Antiracist Readings

"Simply the most exciting book on black folklore and culture I have ever read." --Roger D. Abrahams

Mules and Men is the first great collection of black America's folk world. In the 1930's, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her "native village" of Eatonville, Florida to record the oral histories, sermons and songs, dating back to the time of... Read more »

“Offers hope in the face of desperate odds” – ELLE Magazine, ELLE’s Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020

“[D]isturbing and unforgettable memoir…This wrenching story brings to vivid life the plight of the many families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.” – Publisher’s Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“[The] haunting and eloquent…narrative of a Guatemalan... Read more »

In this “urgently relevant”* collection featuring the landmark essay “The Case for Reparations,” the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*—including the election of Donald Trump.

New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book... Read more »

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation-that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate... Read more »

A comprehensive analysis of the key issues of the Black Lives Matter movement, this thought-provoking and compelling anthology features essays by some of the nation’s most influential and respected criminal justice experts and legal scholars.

Contributing authors include Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, NYU Law... Read more »

A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through... Read more »

Although eugenics is now widely discredited, some groups and individuals claim a new scientific basis for old racist assumptions. Pondering the continuing influence of racist research and thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, Robert Wald Sussman explains why—when it comes to race—too many people still mistake bigotry for science. Read more »

This debut collection is a complicated love letter to Washington, DC, and to those who call it home: a TSA agent who's never flown, a girl braving new worlds to play piano, and a teacher caught up in a mayoral race. These characters navigate life's "training school"-with lessons on gentrification and respectability-and fight to create their own... Read more »

“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie Smith

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love... Read more »

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... Read more »

2020 Audie Awards® Finalist - Young Adult

#1 New York Times bestseller · Seven starred reviews · Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book

Don't miss this audiobook, Audible's Young Adult Audiobook of the Year and an Audie Award finalist!

“For all the struggle in this book, Thomas rarely misses a step as a writer. Thomas continues to hold up that... Read more »

Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi, and featuring some of the most acclaimed bestselling Black authors writing for teens today—Black Enough is an essential collection of captivating stories about what it’s like to be young and Black in America. A selection of the Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List.

Black is...sisters... Read more »

I Am Enough is the audio edition of the New York Times bestseller everyone needs!

This is a gorgeous, lyrical ode to loving who you are, respecting others, and being kind to one another, from Empire actor and activist Grace Byers.

Perfect for mothers and daughters, baby showers, and graduation.

We are all here for a purpose. We are more than... Read more »

From the New York Times bestselling creator of I Am Enough comes an empowering follow-up that celebrates every child’s limitless potential.

Don't miss this audiobook edition, read by the author, Grace Byers!

I Believe I Can is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves, from actress and activist Grace... Read more »

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute... Read more »

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.

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... Read more »

A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award winner

Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of Another Brooklyn, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. 
 
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African... Read more »

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
 
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my... Read more »