The books listed on the Essential Reads section of this Guide to Anti-Racist Books are ones that have been particularly important and influential to members of Moving Circles and Not in Our Town, anti-racism groups based in Carlisle, PA. The guide is a collaboration between Dr. Kirk Moll, Associate Professor and Reference and Research Librarian at Shippensburg University and members of Moving Circles and Not in Our Town.
History of Race and Racism
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A People's History of the United States by Howard ZinnPublication Date: New York: HarperPerennial, 2005
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Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American Textbook Got Wrong by James LoewenPublication Date: New York: Touchstone, 2007; The New Press, 2018. [first published in 1996, revised in 2007; new preface added in 2018)
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Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. KendiPublication Date: New York: Bold Type Books, 2017
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The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. AllenPublication Date: 1994-1997 (2nd ed. with a new introduction published in 2012)
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The History of White People by Nell Irvin PainterPublication Date: New York: W. W. Norton, 2011
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American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise by Eduardo PorterPublication Date: New York: Knopf, 2020
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On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st CenturyOn the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century by Sherrilyn A. IfillPublication Date: 2018 (10th Anniv. Ed., 2018, includes new forward by Bryan Stevenson and a new afterword by the author.)
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The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel WilkersonPublication Date: New York: Random House, 2010
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Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. BlackmonPublication Date: New York: Doubleday, 2008
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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard RothsteinPublication Date: New York: Liveright, 2017
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When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira KatznelsonPublication Date: New York: W. W. Norton, 2005
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary ed. by Michelle AlexanderPublication Date: New City Press, 2010, 2020.
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Democracy in Black by Eddie S. GlaudePublication Date: New York: Broadway Books, 2017
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A Promise and a Way of Life by Becky W. ThompsonPublication Date: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001
Indigenous Peoples
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizPublication Date: Boston: Beacon Press, 2015
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander BrownPublication Date: New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1921
Classic Works
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Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies. Library of America. Contains his three autobiographies. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). by Frederick Douglass; Henry Louis Gates (Editor).Publication Date: New York: Penguin, 1994
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The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois; Henry Louis Gates (Editor); Terri Hume Oliver (Editor)Publication Date: New York: W. W. Norton,1999
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Collected Essays. Library of America. by James BaldwinPublication Date: 1998
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The Source of Self-Regard by Toni MorrisonPublication Date: New York: Vintage, 2020
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Race Matters, 25th Anniv. ed. by Cornel WestPublication Date: Boston: Beacon Press, 2017
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Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism by Cornel WestPublication Date: New York: Penguin Books, 2005
Racism and Anti-Racism
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How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. KendiPublication Date: New York: One World, 2019
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White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide by Carol AndersonPublication Date: New York: Bloomsbury, 2017
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How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa BayoumiPublication Date: New York: Penguin, 2008
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So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma OluoPublication Date: New York, Seal Press, 2019
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Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric DysonPublication Date: New York: St. Martin's, 2017
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What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and our Unfinished Conversation about Race in America by Michael Eric DysonPublication Date: New York: St. Martin's Press, 2018
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Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly TatumPublication Date: New York: Basic Books, 1997, 2003
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Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, 5th ed. by Eduardo Bonilla-SilvaPublication Date: Lanham, MD: Rowen & Littlefield, 2017
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Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice - 4th ed. by Paul KivelPublication Date: Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2017
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Racing to Justice by John A. PowellPublication Date: Bloomington: University of Indiana, 2012
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Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia RankinePublication Date: Minneapolis: Greywolf Press, 2014
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Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide by Barbara TrepagnierPublication Date: Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2010
Personal Accounts & Memoirs
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The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian by W. Kamau BellPublication Date: New York: Dutton, 2018
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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi CoatesPublication Date: New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015
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How to Make White People Laugh by Negin FarsadPublication Date: New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2016
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Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan StevensonPublication Date: New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014
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Waking up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby IrvingPublication Date: Cambridge, MA: Elephant Room Press, 2014
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In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch LandrieuPublication Date: New York: Penguin Books, 2019
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Memoir of a Race Traitor: Fighting Racism in the American South, Rev. ed. by Mab SegrestCall Number: Essential Read
Publication Date: New York: The New Press, 2019; First ed., published, Boston: South End Press, 1994
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White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, Rev. ed. by Tim WisePublication Date: Berkeley, CA : Soft Skull Press, 2011 (First ed., 2005)
White Privilege & Whiteness Studies
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White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngeloPublication Date: Boston: Beacon Press, 2018
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Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority by Tim WisePublication Date: San Francisco: City Light Books, 2012
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The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege by Robert JensenPublication Date: San Francisco: City Light Books, 2005
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Privilege, Power, and Difference, 3rd ed. by Allan G. JohnsonPublication Date: New York: McGraw-Hill, 2017
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Witnessing Whiteness, 2nd ed. by Shelly TochlukPublication Date: Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2010
Race and Religion
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America's Original Sin by Jim WallisPublication Date: Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2017
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Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Reconciliation, 2nd ed. by Jennifer HarveyPublication Date: Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014. 2nd ed. will be published Sept. 2020.
Biographies
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Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol by Nell Irvin PainterPublication Date: New York: W. W. Norton, 1996
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Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. BlightPublication Date: New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018
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The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne TheoharisPublication Date: Boston: Beacon Press, 2013
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Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning MarablePublication Date: New York: Penguin, 2011
