The Measure of a Man


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1988
    Martin Luther King, Jr. defining humanity's worth and completion relate to strides toward social justice.Eloquent and passionate, reasoned and sensitive, this pair of meditations by the revered civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. contains the theological roots of his political and social philosophy of nonviolent activism.In supporting reconciliation, Dr. King outlines human worth based on Scripture, encouraging the reader to know each person has worth, rational ability, and an invitation to fellowship with the Creator. In addition, Dr. King explains the three dimensions of life: length, breadth, and height; they must all be present and working harmoniously in order for life to be complete as an individual and as a community. Black and white photos from Dr. King's life along with simple prayers from the reverend round out this short but poignant offering.

Think Like a Feminist: The Philosophy Behind the Revolution


Carol Hay - 2020
    In a time when the word feminism triggers all sorts of responses, many of them conflicting and misinformed, Professor Carol Hay provides this balanced, clarifying, and inspiring examination of what it truly means to be a feminist today. She takes the reader from conceptual questions of sex, gender, intersectionality, and oppression to the practicalities of talking to children, navigating consent, and fighting for adequate space on public transit, without deviating from her clear, accessible, conversational tone. Think Like a Feminist is equally a feminist starter kit and an advanced refresher course, connecting longstanding controversies to today’s headlines.Think Like a Feminist takes on many of the essential questions that feminism has risen up to answer: Is it nature or nurture that’s responsible for our gender roles and identities? How is sexism connected to racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression? Who counts as a woman, and who gets to decide? Why have men gotten away with rape and other forms of sexual violence for so long? What responsibility do women themselves bear for maintaining sexism? What, if anything, can we do to make society respond to women’s needs and desires?Ferocious, insightful, practical, and unapologetically opinionated, Think Like a Feminist is the perfect book for anyone who wants to understand the continuing effects of misogyny in society. By exploring the philosophy underlying the feminist movement, Carol Hay brings today’s feminism into focus, so we can deliberately shape the feminist future.

Plantation Jesus: Race, Faith, and a New Way Forward


Skot Welch - 2018
    God wasn’t bothered by Jim Crow. Baby Jesus had white skin. Meet Plantation Jesus: a god who is comfortable with bigotry, and an idol that distorts the message of the real Savior. That false image of God is dead, right? Wrong, argue the authors of Plantation Jesus, an authoritative new book on one of the most urgent issues of our day. Through their shared passion for Jesus Christ and with an unblinking look at history, church, and pop culture, authors Skot Welch and Rick Wilson detail the manifold ways that racism damages the church’s witness. Together Welch and Wilson take on common responses by white Christians to racial injustice, such as “I never owned a slave,” “I don’t see color; only people,” and “We just need to get over it and move on.” Together they call out the church’s denials and dodges and evasions of race, and they invite readers to encounter the Christ of the disenfranchised.With practical resources and Spirit-filled stories, Plantation Jesus nudges readers to learn the history, acknowledge the injury, and face the truth. Only then can the church lead the way toward true reconciliation. Only then can the legacy of Plantation Jesus be replaced with the true way of Jesus Christ.

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late


Thom Hartmann - 1998
    The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio’s web movie Global Warning, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture’s blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem. Thom Hartmann’s comprehensive book, originally published in 1998, has become one of the fundamental handbooks of the environmental activist movement. Now, with fresh, updated material and a focus on political activism and its effect on corporate behavior, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight helps us understand--and heal--our relationship to the world, to each other, and to our natural resources.

Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America


Steven Mayers - 2019
    Solito, Solita, (“Alone, Alone”), is a Voice of Witness collection of oral histories that tell the stories of youth refugees fleeing their home countries and traveling for hundreds of miles seeking safety and protection in the United States.These powerful narrators describe why they fled their homes, what happened on their dangerous journeys through Mexico, how they crossed the border, and their ongoing struggles to survive in the United States. In an era of fear, xenophobia, and outright lies, these stories amplify the compelling voices of immigrant youth. What can they teach us about abuse and abandonment, bravery and resilience, hypocrisy and hope? They bring us into their hearts and onto streets filled with the lure of freedom and fraught with violence. From fending off kidnappers with knives and being locked in freezing holding cells to tearful reunions with parents, Solito, Solita’s evocative stories bring to light the experiences of young people struggling for a better life across the border.Steven Mayers is a writer, oral historian, and professor of English at the City College of San Francisco.Jonathan Freedman is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author, and writing mentor at the City College of San Francisco.Voice of Witness, founded by Dave Eggers, Mimi Lok, and Lola Vollen, is a nonprofit organization that advances human rights by amplifying unheard voices. Part of the Voice of Witness series

This Can't Be Happening


George Monbiot - 2021
    As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

When God Was a Woman


Merlin Stone - 1976
    Under her, women's roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women's status. Index, maps and illustrations.

