Admittedly, I don’t venture far into books about race – and I don’t mean that in a bad way (I’m sorry … I don’t know how to phrase things to be sure it’s non-offensive) – but usually I don’t read a book because of who its author is or isn’t. Lately I have become more aware, you might say, and have read a few that, for me, are very educational and well worth reading. The following list of 35 books are some of many that are recommended reads in connection to Juneteenth and on issues of race.
- Four Hundred Souls – by Ibram X. Kendri
- On Juneteenth – by Annette Gordon-Reed
- Barracoon: the story of the last “Black Cargo” – by Zora Neale Hurston
- Frederick Douglass: prophet of freedom – by David W. Blight
- Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow – by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
- A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance – by Hanif Abdurraqir
- How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America – by Kiera Laymon
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – by Austin Channing Brown
- Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All – by Martha S. Jones
- A Black Woman’s History of the United States – by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
- His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope – by Jon Meacham
- Wandering in Strange Lands: a Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots – by Morgan Jerkins
- Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own – by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
- Overground Railroad: the Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America – by Candace Taylor
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism – by Robin DiAngelo
- The Souls of Black Folk – by W.E.B. Du Bois
- The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America – by Kahlil Gibran Muhammad
- The Origins of Others – by Toni Morrison
- White Rage: the Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide – by Carol Anderson
- Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco – by Savannah Sange
- Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right – by Arli Hochschild
- City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (1771-1965) – by Kelly Lytle Hernandez
- Race, Reform, and Rebellion: the Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 – by Manning Marable
- Racism: a Short History – by George M. Frederickson
- When Police Kill – by Franklin E. Zimring
- Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution and Imprisonment – by Angela Davis
- The Hate U Give – by Angie Thomas
- How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History Slavery Across America – by Clint Smith
- The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together – by Heather McGhee
- From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century – by William A. Darity Jr. & A. Kirsten Mullen
- Pourin’ Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place in the Canadian West – by Cheryl Foggo
- At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power – by Danielle L. McGuire
- Kindred – by Octavia E. Butler
- Hidden Figures:The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race – by Margot Lee Shetterly
- Roots: the Saga of an American Family – by Alex Haley
The titles in bold type are the few on this list I have read so far. Which have you read? Do you have any suggestions to add to this list? If so, please mention them in the comments. Thank you!
Thanks for readings, and … Blessings on your day! 🙂
Polilla Writes 