Books on dismantling racism and whiteness

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/06/02/books-to-learn-more-anti-racism-adults-kids/5306873002/

Nonfiction

Expert recommendations, picks from the best-sellers lists and more: 

  • "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

  • "Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do" by Jennifer L. Eberhardt 

  • "Raising White Kids" by Jennifer Harvey 

  • "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo 

  • “The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement" by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris 

  • "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption" by Bryan Stevenson

  • "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin

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

  • "They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, And A New Era In America’s Racial Justice Movement" by Wesley Lowery

  • "Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That The Movement Forgot" by Mikki Kendall

  • "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" by bell hooks

  • "Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People" by Ben Crump

  • "From Slavery To Freedom: A History of African Americans" by John Hope Franklin 

  • "The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear" by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and William Barber II

  • "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

  • “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander

Impactful fiction from black authors

Real-world issues are the basis for these best-selling stories: 

  • "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange

  • "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead

  • "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

  • "Passing" by Nella Larsen

  • "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

  • "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

  • "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith

  • "An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones

  • "The Mothers" by Brit Bennett

  • "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

Children's books

Best-selling stories to help younger kids: 

  • "The Colors of Us" by Karen Katz

  • "Let’s Talk About Race" by Julius Lester

  • "The Skin I’m In: A First Look at Racism" by Pat Thomas

  • Sesame Street's "We're Different, We're the Same" by Bobbi Jane Kates

  • "Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice" by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard

  • "I Am Enough" by Grace Byers

  • "Happy in Our Skin" by Fran Manushkin and Lauren Tobia

  • "Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement" by Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes

  • "Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America" by Jennifer Harvey

  • "Daddy Why Am I Brown?: A healthy conversation about skin color and family" by Bedford F. Palmer

  • "A Terrible Thing Happened" by Margaret Holmes

  • “Antiracist Baby" by Ibram X. Kendi

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