Antiracist & Racial Equality Reading List

If you can afford it, please buy these books through a black-owned bookstore.

This guide combines recommendations from several published reading lists (detailed at end of article). We included all of the books from these lists that we have available to borrow. 

We also have a separate list of racial equality books for kids as well as a list of books by black women authors.

• A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature by Jacqueline Goldsby
• A Taste of Power by Elaine Brown
• Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. 
• Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
• Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X By Malcolm X and Alex Haley
• Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of  Obama by Tim Wise
• Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
• The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• Bone To Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge by Ellis Cose
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady
• But Some of Us Are Brave edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, & Barbara Smith
• Can We Talk About Race? and Other  Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation by Beverly Tatum and Theresa Perry
• Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit by Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard Garcia
• The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority by Ellen D. Wu
• Colorblind: The Rise of Post‐Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial  Equity by Tim Wise
• A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki
• Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School by Mica Pollock
• Experiencing Race, Class, and Gender in the United States by Roberta Fiske‐Rusciano
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Hate Hurts:  How Children Learn and Unlearn Prejudice – Caryl Stern LaRosaand Ellen Hofheimer Bettmann
• Hatred, Bigotry and Prejudice – Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosembaum
• The Hidden Cost of Being African American by Thomas Shapiro
• How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to  the Obama Phenomenon by David R. Roediger
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, Maya
• Inheriting the Trade by Thomas Norman DeWolf
• The Miner's Canary by Lani Guiner and Gerald Torres
• The Nature of Prejudice – Gordon w. Allport
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 by Leon F. Litwack
• The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas J. Sugrue
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception  Across the Color Line by Martha A. Sandweiss
• Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives by Martin N. Marger
• Race, Class, & Gender: An Anthology by Margaret L. Anderson and Patricia Hill Collins
• Race in North America: Origin and Evolution  of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley and Brian D. Smedley
• Racial and Ethnic Groups by Richard T. Schaefer
• Racism Without Racists: Color‐Blind Racism and the  Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva
• The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why Are Middle‐class Blacks Angry? Why  should America Care? by by Ellis Cose
• Readings for Diversity and Social Justice by Maurianne Adams
• Recitatif by Toni Morrison (published in “Confirmation, an anthology of AfricanAmerican women”)
• Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner
• Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity by Charles A. Gallagher
• Roots by Alex Haley
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• Slavery By Another Name: Enslavement of Black Americans  from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
• Strangers to These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the  United States by Vincent N. Parrillo
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• This Bridge Called My Back edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
• The Trouble With Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity,  and the Future of Public Education by Pedro Noguera
• Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America By Peniel E. Joseph
• Waking Up White by Debby Irving
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Paula Giddings
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

The following reading lists were used to compile this guide, and contain more resources than are listed here:

• The Anti-Racist Reading List by Elle Magazine
• An Antiracist Reading List by Ibram X. Kendi in the New York Times
• A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources by Katie Couric
• Equality and Anti-Racism Book List by The Advocates for Human Rights
• 10 Books About Race To Read Instead Of Asking A Person Of Color To Explain Things To You by Sadie Trombetta for Bustle
• Antiracist Reading List by Monroe County Public Library (Indiana)
• Anti-Racism Resource List (collaborative Google Doc)