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 58  There are a total of 82 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Ain't I a woman"
Star rating 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 "Becoming"
Star rating for Becoming
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 "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 "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
Book cover for "Ebony & ivy"
Star rating for Ebony & ivy
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
An African American historian of race in America outlines his beliefs about race, slavery, and the American academy, positing that leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained it.
Book cover for "Eloquent rage"
Star rating for Eloquent rage
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Book cover for "The end of policing"
Star rating for The end of policing
Description:
Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression. Among activists, journalists, and politicians, the conversation about how to respond and improve policing has focused on accountability, diversity, training, and community relations. Unfortunately, these reforms will not produce results, either alone or in combination. The core of the problem must be addressed: the nature of modern policing itself.
This book...
Book cover for "Evicted"
Star rating for Evicted
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
"Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers ... [In this book], Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear...
Book cover for "The fire next time"
Star rating for The fire next time
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Contains a letter to Baldwin's nephew on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Also describes his childhood, views on Black Muslims, and his visions.
Book cover for "The fire this time"
Star rating for The fire this time
Author:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this ... collection of essays and poems about race from ... voices of her generation and our time"--