#socialmedia #activism #race #gender #humor #africanamericanwomen #hardcover #nonfiction 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Pennsylvania

memoirs and mistakes of an accidental activist

Well, that escalated quickly

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#hardcover #fiction #exlibrarycopy #blackhistorymonth #friendship #race #friendship

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Ohio

Young people coming to terms with prejudice and its effect on the world around them. Everything's changing for Sarah Beth Willis. Days on the farm aren't the same, and the simple fun of riding a bike or playing outside can be scary. And there's talk in town about the new sixth grade teacher at Shady Creek. Word is spreading quickly--Mrs. Smyre is like no other teacher anyone has ever seen around these parts. She's the first African American teacher. It's 1969, and while black folks and white folks are cordial, having a black teacher at an all-white school is a strange new happening. For Sarah Beth, there are so many unanswered questions. What is all this talk about Freedom Riders and school integration? Why can't she and Ruby become best friends? And who says school isn't for anybody who wants to learn--or teach? In a world filled with uncertainty, one very special teacher shows her young students and the adults in their lives that change invites unexpected possibilities.

Ruby Lee and Me

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#hardcover #historical #racerelations #race #humanity 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Virginia

From the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Ahab's Wife comes an inspiring, brilliantly rendered new novel of the awakening conscience of the South and of an entire nation. Written with the same scope and emotional depth as her previous award-winning novel, Four Spirits is set in Sena Jeter Naslund's home city of Birmingham, Alabama, a city that in the 1960s was known as Bombingham. Naslund brings to life this tumultuous time, weaving together the lives of blacks and whites, civil rights advocates and racists, and the events of peaceful protest and violent repression, to create a tapestry of American social transformation. Stella Silver is an idealistic, young white college student brought up by her genteel, mannered aunts. She first witnesses the events of the freedom movement from a safe distance but, along with her friend Cat Cartwright, is soon drawn into the mounting conflagration. Stella's and Cat's lives are forever altered by their new friendships with other committed freedom fighters. A student at a black college, Christine Taylor is inspired to action by the examples of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. She courageously struggles to balance her family responsibilities, education, and work with the passions and dangers of the demonstrations. Her friend Gloria Callahan, a gifted young cellist and descendant of a runaway slave, tries to move beyond her personal shyness and family coziness to enter a wider circle, including blacks and whites, men and women, all involved with the protests. Lionel Parrish, teacher, preacher, and peddler of funeral insurance, battles his own demons of lust and self-preservation, while New York activist Jonathan Green gives up a promising career as a pianist to work for racial justice in the South. These characters all add their voices to the chorus that makes up this symphony of innocent children and the mythic elderly, the devoutly religious and the skeptical humanist, the wealthy and the poor, the city and the country. Poignant and evocative, rich in historical detail, and filled with the humanity that is the hallmark of Naslund's fiction, Four Spirits is a compelling tale that transcends tragedy and evokes redemptive triumph.

Four Spirits

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New York

Iris Courtney, a young white woman living in upstate New York in the decade prior to the Civil rights movement, begins a clandestine relationship with Jinx Fairchild, a black man who had defended her in a fatal street fight with a white man

Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart

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#hardcover #race #africa #family #friendship #african #mallanunn 

Alabama

Edgar Award nominee stuns in this heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school where two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre.

Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders.

But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

When the Ground Is Hard

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#hardcover #class #race #sexuality #grief #comingofage 

Oregon

A Novel

Former high school classmates reckon with the death of a friend in this stunning debut novel.


Along the Intracoastal waterways of North Florida, Daniel and Aubrey navigated adolescence with the electric intensity that radiates from young people defined by otherness: Aubrey, a self-identified "Southern cracker" and Daniel, the mixed-race son of Jamaican immigrants. When the news of Aubrey's death reaches Daniel in New York, years after they'd lost contact, he is left to grapple with the legacy of his precious and imperfect love for her. At ease now in his own queerness, he is nonetheless drawn back to the muggy haze of his Palm Coast upbringing, tinged by racism and poverty, to find out what happened to Aubrey. Along the way, he reconsiders his and his family's history, both in Jamaica and in this place he once called home.

Buoyed by his teenage track-team buddies--Twig, a long-distance runner; Desmond, a sprinter; Egypt, Des's girlfriend; and Jess, a chef--Daniel begins a frantic search for meaning in Aubrey's death, recklessly confronting the drunken country boy he believes may have killed her. Sensitive to the complexities of class, race, and sexuality both in the American South and in Jamaica, All the Water I've Seen Is Running is a novel of uncommon tenderness, grief, and joy. All the while, it evokes the beauty and threat of the place Daniel calls home--where the river meets the ocean.

