Reader's Place: June 8, 2020
BLACK LIVES MATTER: a selected nonfiction reading list
“One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.’” -- Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
Maplewood Memorial Library Statement: Reclaiming our Democracy and Working for Racial Justice
As readers, we have many resources available to us for educating ourselves about racism and antiracism. This list includes selected nonfiction titles which are available to borrow from our eLibrary. The list is not intended to be comprehensive but rather to serve as a starting point. Share and discuss what you read so that you may engage in antiracist conversations and begin to transform your thoughts and words into meaningful action.
Please note: if a title you are interested in has a wait list, please don’t hesitate to place a hold on it; holds lists are reviewed to ensure that items will most likely be available to borrow sooner than the wait time estimate given.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Ortiz (ebook)
Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (ebook; audiobook)
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin (ebook; audiobook)
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward (ebook)
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi (ebook; audiobook)
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir, by Saeed Jones (ebook; audiobook)
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown (ebook; audiobook)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson (ebook; audiobook)
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor, by Layla F. Saad (ebook; audiobook)
Men We Reaped: A Memoir, by Jesmyn Ward (ebook)
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, by Ruth King (ebook)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander (ebook)
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (audiobook)
So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo (ebook; audiobook)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi (ebook; audiobook)
This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman, by Ilhan Omar (ebook; audiobook)
The Toni Morrison Book Club, by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Casssandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams (ebook)
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (ebook)
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Asha Bandele (audiobook)
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo (ebook; audiobook)
Compiled by Jenny Zbrizher