LibGuides: Black History Month 2021: Books for Adults

Nonfiction Books for Adults

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
Publication Date: 2021-02-16
The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. Heather McGhee marshals economic and sociological research to paint an irrefutable story of racism's costs. At the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy's collateral victims: white people themselves. This heartfelt message to a multiracial America that helps us to imagine a new vision for a future in which llife can be more than zero-sum.
Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi (Editor); Keisha N. Blain (Editor)
Publication Date: 2021-02-02
Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom explores a five-year period of history from 1619 to the present day. The writers utilize a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemic. These varied perspectives fundamentally deconstruct the idea that Africans in America are a monolith, unlocking the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
Publication Date: 2020-08-04
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Publication Date: 2017-08-15
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Publication Date: 2019-08-13
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
ISBN: 9781620975459
Publication Date: 2020-01-07
Since it was first published in 2010, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it."
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publication Date: 2015-07-14
Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone).
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad; Robin DiAngelo (Foreword by)
Publication Date: 2020-01-28
This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo; Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)
Publication Date: 2018-06-26
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
Waking up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Irving's personal and moving tale takes us on an adventure to a world utterly new to her as she wakes up to the reality of how, without her knowledge or active pursuit, she lives in a society which is set up to reward her at the expense of people of color. --Gene Robinson
Breathe by Imani Perry
Publication Date: 2019-09-17
Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world.
White Rage by Carol Anderson
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
From the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. Compelling and dramatic.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Publication Date: 2015-08-18
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice--from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
This powerful and disturbing history exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide.
The Racial Healing Handbook by Anneliese A. Singh
Publication Date: 2019-08-01
The Racial Healing Handbook offers practical tools to help you navigate racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, and begin to heal.

Nonfiction Books Especially For Educators

Not Light, but Fire by Matthew R. Kay
Publication Date: 2018-07-17
Do you feel prepared to initiate and facilitate meaningful, productive dialogues about race in your classroom? Are you looking for practical strategies to engage with your students? With the right blend of reflection and humility, Kay asserts, teachers can make school one of the best venues for young people to discuss race.
Unconscious Bias in Schools by Tracey A. Benson; Sarah E. Fiarman; Glenn E. Singleton (Foreword by)
Publication Date: 2019-08-13
Through personal anecdotes and real-life scenarios, Unconscious Bias in Schools provides information about unconscious bias in schools. The book offers practical information that can help shift conversations among educators to a productive, collegial approach that has the potential to disrupt the patterns of perception that perpetuate racism and institutional injustice.
We Got This! Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor
Publication Date: 2018-11-06
In We Got This, Cornelius Minor describes how authentically listening to kids is the closest thing to a superpower that we have. What we hear can spark action that allows us to make powerful moves toward equity by broadening access to learning for all children.

Companion Resources for We Got This
Graphic organizers, templates, and prompts to help teachers implement practices introduced in the book.

Cultivating Genius by Gholdy Muhammad
Publication Date: 2019-12-03
In this book, Muhammad presents practical approaches to cultivate the genius in students and within teachers. She presents a four-layered equity framework derived from the study of literacy development within 19th-century Black literacy societies.
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of y'all Too by Christopher Emdin
ISBN: 9780807028025
Publication Date: 2017-01-03
Drawing on his own experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in classrooms as a young man of color and merging his experiences with more than a decade of teaching and researching in urban America, award-winning educator Christopher Emdin offers a new lens on an approach to teaching and learning.
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies by Django Paris (Editor); H. Samy Alim (Editor); Donna E. Alvermann (Series edited by); Celia Genishi (Series edited by)
Publication Date: 2017-05-05
Bringing together an intergenerational group of prominent educators and researchers, this volume engages and extends the concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP)--teaching that perpetuates and fosters linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation. The authors propose that schooling should be a site for sustaining the cultural practices of communities of color, rather than eradicating them.
Being the Change by Sara K. Ahmed
Publication Date: 2018-03-22
Dealing with social issues is uncomfortable and often messy, but you can build habitats of trust where kids and adults can make their thinking visible and cultivate empathy; where expression, identity, and social literacy matter. There is no magic formula for making the world a better place. It happens in the moments we embrace discomfort and have candid conversations.
We Want to Do More Than Survive by Bettina Love
Publication Date: 2020-02-04
Bettina Love persuasively argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. She introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
Fully revised and updated edition of the classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism.
The Dreamkeepers by Gloria Ladson-Billings
Publication Date: 2009-03-23
A mixture of scholarship and storytelling, The Dreamkeepers challenges educators to envision culturally relevant classrooms that have the power to improve the lives of not just African American students, but all children. 2nd, revised edition of an important ethnographic work by a brilliant and groundbreaking African-American scholar.
Multiplication Is for White People by Lisa Delpit
Publication Date: 2013-03-05
Multiplication is for White People' is a passionate reminder that there is no achievement gap at birth. Poor teaching, negative stereotypes and a curriculum that does not adequately connect to poor children's lives conspire against the prospects of poor children of color.

Teaching for Change Publications
Teaching for Change is an independent publisher that specializes in books for educators about teaching from a social justice perspective; also publishes a quarterly magazine. Teaching for Black Lives is a recent title.

Additional Resources and Recommendations

Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List for Adults
A list of fiction and nonfiction curated by the Schomburg Center, a research library of the New York Public Library and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide.
Bookshop.org Antiracist Reading Recs
Fiction, nonfiction, and memoir recommendations from the online indie bookstore collaborative, Bookshop.org.
Oprah's Best Books by Black Authors
Excellent fiction and nonfiction by Black authors recommended by Oprah.

Photo credit: @bookishandblack

"Bookstagram" Accounts to Follow: What's a "Bookstagram?" It's an instagram account that focuses on book content! The following bookstagrammers focus mostly or entirely on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) content.