All the Water I've Seen Is Running

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Library discard #hardcover #fiction #race #reesebookclub #botm #homeland #africanamericanwomen #mixedrace #Africa #fathersanddaughters 

New Jersey

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “A beautiful exploration of the often complex parameters of freedom, prejudice, and individual sense of self. Chibundu Onuzo has written a captivating story about a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew . . . [A] beautiful book about a woman brave enough to discover her true identity.” —Reese Witherspoon “Onuzo’s sneakily breezy, highly entertaining novel leaves the reader rethinking familiar narratives of colonization, inheritance and liberation.” —The New York Times Book Review An Amazon Spotlight Pick of the Month • Named a Best Book of the Month by Entertainment Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, and Time • Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Month by Goodreads, PopSugar, PureWow, LitHub, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Buzzfeed A woman wondering who she really is goes in search of a father she never knew—only to find something far more complicated than she ever expected—in this “stirring narrative about family, our capacity to change and the need to belong” (Time). Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. In her 40s, she has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive... When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family's hidden roots. Examining freedom, prejudice, and personal and public inheritance, Sankofa is a story for anyone who has ever gone looking for a clear identity or home, and found something more complex in its place.

Sankofa

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#hardcover #memoir  #race
4.35/5 on Goodreads 

Kentucky

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching is an account of how, politically and culturally, the existing script for black manhood has been rewritten for the millennial generation. Young men of this age have watched as Barack Obama was elected president but have also witnessed the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and so many other young black men killed by police or vigilante violence. Chronicling his personal and political education during these tumultuous years, Smith narrates his own coming-of-age story and his struggles to come into his own at a time when too many black men do not survive into adulthood.  From Barack Obama’s landmark speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 to the recent and widely reported cases of violence against women, from powerful moments of black self-determination like LeBron James’ “decision” to the mobilization of thousands of young black men in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching documents of how these public milestones have challenged cultural notions of black manhood. Part memoir, part political tract, this book is an unprecedented and intimate glimpse into what it means to be young, black, and male in America today—and what it means to be treated as a human in a society dependent on your subjugation.

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

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No dustcover! #hardcover #historical #young-adult #race #1963

It's 1963 and fourteen-year-old Esther Young is looking for excitement. Cursed with a lack of talent in a family filled with artistic types, Esther vows to get some attention by initiating a summer romance with a black teen accused of murdering a white man in Alabama.

King-Roy Johnson shows up on Esther's doorstep that summer, an angry young man who feels betrayed by the nonviolent teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. Sent north by his mother to escape a lynch mob, he meets a follower of Malcolm X's who uses radical teachings about black revolution to fuel King-Roy's anger and frustration. But with each other's help, both Esther and King-Roy learn the true nature of integrity and find the power to stand up for what is right and true.

National Book Award-winning author Han Nolan brings readers a bold new voice--by turns funny and poignant, innocent and worldly--in this powerful coming-of-age story set during the turbulent struggle for civil rights.


A Summer of Kings

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#hardcover #fiction #political #culturalheritage #blacklit #race #history #class #jamaica #caribbean Has a sales sticker on the jacket barcode 

Florida

"Ma Taffy may be blind but she sees everything. So when her great-nephew Kaia comes home from school in tears, what she senses sends a deep fear running through her. While they wait for his mama to come home from work, Ma Taffy recalls the story of the flying preacherman and a great thing that did not happen. A poor suburban sprawl in the Jamaican heartland, Augustown is a place where many things that should happen don't, and plenty of things that shouldn't happen do. For the story of Kaia leads back to another momentous day in Jamaican history, the birth of the Rastafari and the desire for a better life"--

Augustown

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#hardcover #nonfiction #bestseller #chicago #crime #politics #race #socialjustice 

Love and Death in Chicago

From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing of individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member, and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get in your bones. This one summer will stay with you.

An American Summer

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#paperback #justice #antiracism #activism #racism #injustice #socialjustice #BLM #race 

The book looks brand-new. Cover is great, no markings inside. 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Recipe Guide for Conversations about Race That Goes Beyond Covered Dishes and Kum-Bah-Ya

Many Americans are distressed by race but few know how to talk about it. This book tells how.Dialogue, the authors posit, begins the path to racial reconciliation. The Anti-Racist Cookbook gives straight-forward advice on forming dialogue groups. Everything is here, from whom to invite and how to arrange the room, to how to facilitate and what questions to discuss.Recommended for community groups, students, activists, educators, trainers, faith-based organizations, diversity councils, and anyone else interested in answering the question “What can we do and how can we do it?”

The Anti-Racist Cookbook

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#paperback #paperback #justice #antiracism #activism #racism #injustice #socialjustice #BLM #race 

Stories from Our Work

Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing

4899e0f4-a569-4be2-9552-597ab5984507-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #antiracist #politicalscience #race #antiracism #blm This is a new copy with light shelf wear and price sticker residue on the cover 

Massachusetts

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society—and in ourselves. “The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Shelf Awareness • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. Praise for How to Be an Antiracist “Ibram X. Kendi’s new book, How to Be an Antiracist, couldn’t come at a better time. . . . Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author’s own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. . . . How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, ‘the basic struggle we’re all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.’ ”—NPR “Kendi dissects why in a society where so few people consider themselves to be racist the divisions and inequalities of racism remain so prevalent. How to Be an Antiracist punctures the myths of a post-racial America, examining what racism really is—and what we should do about it.”—Time

How to Be an Antiracist

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#hardcover #antiracist #politicalscience #nonfiction #race #antiracism #blm #bestseller 

Illinois

How to Be an Antiracist 

#paperback #fiction #youngadult #thriller #ya #race

A compelling dual-narrated tale from Jennifer Latham that questions how far we've come with race relations. Some bodies won't stay buried. Some stories need to be told. When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the present and the past. Nearly one hundred years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what's right the night Tulsa burns. Through intricately interwoven alternating perspectives, Jennifer Latham's lightning-paced page-turner brings the Tulsa race riot of 1921 to blazing life and raises important questions about the complex state of US race relations--both yesterday and today.

