Do Your Homework: A Few Suggested Books by Black Writers
For the many well-intended people who are not sure what to do to try to be a better ally as we–yet again–confront systemic racism in America, here is a list to start from.
Do your homework on your own, as well, as there are so many voices to read, watch, and listen to.
If you’re not familiar with any of these titles or authors or film makers, pick one and spend sometime with Google discovering who they are or were. Get lost in learning, don’t come back from your journey until you’ve acquired some new knowledge.
Most importantly, ask yourself why you haven’t already done this work. Do better.
These are in no particular order except how I group them in my mind.
WATCH:
13th by Ava DuVernay
When They See Us — Ava DuVernay
American Son — Kenny Leon
Becoming — Michelle Obama
I Am Not Your Negro — Raoul Peck
The Danger of the Single Story (TEDTalk) — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Urgency of Intersectionality (TEDTalk) — Kimberlé Crenshaw
NONFICTION:
So You Want to Talk About Race — Ijeoma Oluo
Road Map for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism and Advocacy for All- Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, and Jamia Wilson
Stamped From the Beginning — Ibram X. Kendi
The New Jim Crow — Michelle Alexander
Are Prisons Obsolete — Angela Y. Davis
Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
Lead From the Outside — Stacey Abrams
Women, Race & Class — Angela Y. Davis
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name — Audre Lorde
The Souls of Black Folks — W.E.B. Du Bois
The Ways of White Folks — Langston Hughes
You’re Not a Country, Africa — Pius Adesanmi
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” — Zora Neale Hurston
Freedom Is A Constant Struggle — Angela Y. Davis
We Were Eight Years in Power — Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation
The Federalist Papers — Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
Black History Flash Cards — Urban Intellectuals: Vol. 1 (General), Vol. 2 (General Trivia), Vol. 1, Vol. 2 (Women), Vol. 3 (S.T.E.A.M.), Vol. 4 (Pre-1492), Vol. 5 (Afro-Latino/Caribbean)
The Badass Feminist Coloring Book — Ijeoma Oluo
MEMOIR:
Assata: An Autobiography — Assata Shakur
Bad Feminist — Roxane Gay
Becoming — Michelle Obama
Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For — Susan Rice
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings — Maya Angelou
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Memoir — Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele
The Last Holiday — Gil Scott-Heron
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me — Jennifer Teege
Dreams from My Father — Barack Obama
One Day I Will Write About This Place — Binyavanga Wainaina
On the Other Side of Freedom — DeRay McKesson
The Big Sea — Langston Hughes
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life — Samantha Irby
Hunger — Roxane Gay
POETRY:
Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudine Rankine
Prelude to Bruise — Saeed Jones
So Much Things to Say: 100 Calabash Poets — Edited by Kwame Dawes and Colin Channer
Where a Nickel Costs a Dime — Willie Perdomo
Don’t Call Us Dead — Danez Smith
Voyage of the Sable Venus — Robin Coste Lewis
Hemming the Water — Yona Harvey
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes — Langston Hughes
The Poems of Phillis Wheatley, with Letters and a Memoir — Phillis Wheatley
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin — Terrance Hayes
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth — Warsan Shire
Salt — Nayyirah Waheed
Nejma — Nayyirah Waheed
FICTION:
Black American Short Stories — Edited by John Henrik Clarke
Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Hate You Give — Angie Thomas
Elsewhere, California — Dana Johnson
The Autobiography of My Mother — by Jamaica Kincaid
Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe
Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi
Invisible Man — Ralph Ellison
Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston
FOR CHILDREN:
A is For Activist — Innosanto Nagara
Young Gifted and Black — Jamia Wilson
Superheroes Are Everywhere — Kamala Harris
