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Racial Justice Books

    An extensive, but incomplete list, skewed toward non-fiction books
and books 
published in the last five years.

    Please buy from a black-owned bookstore (click here for a list),
your local independent bookstore, or at the Bookshop link provided.

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Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight

for a Fair America

Stacey Abrams, 2020

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Uncomfortable

Conversations with a Black Man

Emmanuel Acho 2020

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

Michelle Alexander, 2010

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White Rage: The Unspoken

Truth of Our Racial Divide

Carol Anderson, 2017

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One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is

Destroying Our Democracy

Carol Anderson, 2019

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I Know Why the Caged

Bird Sings

Maya Angelou, 1993

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The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin,1963

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The Half Has Never Been

Told: Slavery and the Making

of American Capitalism

Edward E Baptist, 2014

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The Color of Money:

Black Banks and the

Racial Wealth Gap

Mehrsa Baradaran, 2019

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A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom

Brittany K. Barnett, 2020

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American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey Into the Business

of Punishment

Shane Bauer 2018

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Social Justice Parenting: How to Raise Compassionate,
Anti-Racist, Justice-Minded Kids in an Unjust World


Traci Baxley, 2021

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Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration

Emily Bazelon,, 2019

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The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett,, 2020

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Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

Ari Berman, 2016

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Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine

Emily Bernard, 2018

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The Price for Their

Pound of Flesh . . .

Daina Ramey Berry, 2017

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Slavery by Another Name:

The Re-Enslavement of

Black Americans ...

Douglas A. Blackmon 2009

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Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Charles Blow, 2014

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Racism Without Racists:

Color-Blind Racism & the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, 2017

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Tangled Up in Blue:

Policing the American City

Rosa Brooks , 2021

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The Yellow House:

A Memoir 

Sarah Broom 2019

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I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Austin Channing Brown2018

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The Voting Rights War: The NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice

 

Gloria Browne-Marshall2016

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Full Dissidence:

Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

Howard Bryant, 2020

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The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

Howard Bryant 2018

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Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston

Howard Bryant, 2002

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The Last Hero: A Life

of Henry Aaron

Howard Bryant, 2011

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Becoming Mrs. Burton

Susan Burton, 2017

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Chokehold: Policing

Black Men

Paul Butler 2017

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Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir

Rebecca Carroll, 2021

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Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Marcia Chatelain, 2020

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Privilege and Punishment: How

Race and Class Matter

in Criminal Court

Matthew Clair, 2020

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The Poisoned City:

Flint's Water and

 the American

Urban Tragedy

Anna Clark 2018

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Between the World

and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015

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The Water Dancer

Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2019

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We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2017

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The Essential Kerner Commission Report

Jelani Cobb, 2021

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A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America's First All-Black High School Rowing Team

Arshay Cooper, 2020

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Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

Brittney Cooper, 2019

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Thick: And Other Essays

Tressie McMillan Cottom2019

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A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America

Elliott Currie 2020

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Twisted: The Tangled History of Black

Hair Culture

Emma Dabiri 2020

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What White People
Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition


Emma Dabiri 2021

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Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America

Gilda R Daniels, 2020

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Are Prisons Obsolete?

Angela Davis, 2003

Free PDF here

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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Davis, 2016

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Policing the 

Black Man

Angela Davis editor, 2018

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Women, Race, & Class

Angela Davis, 1983

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Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth

Dána-Ain Davis, 2019

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The Little Book of Race

and Restorative Justice:

Black Lives, Healing, and Us Social Transformation

Fania Davis, 2019

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Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond, 2016

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White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

Robin Diangelo, 2018

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Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War & Reconstruction

Jim Downs, 2015

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The Souls of Black Folk (Original Classic Edition)

W.E.B. Du Bois , 1903 orig.

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Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy

Mary L. Dudziak , 2000

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Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

Erica A. Dunbar , 2017

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Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness
in America


Michael Eric Dyson, 2021

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Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race

in America

Michael Eric Dyson, 2020

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Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

Michael Eric Dyson, 2017

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Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

Jennifer Eberhardt2015

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Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race

Reni Eddo-Lodge , 2017

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The Revolt of the

Black Athlete: 50th Anniversary Edition

Harry Edwards, 2018

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Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted & Exonerated

Dave Eggers and 2 othersl (Editors), 2017

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Juneteenth

Ralph Ellison, 2000

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Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side

Eve L. Ewing  , 2020

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1919

Eve L. Ewing  , 2020

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Black Skin, White Masks

Frantz Fanon, 2008

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Reconstruction

America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

Eric Foner, 1988

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Locking Up Our Own:

Crime and Punishment in Black America

James Forman, 2017

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Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of

Food Justice

Hanna Garth, 2020

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Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring

Richard Gergel, 2019

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Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

Eddie S. Glaude, 2020

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Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul

Eddie S. Glaude, 2017

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On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights

Lawrence Goldstone, 2020

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Caught: The Prison State

and the Lockdown of American Politics

Marie Gottschalk , 2016

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Homegoing

Yaa Gyasi , 2016

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A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration

Steven Hahn, 2005

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No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity

Sarah Haley, 2019

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White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism

Betrays Women of Color

Ruby Hamad, 2020

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The 1619 Project:
A New Origin Story


Nikole Hannah-Jones (editor), 2021

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A Pound of Flesh:

Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor

Alexes Harris, 2016

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The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to

Get It Back

Thom Hartmann, 2020

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Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

Jennifer Harvey  2019

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Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson

to Flint and Beyond

Marc Lamont Hill  2017

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The Sun Does Shine:

How I Found Life,

Freedom, and Justice

Anthony Ray Hinton  2018

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From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America

Elizabeth Hinton  2016

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Living with Infamy: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Citizenship

Pippa Holloway  2013

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How the Irish

Became White

Noel Ignatiev, 2008

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Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the

Story of Race

Debby Irving, 2014

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White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Lauren  Jackson2019

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Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family

Mitchell Jackson2019

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This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America

Morgan Jerkins, 2018

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This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work

Tiffany Jewell,  2020

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My Monticello: Fiction

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson,  2021

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Soul by Soul: Life

Inside the Antebellum Slave Market 

Walter Johnson , 2001

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The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and
the Violent History of
the United States


Walter Johnson , 2020

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River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom

Walter Johnson , 2017