibram X. Kendi) https://www.ibramxkendi.com/how-to-be-an-antiracist-1

Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism re-energizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America - but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/3924/i-know-why-the-caged- bird-sings-by-maya-angelou/

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.”

• Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) https://justmercy.eji.org/responsive/

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned. Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

• Me and White Supremacy (Layla F. Saad) http://laylafsaad.com/meandwhitesupremacy

Raising Our Hands is the reckoning cry for white women. It asks us to step up and join the new frontlines of the fight against complacency - in our homes, in our behaviours, and in our own minds.

• Raising Our Hands (Jenna Arnold) https://www.jennaarnold.com/book

Jenna peels back the history that's intentionally been kept out of our textbooks and the cultural norms that are holding us back, so we can finally start sincerely listening to the marginalized voices and doing our part to work toward equity.

• Redefining Realness () https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144031-redefining-realness

Janet Mock establishes herself as a resounding and inspirational voice for the transgender community and anyone fighting to define themselves on their own terms.

• Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198292/sister-outsider-by- audre-lorde/

A collection of essential essays and speeches written by Audre Lorde, a woman who wrote from the particulars of her identity: Black woman, lesbian, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist writer.

• So You Want to Talk About Race (Ijeoma Oluo) https://www.sealpress.com/titles/ijeoma-oluo/so-you-want-to-talk-about- race/9781580056779/

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.

• The Bluest Eye () https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/117662/the-bluest-eye-by-toni- morrison/

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife.

• The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/7753/the-fire-next-time-by- james-baldwin/9780679744726/teachers-guide/

Baldwin refers to the ways in which he believes love can be used to change the perspective of white people and resolve many of the racial tensions in America.

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Michelle Alexander) https://newjimcrow.com

Two years after Obama’s election, Alexander put the entire criminal justice system on trial, exposing racial discrimination from law-making to policing to the denial of voting rights to ex-prisoners.

• The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty- First Century (Grace Lee Boggs) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9674787-the-next-american- revolution

A world dominated by America and driven by cheap oil, easy credit, and conspicuous consumption is unravelling before our eyes. In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economic and environmental - and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. • The Warmth of Other Suns (Isabel Wilkerson) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190696/the-warmth-of-other- suns-by-isabel-wilkerson/

Wilkerson speaks of the untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.

• Their Eyes Were Watching God () https://www.zoranealehurston.com/books/their-eyes-were-watching-god/

The tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life’s joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace.

• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Cherríe Moraga) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313110.This_Bridge_Called_My_Bac k

This collection reflects an uncompromised definition of feminism by women of color. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as co-editor Cherríe Moraga writes, ‘the complex confluence of identities—race, class, gender, and sexuality - systemic to women of color oppression and liberation’.

• When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (Ira Katznelson) https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/When_Affirmative_Action_was_White. html?id=cfhneJPcD38C&redir_esc=y

Ira Katznelson, the Ruggles professor of political science and history at Columbia University, seeks to provide a broader historical justification for continuing affirmative action programs.

• White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo) https://robindiangelo.com/publications/

Why it’s so hard for white people, who live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress, to talk about racism.