Titles are organized by category: non-fiction, memoir, fiction. In lieu of a summary, I decided to choose a favorite quote from each book. Over the summer I took a course on racial reconciliation, and many of the books I chose were related to that course. I honestly enjoyed all of these selections, so it’s hard to say which is my favorite. Hopefully you’ll find one to add to your list!
Non-Fiction
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates “In those days I imagined racism as a tumor that could be isolated and removed from the body of America, not as a pervasive system both native and essential to that body. From that perspective, it seemed possible that the success of one man really could alter history, or even end it.”
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (The movie was incredible, as well!) “Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”
Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon “When white Americans frankly peel back the layers of our commingled pasts, we are all marked by it. Whether a company or an individual, we are marred by our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and their fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill our national credos when their courage was most needed. We are formed in molds twisted by the gifts we received at the expense of others. It is not our “fault.” But it is undeniably our inheritance.”
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi “To be antiracist is to also recognize the living, breathing reality of this racial mirage, which makes our skin colors more meaningful than our individuality. To be antiracist is to focus on ending the racism that shapes the mirages, not to ignore the mirages that shape people’s lives.” (I highlighted 21 passages!)
Tightrope by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn “As we’ll see, American kids today are 55% more likely to die by the age of nineteen than children in the other rich countries that are members of the OECD, the club of industrialized nations. America now lags behind its peer countries in health care and high school graduation rates while suffering greater violence, poverty, and addiction….For America to be strong, we must strengthen all Americans.”
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin (This divides people into four categories: Upholder, Rebel, Obliger, and Questioners. I’m definitely an Upholder married to an Obliger, which made it an interesting read.) “Upholders sometimes have trouble delegating, because they assume that others will drop the ball or won’t do a good job.” Guilty!
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi (I loved his first book so much that I looked for other things he has written. There is a kids version of this book that I listened to with my kids. Highly recommend, but maybe for ages 10 and up.) “The title...comes from a speech that Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis gave on the floor of the US Senate on April 12, 1860. This future president of the Confederacy objected to a bill funding Black education in Washington, D.C. ‘This government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes,’ Davis lectured his colleagues. The bill was based on the false notion of racial equality, he declared. The ‘inequality of the white and black races’ was ‘stamped from the beginning’.”
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum “We need to understand that in racially mixed settings, racial grouping is a developmental process in response to an environmental stressor, racism. Joining with one’s peers for support in the face of stress is a positive coping strategy.”
In retrospect, I should have read these books in this order: Stamped from the Beginning, Slavery by Another Name, Just Mercy, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, to get a better chronological perspective on how Black Americans have been treated in the United States.
I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown “Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort. It's not a comfortable conversation for any of us. It is risky and messy. It is haunting work to recall the sins of our past. But is this not the work we have been called to anyway? Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth and inspire transformation? It's haunting. But it's also holy.”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou “She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.”
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah “I believe children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.”
Educated by Tara Westover “You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself--even gold appears dull in some lights--but that is the illusion. And it always was.”
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah “‘Why teach a black child white things?’ Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom. ‘Why do all this? Why show him the world when he’s never going to leave the ghetto?’ ‘Because,’ she would say, ‘even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I’ve done enough.’”
Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden “So how do I want to spend the rest of my life? I want to spend as much time as I can with my family, and I want to help change the country and the world for the better. That duty does much more than give me purpose; it gives me something to hope for. It makes me nostalgic for the future.”
The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton (Ray Hinton spent nearly 30 years on death row for a murder he did not commit.) “I try not to ask, ‘Why me?’ That’s a selfish question. I ask ‘Why anyone?’” 1 in 10 on death row since 1976 have been found to be innocent.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston “It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway “Going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.”
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway “If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
After Leaving the Village by Helen Matthews (Fictional account of an all-too-common story of how a young girl becomes a victim of modern-day slavery.) “A smiling sun-tanned couple, wearing matching stripy tops and white anoraks, are approaching. The woman glances at Odeta and stares, as if she detects something amiss. Odeta tries to make eye contact to blink out a signal but Kostandin notices and shifts his grip from her arm to her wrist. He pulls her towards him and holds her in a clinch as if they’re a couple, embracing after a long separation; his fingernails dig into her wrist. He’s not a tall man and, over his shoulder, she locks eyes with the woman in the white anorak and moves her lips in a silent plea. The woman’s face flickers with unease and she whispers something to her husband. He glances at Odeta over his horn-rimmed spectacles, then looks away, linking his arm through his wife’s and hurrying her on. The woman swivels her head and looks back over her shoulder mouthing a word that looks like ‘sorry.’ Then she’s gone.”
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin “But to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that permits no argument, turned or dropped or risen is one able to see all that one could not have seen from any other place.”
