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Celebrate Black History Non-Fiction Selections February 2022 |
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Thick : and other essays
by Tressie McMillan Cottom
301.092 COT
collection of essays from the author of Lower Ed sheds light on the trait of being "thick," both in form and in substance, while dissecting society and culture from beauty to Obama to pumpkin-spice lattes.
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Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot
by Mikki Kendall
305.42 KEN
An award-winning writer and frequent guest speaker presents a compelling critique of today’s black feminist movement that argues that modern activism needs to refocus on health care, education and safety for all women instead of a privileged few.
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Unfollow me : essays on complicity
by Jill Louise Busby
305.8 BUS
A cultural commentator presents this memoir-in-essays in which she provides a deeply personal, razor-sharp critique of white fragility, respectability politics, and all the places where fear masquerades as progress.
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Black joy : stories of resistance, resilience, and restoration
by Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts
305.896 LEW (SWAN)
In the vein of books such as Black Girls Rock and You Are Your Best Thing, this collection of essays looks at the redemptive strength of Black joy and offers readers confirmation that they are not alone.
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Carry on : reflections for a new generation
by John Lewis
328 LEW
The final reflections, words, and wisdom of esteemed civil rights champion and late Congressman John Lewis, who continued to offer inspiration and hope to millions even while he battled the cancer that ultimately ended his life.
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The selected works of Audre Lorde
by Audre Lorde
814.54 LOR
A definitive selection of prose and poetry from the self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," for a new generation of readers. Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. Her incisive essays and passionate poetry - alive with sensuality, vulnerability, and rage - remain indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies. This essential reader showcases twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems, selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender.
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We are never meeting in real life : essays
by Samantha Irby
814.6 IRB
The woman behind Bitchesgottaeat.com shares hilarious and poignant stories of her life from a failed Bachelorette application and awkward sexual encounters to a romantic vacation and ill-fated pilgrimage to scatter her estranged father's ashes in Nashville.
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Please don't sit on my bed in your outside clothes : essays
by Phoebe Robinson
818.602 ROB
Laced with spot-on pop culture references and takes on a wide range of topics, this collection of essays from a stand-up comedian, writer, producer, and actress is about human connection, race, hair, travel, dating, Black excellence, and more.
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What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays
by Damon Young
973.0496 YOU
The co-founder of VerySmartBrothas.com presents a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the direct impact of racism on his life, the shifting definition of black-male identity, and the ongoing realities of white supremacy.
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The collected autobiographies of Maya Angelou
by Maya Angelou
B ANGELOU (SWAN)
A single volume omnibus edition featuring Angelou's celebrated autobiographies including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, The Heart of a Woman, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, and A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
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Where tomorrows aren't promised : a memoir
by Carmelo Anthony
B ANTHONY
The iconic NBA All-Star presents this raw and inspirational memoir about growing up in the housing projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn and West Baltimore’s Murphy Homes (a.k.a. the Murder Homes) where he pushed past lethal odds to survive and thrive.
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Unbound : My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement
by Tarana Burke
B BURKE
Unbound is the story of an inimitable woman's inner strength and perseverance, all in pursuit of bringing healing to her community and the world around her, but it is also a story of possibility, of empathy, of power, and of the leader we all have inside ourselves. In sharing her path toward healing and saying "me too," Tarana reaches out a hand to help us all on our own journeys.
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Frederick Douglass : prophet of freedom
by David W. Blight
B DOUGLASS
The author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory chronicles the life of the escaped slave who became one of the greatest orators of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.
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We are not broken
by George M. Johnson
B JOHNSON
Touching upon themes of vulnerability, sacrifice, and culture, an award-winning Black non-binary writer, author, and activist captures the unique experience of growing up as a Black boy in America under the care of his fiercely devoted grandmother.
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How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir
by Saeed Jones
B JONES
The co-host of BuzzFeed’s AM to DM, award-winning poet, and author of Prelude to Bruise documents his coming-of-age as a young, gay, black man in an American South at a crossroads of sex, race, and power.
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The autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Martin Luther King
B KING
Drawing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s unpublished writings and other materials housed in Stanford University's archives, civil rights scholar Clayborne Carson assembles a continuous first-person narrative of King's life.
