Reading Suggestions
You’ll find something here for readers of fiction, nonfiction, histories, commentary, teen guides, and poetry. Enjoy.
Nobody Knows My Name (1961) by James Baldwin. Told with Baldwin’s characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”, Zora Neale Houston. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history.
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Accompanies the PBS series. The rich and enlightening story of a pivotal institution.
The History of White People (2010) by Nell Irvin Painter. This is a very big picture, global look at how our concepts of race are not at all immutable and have often changed to meet the needs of the powerful.
This Book Is Anti-Racist, by Tiffany Jewell. For Teens. A “clear, compelling” guide with nearly 300 five-star ratings on Goodreads: This book helps teens better understand themselves and the world around them — and provides empowering tools for combating racism.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption¸ Bryan Stevenson. A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice”
The Autobiography of Malcolm X , by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. An established classic of modern America, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” was hailed by the New York Times as “Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, important book.” Still important, this electrifying story has transformed Malcom X’s life into his legacy. The strength of his words, the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared.
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages.
Carver: a life in poems¸ by Marilyn Nelson. Carver’s achievements as a botanist and inventor were balanced by his gifts as a painter, musician, and teacher. This Newbery Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book by Marilyn Nelson provides a compelling and revealing portrait of Carver’s complex, richly interior, profoundly devout life.
Foundational Overviews
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin. A powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice. Shows how little has changed since Baldwin first demanded an end to American racism over 50 years ago.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson. Reframes American racial structures as a caste system. A very interesting and useful perspective.
The Great Migration
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson. Told through the personal experiences of Black Americans who were part of the great migration to escape the Jim Crow South. A good introduction through personal stories backed up by lots of research.
The Church
America’s Original Sin, Jim Wallis. A progressive white evangelical’s story of racism in America.
Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman. By the theologian of the Civil Rights movement, this book was the one, besides the Bible, that Martin Luther King, Jr. always kept with him. Short and remarkably moving.
Antiracism
So You Want To Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo. A short and witty primer, explores the complex reality of today’s racial landscape–from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter movement.
How To Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi. Short and very straightforward, Kendi suggests a framework to help us all be part of the solution.
About Raising Children
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, Jennifer Harvey. For families, churches, educators, and communities who want to equip their children to be active and able participants in a racially diverse society.
For Children and Teens
What’s the Difference? Doyin Richards. Bright pictures and engaging language. For ages 3–5.
A Good Kind of Trouble, Lisa Moore Ramée. Can she break the rules to do what’s right? For young readers who are not quite old enough for The Hate U Give (by Angie Thomas; sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends—the balance is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her best friend at the hands of a police officer.) For ages 8–12.
Ghost, Jason Reynolds. Ghost is chosen to join his elite middle school track team…. But he and his teammates couldn’t be more different, and they can’t stop clashing on and off the track. National Book Award finalist, a good discussion starter for parents and middle schoolers. For ages 10–13. [Anything by Jason Reynolds for Pre-Teens and YA]
Antiracist Baby, Ibram X. Kendi. Introduces the youngest readers and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Provides the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, toddlers and older.
Law and Justice
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander. Former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control.
Memoirs
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nahesi Coates. A moving personal testament about being a black man in America.
Fiction
Kindred, Octavia Butler. The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity.
The Water Dancer¸ Ta-Nehisi Coates. “A bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the force of a great adventure.” It uses the inner life of Hiram, born into bondage, to place us into his childhood and adult life. A powerful spiritual understanding of the life of the enslaved.
Poetry
I Am the Darker Brother: An Anthology of Modern Poems by African Americans (1968), edited by Arnold Adoff. A valuable collection of the best poems by some of our greatest poets—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Weldon Johnson, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wright, among many others.
Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named “post-race” society.
Articles
“Three Christian Books Wrestle with Critical Race Theory, Identity, and Theology” by Josiah R. Daniels from Sojourners