A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community


Simone Campbell - 2014
    Prayer groups turned into rallies, and small town meetings became national media events. Sister Simone became a galvanizing force for progressives of all stripes and remains a driving force for programs and policies that support faith, family, and fairness.Rooted in a deep spirituality of compassion and service, Sister Simone gives voice to the hunger, isolation, and fear that so many people in America are feeling right now and shows us how we can create real transformation in our communities and in our own hearts through the contemplative life of prayer. Powerful, inspiring stories from the Nuns on the Bus tour and from Sister Simone's own life offer readers a fresh vision for a lived spirituality that is at the heart of today's progressive Christian movements working for change.

On Violence


Hannah Arendt - 1970
    Arendt also reexamines the relationship between war, politics, violence, and power. “Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times.”The Nation

The Long Haul: An Autobiography


Myles Horton - 1990
    A major catalyst for social change in the United States for more than 70 years, this school has touched the lives of so many people, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Pete Seeger. Filled with disarmingly honest insight and gentle humor, The Long Haul is an inspiring hymn to the possibility of social change. It is the story of Myles Horton, in his own words: the wise and moving recollections of a man of uncommon determination and vision.

Why Women Will Save the Planet


Friends Of The Earth - 2015
    This collection of articles and interviews, from some of the leading lights of the environmental and feminist movements, demonstrates that achieving gender equality is vital if we are to protect the environment upon which we all depend. It is a rallying call to environmental campaigning groups and other environmentalists who have, on the whole, neglected women's empowerment in their work.We hope that the book will encourage the environmental movement and women's movement to join in fighting the twin evils of women's oppression and environmental degradation, because social justice and environmental sustainability are two sides of the same coin.

Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism


Sarah Lyons - 2019
    From the politically charged origins of the word "witch" to the present-day magical resistance, this bold handbook explores the role of witchcraft in our modern world. Author, activist, and practicing witch Sarah Lyons takes readers on a journey through a leftist history of magic -- from the witch hunts of early modern England, through the Salem Witch Trials, and up to our present moment. Pairing mystical acts, including sigil magic and soul flight, with core organizing tactics, like power mapping and protests, Revolutionary Witchcraft offers a blueprint for building a politically grounded magical praxis. From social justice to environmental activism, this radical reimagining of political activism addresses today's most pressing problems with empowering, inclusive rituals and magical actions. Each chapter introduces a key concept, like dreaming big, experiencing magical initiation, and joining the revolution, supported by a galvanizing historical case study on the power of mystical action. Full of actionable ideas for magical organizing, and an appendix packed with customizable spells, Revolutionary Witchcraft is the perfect companion for the magical uprising.

As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance


Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - 2017
    In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking.Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around the refusal of the dispossession of both Indigenous bodies and land. Simpson makes clear that its goal can no longer be cultural resurgence as a mechanism for inclusion in a multicultural mosaic. Instead, she calls for unapologetic, place-based Indigenous alternatives to the destructive logics of the settler colonial state, including heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation.

Dress Like a Woman: Working Women and What They Wore


Vanessa Friedman - 2018
    So what does it mean to dress like a woman?Dress Like a Woman turns that question on its head by sharing a myriad of interpretations across history. The book includes more than 240 incredible photographs that illustrate how women’s roles have changed over the last century. The women pictured in this book inhabit a fascinating intersection of gender, fashion, politics, culture, class, nationality, and race. You’ll see some familiar faces, including trailblazers Shirley Chisholm, Amelia Earhart, Angela Davis, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Michelle Obama, but the majority of photographs are of ordinary working women from many backgrounds and professions. Pioneering scientists and mathematicians, leading civil rights and feminist activists, factory workers and lumberjacks, stay-at-home moms and domestic workers, and artists and musicians; all express their individual style and dress to get the job done. With essays by renowned fashion writer Vanessa Friedman and New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay, Dress Like a Woman offers a comprehensive look at the role of gender and clothing in the workplace—and proves that there’s no single way to dress like a woman.

AOC: Fighter, Phenom, Changemaker


Prachi Gupta - 2019
    In 2018, AOC became the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress—and from that moment on, she’s continued to inspire millions of women, millennial voters, and progressives. Her commitment to speaking truth to power, her ability to shape national conversations through the use of social media, and her popularization of democratic socialism have made her a polarizing and fascinating political figure worthy of consideration.   Drawing from her public interviews as well as author interviews with historians, former campaign volunteers, and campaign staff, AOC explores how a 28-year-old Latina democratic socialist and bartender from the Bronx ousted a ten-term Congressman against all odds. Featuring an array of her most inspirational quotes and brief explainers on some of her largest proposals, the biography seeks to demystify Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise and contextualize her win within this unique moment in US history, illustrating why her win was not a fluke, but rather a sign of the growing influence of the grassroots movements that she represents.   Written by former Cosmopolitan.com and Jezebel politics reporter Prachi Gupta, AOC will inspire readers with Ocasio-Cortez’s remarkable life story and a clear and compelling look at who she is, what she stands for, and the movement that she’s energized.