Starting the Conversation: Adult Nonfiction

In our commitment to serve our community and foster the pursuit of knowledge, we offer these resources to help begin important conversations.

Showing 1 - 20 of 82  There are a total of 82 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The accident of color"
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"A history of the first civil rights movement and the origins of black and white in America. When we hear "civil rights," we tend to think of the 1950s and 1960s activism that put an end to Jim Crow segregation laws. In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook takes us to New Orleans and Charleston, where before the Civil War, free, biracial people-- sometimes referred to as "browns"-- exercised many rights of citizenship. During Reconstruction, as a black-...
Book cover for "Ain't I a woman"
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"A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must-read for all those interested in the nature of Black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of Back womanhood, Black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the Black woman's involvement with feminism, hooks attempts to move us beyond racist and sexist assumptions. The result is nothing short of groundbreaking, giving this...
Book cover for "Bad feminist"
Star rating for Bad feminist
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Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and...
Book cover for "Be the bridge"
Star rating for Be the bridge
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ECPA BESTSELLER • “When it comes to the intersection of race, privilege, justice, and the church, Tasha is without question my best teacher. Be the Bridge is THE tool I wish to put in every set of hands.”—Jen Hatmaker
 
WINNER OF THE CHRISTIAN BOOK AWARD® • Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award...
Book cover for "Becoming"
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Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Michelle Obama describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private in a deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations.
Book cover for "Between the world and me"
Star rating for Between the world and me
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary...
Book cover for "The black and the blue"
Star rating for The black and the blue
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"An unforgettable account of the racism and crimes that permeate America's law enforcement-- and a blueprint for change"--Jacket flap.
Book cover for "Black is the body"
Star rating for Black is the body
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A collection of essays on race"--
Book cover for "The Black presidency"
Star rating for The Black presidency
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "The blood of Emmett Till"
Star rating for The blood of Emmett Till
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional ... But what actually happened to Emmett Till--not the icon of injustice but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, [this book] draws on a wealth of new evidence,...
Book cover for "Burden"
Star rating for Burden
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"A harrowing true story of the modern Ku Klux Klan and an act of grace that shook a community in the Deep South. In 1996, the town of Laurens, South Carolina, was thrust into the international spotlight when a white supremacist named Michael Burden opened a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan on the community's main square. Journalists and protestors flooded the town, and hate groups rallied to the establishment's defense, dredging up the long history...
Book cover for "Chokehold"
Star rating for Chokehold
Description:
"Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that the system is working exactly the way it's supposed to. Black men are always under watch, and police violence is widespread--all with the support of judges and politicians. In his no-holds-barred style,...
Book cover for "Citizen"
Star rating for Citizen
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV--everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come...
Book cover for "Color blind"
Star rating for Color blind
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Description:
Dunkel traces the rise of a Bismarck integrated squad and follows them through their ups and downs, focusing on the 1935 season, and the first National Semi-Pro Tournament in Wichita, Kansas -- a decade before Jackie Robinson broke into the Major Leagues!
Book cover for "The color of law"
Star rating for The color of law
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
Rothstein examines the idea "that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation--that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, [he argues] that it was de jure segregation--the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments--that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day"--Amazon.com....
Book cover for "The color of water"
Star rating for The color of water
Average Rating:
4.9 stars
Description:
An African American man describes life as the son of a white mother and Black father, reflecting on his mother's contributions to his life and his confusion over his own identity.
Book cover for "The defender"
Star rating for The defender
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded The Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses," becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process. Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research,...
Book cover for "Democracy in black"
Star rating for Democracy in black
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A polemic on the state of black America that argues that we don't yet live in a post-racial society"--
Book cover for "A dreadful deceit"
Star rating for A dreadful deceit
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Traces the lives of six African Americans from the colonial era to the late 20th century, using their stories to illustrate the complex ways in which racial ideologies in this country have changed since the first Africans arrived on the nation's shores hundreds of years ago. The very idea of 'blackness,' she shows, has changed fundamentally over this period"--
Book cover for "Dying of whiteness"
Star rating for Dying of whiteness
Average Rating:
3.5 stars