Dreamland Burning

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#nonfiction #family #relationships #hardcover #race #racialreconciliation #blackauthor #brendasalterncneil 

North Carolina

Moving Communities Into Unity, Wholeness and Justice

We can see the injustice and inequality in our lives and in the world. We are ready to rise up. But how, exactly, do we do this? How does one reconcile? Based on her extensive consulting experiences with colleges and organizations, Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil shows us how to take the next step into unity, wholeness and justice.

Roadmap to Reconciliation

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California

Remembering Minette Swift, the talented, assertive, 19-year-old African-American girl enrolled as a scholarship student in an exclusive, mostly white liberal arts college near Philadelphia who died under mysterious circumstances fifteen years earlier, Gen

Black Girl/White Girl

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#hardcover #fiction #theprophets #botm #historical #romance #lgbt #queer #race 

Finalist for the National Book Award Instant New York Times Bestseller "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." —The New York Times Book Review “A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.” —Entertainment Weekly A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

The Prophets

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#paperback #race #essays #empowerment #africanamerican #nonfiction #socialscience 

In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Who We Be) takes an incisive and wide-ranging look at the recent tragedies and widespread protests that have shaken the country. Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing, and distinguished cultural criticism, We Gon’ Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington D.C., the Great Migration to resurgent nativism. Chang explores the rise and fall of the idea of “diversity,” the roots of student protest, changing ideas about Asian Americanness, and the impact of a century of racial separation in housing. He argues that resegregation is the unexamined condition of our time, the undoing of which is key to moving the nation forward to racial justice and cultural equity.

We Gon' Be Alright

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#paperback #youngadult #fiction #ya #historical #alternate #killhitler #race 
Brand New. Unread

One Girl's Mission to Win a Race and Kill Hitler

"Wild and gorgeous, vivid and consuming. I loved it! I can't wait for the sequel." --Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy Her story begins on a train. The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their combined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo. Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele's twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move. But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and stay true to her mission? From the author of The Walled City comes a fast-paced and innovative novel that will leave you breathless.

Wolf by Wolf

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#hardcover #nature #sea #VendeGlobe #race #largeprint Library markings 

Louisiana

Godforsaken Sea

#hardcover #selfhelp #race #women #nonfiction #firstedition

Be Strong and Be You ... and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise

Advice and inspiration for women of color seeking new heights of influence, from the "incredible" top Latinx advisor to President Obama (Jennifer Palmieri, author of Dear Madam President).


Women of color today are contributing to an unprecedented wave of "firsts"-whether they are the first in a family to attend college, the first to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or the first in public office, women of color are reaching new heights of influence.

Cecilia Muñoz was a first, too, and she knows what it means to make her way without exemplars to follow. The first Latinx to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, Muñoz draws lessons from the challenges she faced as the senior Hispanic person in the Obama White House and as a longtime powerful voice in the Civil Rights Movement. She shares her insights, along with those of some extraordinary women of color she met along the way, as an offering of inspiration to women of color who are no longer willing to be invisible or left behind.

Full of invaluable lessons about working through fear, facing down detractors, and leading with kindness, Muñoz provides the thoughtful insight and tactical tools women of color need to be successful-without compromising who they are.



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#hardcover #fiction #girls #race #victorian #women #ya 

Georgia

Savannah Riddle feels suffocated by her life as the daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington, D.C., until she meets a working-class girl named Nella who introduces her to the suffragette and socialist movements and to her politically active cousin Lloyd.

Franchesca Ramsey

Well, that escalated quickly

Shannon Hitchcock

Ruby Lee and Me

Sena Jeter Naslund

Four Spirits

Joyce Carol Oates

Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart

Malla Nunn

When the Ground Is Hard

Elias Rodriques

All the Water I've Seen Is Running

Chibundu Onuzo

Sankofa

Mychal Denzel Smith

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

Han Nolan

A Summer of Kings

Kei Miller

Augustown

Alex Kotlowitz

An American Summer

Robin Parker; Pamela Smith Chambers

The Anti-Racist Cookbook

Bonnie Berman Cushing (Editor-In-Chief); Lila Cabbil (Editor); Margery Freeman (Editor); Jeff Hitchcock (Editor); Kimberley Richards (Editor)

Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing

Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist

Jennifer Latham

Dreamland Burning

Brenda Salter McNeil

Roadmap to Reconciliation

Joyce Carol Oates

Black Girl/White Girl

Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets

Jeff Chang

We Gon' Be Alright

Ryan Graudin

Wolf by Wolf

Derek Lundy

Godforsaken Sea

Cecilia Muñoz

More Than Ready

Tonya Bolden

Saving Savannah