Get Woke In The Wake Of Racial Injustice: A Resource List

BOOKS

March, Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
Congressman John Lewis’s memoir is a must-read. The graphic novel format is a welcome introduction to Lewis's life and activism during the Civil Rights Movement, but it's also a compelling story if you're already versed in the history.

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

Alexander is an American civil rights lawyer and legal scholar; in her ground-breaking book she analyses the rebirth of a race-based caste in the United States: millions of Americans are locked behind bars and relegated to second-class citizenship by the criminal justice system. Devastating.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

First published in 1963, Baldwin’s book was a bestseller in its day and is just as necessary today. Taking the form of two essays, one a letter to his then 14-year-old nephew, Baldwin’s voice is as powerful and influential as it ever was in looking at systemic racism in the United States.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Gal-Dem called this debut “the black British bible”. It began with a 2014 blog post addressed to those who refused to recognize the structural racism of British society, to those who “truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin color can and should be universal.” It’s a dramatic recognition of what she calls “white denial.”

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evarist

Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, Evaristo’s novel follows the lives of a dozen British people, predominantly female, predominantly black. The different storylines of the characters – who range in age from 19 to 93 – are engrossing and empathetic, portraits of struggle, imagination and perseverance.

Barracoon: The Story of the ‘Last Black Cargo’ by Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston is best known for her novel Their Eyes were Watching God, first published in 1937. She was an anthropologist as well as a novelist: Barracoon is the fruit of Hurston’s interviews with Cudjo Lewis, née Oluale Kossola, the last survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Hurston couldn’t get it published in her lifetime; it first appeared in print in 2018.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sometimes a slim volume encompasses a huge narrative; this one certainly does. Between the World and Me is such an important book. It is personal yet universal. And Ta-Nehisi Coates has a big heart.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta Lacks was a black woman in the 1950s whose cells — shaved from a tumor, cultured without her knowledge, and grown to amazing proportions — would change the face of science and medicine forever. The HeLa line has sold continuously since its inception, and has made billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical and medical industries. Yet Henrietta died in pain, poverty, and obscurity, and her family knew nothing of her legacy. Still living in poverty today, Henrietta's family asks, "If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?" While the irony is staggering, Skloot also addresses the fact that historically blacks have been taken advantage of by the medical community, and often in much more deliberate and destructive ways. A fascinating, unforgettable story.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
“I am invisible,” the narrator of Ralph Ellison’s award-winning novel explains, “simply because people refuse to see me.” Full of irony and wit and jazz-like music, Invisible Man addresses race, identity, individuality, and betrayal. It is the book on which President Obama modeled his own Dreams From My Father.

Nobody by Marc Lamont Hill
Nobody is a book that reminds us that all of us are somebody — that, until we love and respect black bodies, we cannot truly and honestly move forward. If you wish all people understood systemic racism, that it comes from all of us, and that all our perceptions and biases contribute to an existence where all bodies are not honored equally, then Nobody is the book for you. From Ferguson to Flint, Hill chronicles how oppression has seeped into the core of our country, building a foundation so unbalanced that equitable footing is nearly impossible.

More: A BLM Booklist from the Chicago Public Library website.
https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/709652867/1066283627

ARTICLES

1. The Death of George Floyd, In Context, by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker

2. Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

3. You shouldn’t need a Harvard degree to survive birdwatching while black, by Samuel Getachew, a 17-year-old and the 2019 Oakland youth poet laureate

4. Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

5. The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates

6. Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people by Ijeoma Oluo

The myth of the free speech crisis by Nesrine Malik

7. Five Years Later, Do Black Lives Matter? by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

8. How White Feminists Oppress Black Women: When Feminism Functions as White Supremacy by Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., ABPP

9. My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest by Lori Lakin Hutcherson