Books Recommended by Ibram X. Kendi

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.

Sister Outsider : Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

This groundbreaking book by the acclaimed Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of biological concept of race--revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases--continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era. Named one of the ten best black nonfiction books 2011 by AFRO.com, Fatal Invention offers a timely and “provocative analysis” (Nature) of race, science, and politics by one of the nation’s leading legal scholars and social critics.

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Dorothy Roberts

Dying of Whiteness : How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl

Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines the present. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison's virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterised her writing. 'She revealed the sins of her nation, while profoundly elevating its canon. She suffused the telling of blackness with beauty, whilst steering us away from the perils of the white gaze. That's why she told her stories. And why we will never, ever stop reading them' Afua Hirsch 'Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is rarest of pleasures' Washington Post 'When she arrived, with her first novel, The Bluest Eye, she immediately re-ordered the American literary landscape' Ben Okri

Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book

Redefining Realness : My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhamma

Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie

ONE OF TIME'S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America. Praise for The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

NOMINATED FOR AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD

Well-Read Black Girl : Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves by Glory Edim

In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black people and black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents, Robinson argues, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this. To illustrate his argument, Robinson traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, the resistance by blacks in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on such important twentieth-century black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright. |In this reissue of a 1983 classic, Robinson argues that Western Marxism is unable to comprehend either the racial character of capitalism or mass movements outside of Europe. Robinson combines political theory, history, philosophy, and cultural analysis to illustrate his argument and chronicles the influence of Marxist ideology and black resistance on such important black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright.

Black Marxism : The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson (editor)

The New York Times bestseller and 'Bible of a social movement' (San Francisco Chronicle) Once in a great while a book comes along that radically changes our understanding of a crucial political issue and helps to fuel a social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Lawyer and activist Michelle Alexander offers a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status, denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights movement. Challenging the notion that the election of Barack Obama signalled a new era of colourblindness in the United States, The New Jim Crow reveals how racial discrimination was not ended but merely redesigned. By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of colour, the American criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, relegating millions to a permanent second-class status even as it formally adheres to the principle of colourblindness. A searing call to action for everyone concerned with social justice, The New Jim Crow is one of the most important books about race in the 21st century.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman

How We Get Free : Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (editor)

Winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

They Can't Kill Us All: The Story of the Struggle for Black Lives by Wesley Lowery

Winner Of The Pulitzer Prize For General Non-ficton

Locking Up Our Own : Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman

Once in a while a book comes along that projects the spirit of an era; this is one of them . . . Vibrant and expressive . . . A well-researched and well-written work. --The Philadelphia Inquirer With the rallying cry of Black Power! in 1966, a group of black activists, including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton, turned their backs on Martin Luther King's pacifism and, building on Malcolm X's legacy, pioneered a radical new approach to the fight for equality. Drawing on original archival research and more than sixty original oral histories, Peniel E. Joseph vividly invokes the way in which Black Power redefined black identity and culture and in the process redrew the landscape of American race relations. In a series of character-driven chapters, we witness the rise of Black Power groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers, and with them, on both coasts of the country, a fundamental change in the way Americans understood the unfinished business of racial equality and integration. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour traces the history of the Black Power movement, that storied group of men and women who would become American icons of the struggle for racial equality.

Waiting 'til The Midnight Hour : A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E Joseph

With the slogan of 'Black Lives Matter', a burgeoning movement has awakened a new generation of activists. In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and argues that the persistence of structural problems such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment have created a context in which this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.

From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The last days of colonialism taught America's revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America's cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other,an enemy.Today's armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit,which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon's War on Drugs, Reagan's War on Poverty, Clinton's COPS program, the post-9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs.In Rise of the Warrior Cop , Balko shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces by Radley Balko

Co-Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize, A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, A Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year, A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year, A Publishers Weekly Favorite Book of the Year

From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton

From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America's shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge--a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government's notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers--and indeed the whole medical establishment--with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read Medical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A Washington

West Indian Immigrants : A Black Success Story? by Suzanne Model

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NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction
National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction

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BOOKS

Sources:

Ibram X. Kendi Recommends 10 Books to Better Understand the History of Racism in America: https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/books/g32757935/antiracist-books/
An Antiracist Reading List: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/books/review/antiracist-reading-list-ibram-x-kendi.html

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibram_X._Kendi_How_to_Be_an_Antiracist_(48625591847).jpg (cover image)
Author and historian Ibram X. Kendi at the 2019 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, United States. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84785637 (profile image)