The following are lists from the Los Angeles Public Library
March: Book One
March is popping up all over the place on best graphic novel lists for 2013, and rightfully so. This is the first book in a planned trilogy that tells of the struggle of Congressman John Lewis, his first hand experience of the Jim Crow South, and his experience living through segregation and choosing to fight against it through his participation in key Civil Rights moments, such as the March on Washington and the Selma-Montgomery March. Fantastic assignment book for teachers looking for an engaging document to bring the struggle for racial equality for African Americans to light.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wilkerson examines the migration of nearly 6 million African Americans from the South for the North and the West between World War I and the 1970s through the stories of three individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who left rural Mississippi for Chicago in the 1930s; George Swanson Starling, who set out for Harlem in the 1940s; and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, who became a Los Angeles physician after leaving Louisiana in the 1950s.
Between the World and Me
Black Is the New White
Mooney, Paul, 1941-
OTHER COMEDIANS TELL JOKES. PAUL MOONEY TELLS THE TRUTH. For more than forty years’whether writing for Richard Pryor and Saturday Night Live or performing stand-up to sold-out crowds around the country’Paul Mooney has been provocative, incisive … and absolutely hilarious. His comedy has always been indisputably real and raw, reflecting race issues in America, and this fascinating, fearless new memoir continues that unapologetically candid tradition. While other stars soared only to crash and burn, Paul Mooney has stayed chiefly behind the scenes, and he’s got a lifetime of stories to show for it. As head writer for The Richard Pryor Show, he helped tear down racial barriers and change the course of comedy. He helped Robin Williams and Sarah Bernhard break into show business. He paved the way for superstars like Eddie Murphy. Few have witnessed as much comedy history as Mooney; even fewer could recount it with such riotous honesty and depth of insight. He reveals the truth about his celebrated partnership with the brilliant, self-destructive Richard Pryor, from their first meeting to the very last joke, and reflects on some of his most notorious moments. Decades ago, Paul Mooney set out not just make audiences laugh but to make them think. Black Is the New White is his blisteringly funny, no-holds-barred memoir of how he continues to succeed wildly at both.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Chokehold: Policing Black Men
Butler, Paul, 1961-
Finalist for the 2018 National Council on Crime & Delinquency’s Media for a Just Society Awards Nominated for the 49th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) A 2017 Washington Post Notable Book A Kirkus Best Book of 2017 “Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men.” ‘The Washington Post “The most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow …” ‘The New York Times Book Review “Powerful … deeply informed from a legal standpoint and yet in some ways still highly personal” ‘The Times Literary Supplement (London) With the eloquence of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the persuasive research of Michelle Alexander, a former federal prosecutor explains how the system really works, and how to disrupt it Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that the system is working exactly the way it’s supposed to. Black men are always under watch, and police violence is widespread’all with the support of judges and politicians. In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes, uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States. For example, a white woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a white male acquaintance than be the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a black man. Butler also frankly discusses the problem of black on black violence and how to keep communities safer’without relying as much on police. Chokehold powerfully demonstrates why current efforts to reform law enforcement will not create lasting change. Butler’s controversial recommendations about how to crash the system, and when it’s better for a black man to plead guilty’even if he’s innocent’are sure to be game-changers in the national debate about policing, criminal justice, and race relations.
Dear Martin
Stone, Nic
Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.
Genesis Begins Again
Williams, Alicia
Thirteen-year-old Genesis tries again and again to lighten her black skin, thinking it is the root of her family’s troubles, before discovering reasons to love herself as is.
How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice From White People
Hughley, D. L. 1963-
A cutting satire of race relations in the age of Trump and Black Lives Matter from the hugely popular comedian?one of “The Original Kings of Comedy”?and author of the New York Times How Not to Get Shot is a much-needed antidote in these distressing times.
How to Be an Antiracist
Kendi, Ibram X
The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it — and then dismantle it.” Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of anti-racism re-energizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America — but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an anti-racist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to anti-racism.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Angelou, Maya
Maya Angelou’s quintessential autobiography recounts her struggle as a young black woman to overcome obstacles and realize her dream as a published poet.She recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
Maya Angelou’s quintessential autobiography recounts her struggle as a young black woman to overcome obstacles and realize her dream as a published poet.She recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.
I’m Not Dying with You Tonight
Jones, Kimberly
Told from two viewpoints, Atlanta high school seniors Lena and Campbell, one black, one white, must rely on each other to survive after a football rivalry escalates into a riot.
Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement
March: Book One – Book Two – Book Three
This graphic novel is Congressman John Lewis’ first-hand account of his lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a climax on the steps of City Hall. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington D.C., and from receiving beatings from state troopers, to receiving the Medal of Freedom awarded to him by Barack Obama, the first African-American president.
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
Saad, Layla F
When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never predicted it would become a cultural movement. She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it… Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and over 80,000 people downloaded the supporting workbook Me and White Supremacy. Updated and expanded from the original edition, Me and White Supremacy teaches readers how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
Monster
Myers, Walter Dean, 1937-2014
This New York Times bestselling novel and National Book Award nominee from acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers tells the story of Steve Harmon, a teenage boy in juvenile detention and on trial. Presented as a screenplay of Steve’s own imagination, and peppered with journal entries, the book shows how one single decision can change our whole lives. Fade In: Interior: Early Morning In Cell Block D, Manhattan Detention Center. Steve (Voice-Over) Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. …
One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally
Anderson, Carol
In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2020 presidential election season.
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
Morris, Monique W., 1972-
Black girls account for more than one in every three girls arrested in schools, and just under one in every three girls referred to law enforcement. This despite the fact that only about one in every seven female students is black. Monique W. Morris explores the myriad ways that black girls are being unfairly criminalized in schools and allowed to fail and/or fall through the cracks.
Morris, Monique W., 1972-
Black girls account for more than one in every three girls arrested in schools, and just under one in every three girls referred to law enforcement. This despite the fact that only about one in every seven female students is black. Monique W. Morris explores the myriad ways that black girls are being unfairly criminalized in schools and allowed to fail and/or fall through the cracks.
Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation
Draws on archival recordings to document the lives of slaves and their adjustment to freedom.
So You Want to Talk About Race
Oluo, Ijeoma
Oluo, Ijeoma
Oluo explores today’s racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X
A comprehensive history of anti-black racism focuses on the lives of five major players in American history, including Cotton Mather and Thomas Jefferson, and highlights the debates that took place between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. Available for both adults and young adults.
The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye (1970) is the first novel written by Toni Morrison. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove—a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness