Best of
Race

1

Misfits


Michaela Coel
    With insight and wit, it lays bare her journey to reclaiming her creativity and power, inviting readers to reflect on theirs.Advocating for ‘misfits’ everywhere, this timely, necessary book is a rousing and bold case against fitting in.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto – by the creator of 'I May Destroy You'


Michaela Coel
    With insight and wit, it lays bare her journey to reclaiming her creativity and power, inviting readers to reflect on theirs.Advocating for ‘misfits’ everywhere, this timely, necessary book is a rousing and bold case against fitting in.

To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton


Huey P. Newton
    Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America's social movements. This new release of a classic collection of his writings and speeches traces the development of Newton's personal and political thinking, as well as the radical changes that took place in the formative years of the Black Panther Party.With a rare and persuasive honesty, To Die for the People records the Party's internal struggles, rivalries and contradictions, and the result is a fascinating look back at a young revolutionary group determined to find ways to deal with the injustice it saw in American society. And, as a new foreword by Elaine Brown makes eminently clear, Newton's prescience and foresight make these documents strikingly pertinent today.

Memphis


Tara M. Stringfellow
    Half a century ago, Joan's grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass--only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in Memphis. This wasn't the first time violence altered the course of Joan's family's trajectory, and she knows it won't be the last. Longing to become an artist, Joan pours her rage and grief into sketching portraits of the women of North Memphis--including their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who seems to know something about curses.Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of voices, Memphis weaves back and forth in time to show how the past and future are forever intertwined. It is only when Joan comes to see herself as a continuation of a long matrilineal tradition--and the women in her family as her guides to healing--that she understands that her life does not have to be defined by vengeance. That the sole weapon she needs is her paintbrush.Inspired by the author's own family history, Memphis--the Black fairy tale she always wanted to read--explores the complexity of what we pass down, not only in our families, but in our country: police brutality and justice, powerlessness and freedom, fate and forgiveness, doubt and faith, sacrifice and love.

Take My Hand


Dolen Perkins-Valdez
    Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them. Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten.That must not be forgotten. Because history repeats what we don’t remember.

Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling


Esi Edugyan
    History is a construction. What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them a centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings?

Nightcrawling


Leila MottleyLeila Mottley
    Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent--which has more than doubled--and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. And her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.Full of edge, raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.

True Detective (Episode One): Screenplay


Nic Pizzolatto
    Screenplay of the first episode of True Detective (Season One) as written by Nic Pizzolatto

No Humans Involved


Sylvia Wynter
    The series is edited by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts and was begun in the year of Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Cameron Tillman, VonDerrit Myers, Jr., Laquan McDonald, Carey Smith-Viramontes, Jeffrey Holden, Qusean Whitten, Miguel Benton, Dillon McGee, Levi Weaver, Karen Cifuentes, Sergio Ramos, Roshad McIntosh, Diana Showman, and Akai Gurley. Sylvia Wynter was born in Cuba in 1928 to Jamaican parents who soon repatriated to their home country. A novelist, playwright, and cultural theorist, Wynter's work has focused on redefining what it means to be human in the face of Western thought. She is professor emerita at Stanford University.

Little Miss Somebody


Christy Lynn Abram
    Having left everything she knew behind, Nikki is left to fend for herself from her mother’s vicious cycle of abuse and abandonment while living at her grandmother’s house amidst her mother’s drug addicted siblings. Feeling unloved and more than ever like a burden, Nikki seeks to find a missing piece to the puzzle of her life- her father. Along the way, she unravels more layers of family abuse and pain causing her to feel helpless. But she won’t give up. Not yet, Not Nikki. Not until she finds what she is looking for. Will Nikki find the love she so desperately needs?

Living Chicana Theory


Carla Trujillo
    They address the secrets, inequities, and issues they all confront in their daily negotiations with a system that often seeks to subvert their very existence. They have to struggle daily not only with the racism that pervades our lives, but also with the overwhelming male domination of the "macho" Chicano and Mexican culture.

china: revolution and counter-revolution


PSL Publications
    "China: revolution and counterrevolution" is a unique contribution to the left, using a Marxist analysis to identify political and social trends in China 30 years after the introduction of capitalist market reforms.

Ghetto Life 101 And Remorse


LeAlan Jones
    The boys walked listeners through their daily lives: to school, to an overpass to throw rocks at cars, to a bus ride that takes them out of the ghetto, and to friends and family members in the community. Their candor brought listeners face to face with a portrait of poverty and danger and their effects on childhood in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Ghetto Life 101 and the follow-up piece, Remorse, became some of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history, winning almost all of the major awards in American broadcasting, including: the Livingston Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming, and the Prix Italia, Europe's oldest and most prestigious broadcasting award.

Horse


Geraldine Brooks
    An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

Jimi Hendrix - Black Legacy (A Dream Deferred)


Corey A. Washington
    Jimi's life has been featured in numerous biographies over the years, but very little has been properly documented, when it comes to his influence on people of color. Hendrix was often seen by many to have transcended race, which is a slap in the face to his deep cultural roots, concerning not only his Black musical traditions, but simply growing up as a Black person in the 40's-60's. Washington seeks to add to Jimi's overall legacy, by embracing Jimi's Black culture, including the well known people in Jimi's life, as well as the voices that many do not get to hear from in your traditional Jimi Hendrix biographies. It was always a strong desire of Jimi Hendrix to garner a more diverse fan base. Although he never got to fully see the fruits of his labor, Jimi Hendrix - Black Legacy, will reveal that his wish, ultimately came true.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race / We Should All Be Feminists / Dear Ijeawele


Reni Eddo-Lodge
    Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.We Should All Be Feminists A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americana and Half of a Yellow Sun.I would like to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response. Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions–compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive–for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.

Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color & Trans People of Color: A Critical Intersection of Gender Violence & State Violence


Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
    It includes fact sheets, ideas for organizing, and sample tools created by other organizations.

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service


Tajja IsenTajja Isen
     These nine daring essays explore the sometimes troubling and often awkward nature of that discord. Some of My Best Friends takes on the cartoon industry’s pivot away from colorblind casting, the pursuit of diverse representation in the literary world, the law’s refusal to see inequality, and the cozy fictions of nationalism. Isen deftly examines the quick, cosmetic fixes society makes to address systemic problems, and reveals the unexpected ways they can misfire. In the spirit of Zadie Smith, Cathy Park Hong, and Jia Tolentino, Isen interlaces cultural criticism with her lived experience to explore the gaps between what we say and what we do, what we do and what we value, what we value and what we demand.

Fat Luther, Slim Pickin’s: A Black Catholic Celebration of Faith, Tradition, and Diversity


Marcia Lane-McGee
    The light-hearted debate is also about remembering the past and providing hope for the future.In Fat Luther, Slim Pickin’s, the duo share their faith and reflections on the liturgical year to honor the Black Catholic experience and to help other Catholics understand Black culture. With the humor, vulnerability, honesty, and pop culture references that their podcast is known for, Lane-McGee and Schmidt explore the Church as an important model for how to welcome diversity while maintaining and celebrating culturally distinct traditions and practices.As our nation continues to confront racism, including within its churches, this ground-breaking book examines the intersection of faith, race, culture, and identity with hopefulness, humor, and joy. Lane-McGee and Schmidt share their experiences as Black women in the Church and invite Catholic women from all walks of life to look with new eyes at the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year through the lens of Black Catholic culture.The Church is a communion of many cultures, languages, and ethnicities, yet it has been unified for more than two-thousand years. Black Catholics bring unique gifts of culture and history to the Church and the United States that provide an essential perspective on the work for racial justice, a strong framework for addressing the sin of racism, confident guidance for embracing diversity, and a beautiful demonstration of faith infusing even the darkest moments with hope.In Fat Luther, Slim Pickin’s, you will learn that:You can embrace liturgical celebrations even if they’re a little janky—that is, haphazard and messy—by making do with what you have and focusing on actually doing something and being human rather than doing it perfectly.Soul food epitomizes the genius of Black Americans who can make sustenance even from “slim pickin’s”—the scraps.Ordinary Time offers us a chance to cultivate our “Catholic Shine”—finding beauty in the everyday stuff of life, revealing the mystery of God.As we remember afresh Christ’s suffering on the Cross each Lent we see the parallel to how racism in America can be both history and an ongoing suffering.The laity, especially women, have an important role as the “neck of the Church”—turning the head toward the most urgent needs of our time and working as Christ in the world.Fat Luther, Slim Pickin’s offers examples of holy people—including Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman, Venerable Fr. Augustus Tolton, St. John XIII, St. Martin De Porres, and St. Joan of Arc—as companions for the liturgical journey. You will also learn more about Black history and experience, and your own faith, through primers on “one drop” laws, appreciation vs. appropriation, Black hair, the legacy of slavery, code switching, and the three-fifths compromise. Reflection questions are included in each chapter, making this book perfect for individual or group study.

Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions For The Black Church


Albert B. Cleage Jr.
    

365 Days Of Real Black History: Little Known Facts Of The Global Black Experience From Prehistory To The Present


Supreme Understanding
    

Because the Internet


Donald Glover
    "Because the Internet" screenplay by Childish Gambino, published online and in the liner notes of the record.

The Problem with My Normal Penis: Myths of Race, Sex and Masculinity


Obioma Ugoala
    Athletic. Feared. Fetishised. Policed. Politicised. It’s limiting. It’s tiring. And it’s not true.  In this important and inspiring book, Obioma Ugoala tells his own story as he examines the problems with how race, sex and masculinity are portrayed and experienced by Black men – and how to change that. ‘Whipsmart and refreshingly vulnerable. In this book, Obioma Ugoala brilliantly exposes the systems and the individuals that have long perpetuated dangerous and irresponsible ideals around Blackness and masculinity.’ Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie“A blisteringly honest take on contemporary Britishness that manages to be both nuanced and shocking. Highly recommended.” Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)"A valiant venture of a book that is somehow both tender memoir and unflinching excavation of the sociological blights that affect both self and society. Looking outward, inwards and forward, it lucidly explores complicated truths. Hopeful and honest, uncomfortable and encouraging, it is a book this country needs." Bolu Babalola, author of Love in Colour“An urgent, personal, compassionate book that never backs away from the difficulty of what we are facing but provides a forgiving mirror and a useable map so we can truly reflect & navigate. Obioma Ugoala’s treatise should be a set text for a world in crisis.” Deborah Frances White'In his enquiring memoir, he astutely explores where the expectations of his race and masculinity meet, unpicking and challenging his past experiences of prejudice. His personal stories are told in the context of the wider culture, and the book is a compassionate rallying cry to be more conscious.'  Evening Standard ‘Why can’t I be seen for who I am? What is the problem with my normal penis?’  Obioma Ugoala is an actor, activist, singer, writer, Arsenal supporter and rugby player. A brother, son and loyal friend whose passions and influences range from Mozart to Mariah Carey, from The Karate Kid to Sidney Poitier. He is also a man of mixed Nigerian and Irish heritage and throughout his life, whether in the classroom, the changing room, the rehearsal room or the bedroom, he has had to contend with people failing to address their own prejudices about what they conceive a Black man to be. In this ground-breaking and revealing account, Ugoala confronts these prejudices head on, challenging notions of race, sex and masculinity that have over centuries become embedded in British society, poisoning the public discourse and blighting people’s lives – including, on occasion, his own. With unflinching honesty, Ugoala talks about his own experiences and challenges us all to face our personal failings, while offering a vision of a more positive future if we dare to do better.

Long Past Summer: A Novel


Noué Kirwan
    She’s come a long way from the meek teen she was growing up in small town Georgia, but the memory of her adolescence isn’t far—in fact, it’s splashed across a massive billboard in Times Square. An old photograph of Mikaela and her former best friend, Julie, has landed on the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine advertised all over the city. And when Julie files a lawsuit, Mikaela is caught in the middle as defense lawyer for the magazine. Not only will she have to face Julie for the first time in years, Mikaela’s forced to work closely with the photographer in question: the former love of her life--and Julie’s ex-husband--Cameron Murphy. Mikaela needs to win the case to get her promotion--and as a junior partner, she has no margin for error. But unresolved feelings still exist between Cam and Mikaela, and jealousy always made Julie play dirty… With flashbacks to summers of first loves and fragile friendships,  Long Past Summer  looks at the delicate and powerful thread that binds and breaks friends and flames.

Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original


Howard Bryant
    He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said.But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him. And it’s a story of a sea change in sports, when athletes gained celebrity status and Black players finally earned equitable salaries. Henderson embraced this shift with his trademark style, playing for nine different teams throughout his decades-long career and sculpting a brash, larger-than-life persona that stole the nation’s heart. Now, in the hands of critically acclaimed sportswriter and culture critic Howard Bryant, one of baseball’s greatest and most original stars finally gets his due.

Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse


Alora Young
    Each poem is a story-in-verse and together they form an arresting saga. Both heart-wrenching and inspiring, this unique family memoir finds joy and pride where others might only see despair.Informed by archival research, the will and testament of a slaver, formal interviews, family lore, and even a DNA test, Walking Gentry Home gives voice to those most often muted: Black girls and women in America.

Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky


Tony Medina
    Edited by Tony Medina. Proceeds from the sales of this book will be donated to the "Whitney M. Young Social Justice Scholarship" sponsored by The Greater Washington Urban League, Thursday Network.

The Wounded Womb


Phillip Valentine
    Learn what 25 years of dedicated research and experience has uncovered about the hidden, ignored, overlooked or suppressed reasons underlying the tragic erosion of women’s overall physical health and psychological well-being.

Illusions Of Justice: Human Rights Violations In The United States


Lennox S. Hinds
    Book by Hinds, Lennox S.

For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly


Yosimar Reyes
    He holds the title for 2005 as well as 2006 South Bay teen Grand SLAM Champion, has been featured in the Documentary 2nd Verse: the Rebirth of Poetry, and has been published in Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry.

Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide


Britt Hawthorne
    Let Britt Hawthorne—a nationally recognized teacher and advocate—be your guide. Raising Antiracist Children acts as an interactive guide for strategically incorporating the tools of inclusivity into everyday life and parenting. Hawthorne breaks down antiracist parenting into four comprehensive sections: -Healthy bodies—Establishing a safe and body-positive home environment to combat stereotypes and create boundaries. -Radical minds—Encouraging children to be agents of change, accompanied by scripts for teaching advocacy, giving and taking productive feedback, and becoming a coconspirator for change. -Conscious shopping—Raising awareness of how local shopping can empower or hinder a community’s ability to thrive, and teaching readers of all ages how to create shopping habits that support their values. -Thriving communities—Acknowledging the personal power we have to shape our schools, towns, and worlds, accompanied by exercises for instigating change. Full of questionnaires, stories, activities, tips, and tools, Raising Antiracist Children is a must-have, practical guide essential for parents and caregivers everywhere.

We Must Learn to Sit Together and Talk About a Little Culture: Decolonizing Essays 1967-1984


Sylvia Wynter
    The imperative of decolonizing the order of discourse that had legitimated the then imperial order (that is, to the colonizer as well to the colonized), gave rise to a theoretically sustained argument manifest here in a set of seminal critical and historical essays. At the time of their writing, Wynter was a practicing novelist, an innovative playwright, a scholar of Spanish Caribbean history, and an incisive literary critic with a gift for the liveliest kind of polemics. This intellectual virtuosity is evident in these wide-ranging essays that include an exploration of C.L.R. James’s writings on cricket, Bob Marley and the counter-cosmogony of the Rastafari, and the Spanish epoch of Jamaican history (including a pioneering examination of Bernado de Balbuena, epic poet and Abbot of Jamaica 1562-1627).Across this varied range of topics, a coherent and consistent thread of argument emerges from Wynter’s oeuvre. In the vein of C. L. R. James, she placed the history of Spanish Jamaica (and therefore the Caribbean) in the context of the founding of the post-1492 European settler colonies in the New World, which remained an indispensable element in the first stage of the institutionalization of the Western world system. Therefore, a central imperative of her initial work has always been to reconceptualize the history of the region, and therefore of the modern world, but doing so, from a world-systemic perspective; that is, no longer from the normative perspective of the settler archipelago, but rather more inclusively, from those of the neo-serf (i.e. Indian) and that of ex-slave (i.e. Negro) archipelagos; this latter, as what she defines, adapting Enrique Dussel’s terms, as the "gaze from below" perspective of "the ultimate underside of modernity."Strongly influenced by Marx together with Black thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Jean Price-Mars (seen in the Jonkunnu essay), W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, and with an appreciation of the insights brought by the New Studies of the Sixties (including that of Black redemptive co-humanist thought, feminism), Wynter’s work has sought, from its origin, to find a comprehensive explanatory system able to integrate these knowledges, ones born of struggle.This volume makes an important contribution to restoring to view an essential strand in the 500-year emergent thought generated from the slave/ex-slave archipelago of the Caribbean and the Americas—thought important to what our increasingly integrated world-system, the first such in human history.

Seize the Time


Bobby Seale
    An intelligent & brave story in an extraordinary time in American history. Civil Rights ERA.

The Black Holocaust: Global Genocide


Del Jones