With the demonstrations on countless streets and the conversations taking place in countless homes, bookstores are now experiencing a surge of interest in books about Black history, racism and social justice.
“The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era” by Quintard Taylor
Published in 1994, this book by Taylor, a University of Washington history professor emeritus and founder of BlackPast.org, remains a must-read for those who want to understand Seattle’s history.
“The Fire This Time” was conceived as a modern response to James Baldwin’s powerful 1963 essay collection “The Fire Next Time” (in our list below of must-read books on racial justice) and explores the “untidiness” of race in the U.S.
Reading fiction won’t give you a specific list of steps to take to fight social injustice — but it will do something just as important: It places us inside someone’s head and someone’s imagination, letting us begin the work of understanding and empathizing.
A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston wrote many novels, stories, essays and poems, including two long-posthumous books: the nonfiction work “Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’” (published in 2018) and the short story collection “Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick,” published earlier this year.
“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander
“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo
“How To Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi
“Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More” by Janet Mock
“So You Want To Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo
“Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor” by Layla F. Saad
“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson
“The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson
For even more suggestions, see the Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List from the New York Public Library.