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A promised land
by Barack Obama
B OBAMA
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, President Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency--a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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Memorial Drive : a daughter's memoir
by Natasha D. Trethewey
B TRETHEWEY
The former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Native Guard shares a chillingly personal memoir about the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather.
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The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
by Isabel Wilkerson
304.80973 WIL
In an epic history covering the period from the end of World War I through the 1970s, a Pulitzer Prize winner chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families.
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A black women's history of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry
305.48896 BER
Two award-winning history professors and authors focus on the stories of African-American women slaves, civilians, religious leaders, artists, queer icons, activists, and criminals in a celebration of black womanhood that demonstrates its indelible role in shaping America.
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Caste : the origins of our discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
305.5122 WIL
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns identifies the qualifying characteristics of historical caste systems to reveal how a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, enforced by religious views, heritage, and stigma, impact everyday American lives.
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The color of law : a forgotten history of how our government segregated America
by Richard Rothstein
305.8 ROT
Presents a history of the modern American city, arguing that local, state, and federal governments reinforced neighborhood segregation with racial zoning, public housing that segregated previously mixed communities, and offering subsidies and tax-exemptions to businesses and institutions who enforced segregation, with long-lasting consequences.
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The Black history book
by Nemata Amelia Blyden
305.896 BLA
Bringing together accounts of the most significant ideas and milestones in Black history and culture, this important and thought-provoking book offers a bold and accessible overview of the history of the African continent and its peoples.
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The 1619 Project : a new origin story
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
306.362 SIX
This ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began on the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery reimagines if our national narrative actually started in late August of 1619, when a ship arrived in Jamestown bearing a cargo of 20-30 enslaved people from Africa.
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The King years : historic moments in the civil rights movement
by Taylor Branch
323.1196 BRA
A succinct and accessible chronicle of key events in the civil rights Movement by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of the trilogy that includes Parting the Waters traces how the movement evolved from a bus strike to a political and social revolution.
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How the word is passed : a reckoning with the history of slavery across America
by Clint Smith
973.0496 SMI
How the Word is Passed is Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks -- those that are honest about the past and those that are not -- that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
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Run. Book one
by John Lewis
GN LEW
This astounding graphic novel tells the story of an often overlooked chapter of civil rights history through the eyes of Congressman John Lewis—one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington.
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Black Panther Party
by David Walker
GN YA F WAL
A bold and fascinating graphic novel history of the Black Panther Party.
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Understanding Racial Inequities & the Fight for Justice
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To my beloveds : letters on faith, race, loss, and radical hope
by Jennifer Bailey
261.8 BAI
How do we heal our grief and loss to become the leaders the world needs today? In this unique collection of love letters to her fellow activists and faith leaders, Bailey offers comfort, wisdom, encouragement, support, and hope for young activists and emerging faith leaders aspiring to build a better world amidst its violence, trauma, and loss--and who may wonder if they're up to the task or unsure if they'll ever see the change they seek.
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Caste : the origins of our discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
305.5122 WIL
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns identifies the qualifying characteristics of historical caste systems to reveal how a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, enforced by religious views, heritage, and stigma, impact everyday American lives.
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Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
305.8 COA
Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes.
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The sum of us : what racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together
by Heather C. McGhee
305.8 MCG
McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. As she dug into subject after subject, from the financial crisis to declining wages to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common problem at the bottom of them all: racism--but not just in the obvious ways that hurt people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too.
This is the story of how public goods in this country--from parks and pools to functioning schools--have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world's advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. It's why we fail to prevent environmental and public health crises that require collective action. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee also finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to the benefit of all involved.
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The fire next time
by James Baldwin
305.896 BAL (SWAN)
The powerful evocation of a childhood in Harlem that helped to galvanize the early days of the civil rights movement examines the deep consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic.
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The fire this time : a new generation speaks about race
by Jesmyn Ward
305.896 FIR (SWAN)
The National Book Award-winning author of Salvage the Bones presents a continuation of James Baldwin's 1963 The Fire Next Time that examines race issues from the past half century through essays, poems, and memoir pieces by some of her generation's most original thinkers and writers.
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Just mercy : a story of justice and redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
353.48 STE
The executive director of a social advocacy group that has helped relieve condemned prisoners explains why justice and mercy must go hand-in-hand through the story of Walter McMillian, a man condemned to death row for a murder he didn't commit.
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