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 21 - 40 of 82  There are a total of 82 valid entries on the list.
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 family tree"
Star rating for The family tree
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
The provocative true account of the hanging of four black people by a white lynch mob in 1912--written by the great-granddaughter of the sheriff charged with protecting them.
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"--
Book cover for "Five days"
Star rating for Five days
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"When Freddie Gray was arrested for possessing an 'illegal knife' in April 2015, he was, by eyewitness accounts that video evidence later confirmed, treated 'roughly' as police loaded him into a vehicle. By the end of his trip in the police van, Gray was in a coma he would never recover from. In the wake of a long history of police abuse in Baltimore, this killing felt like a final straw--it led to a week of protests and then five days described alternately...
Book cover for "Heavy"
Star rating for Heavy
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Laymon writes ... about the physical manifestations of violence, grief, trauma, and abuse on his own body, [examining] his own eating disorder and gambling addiction as well as similar issues that run throughout his family. Through self-exploration, storytelling, and honest conversation with family and friends, Heavy seeks to bring what has been hidden into the light and to reckon with all of its myriad sources, from the most intimate--a mother-child...
Book cover for "How to be an antiracist"
Star rating for How to be an antiracist
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves—now updated, with a new preface.
“The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.”—The New York...
Book cover for "How to be less stupid about race"
Star rating for How to be less stupid about race
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"How to Be Less Stupid About Race is your essential guide to breaking through the half-truths and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race is represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics. Centuries after our nation was founded on genocide, settler colonialism, and slavery, many Americans are kinda-sorta-maybe waking up to the reality that our racial politics are (still) garbage. But in the midst of this...
Book cover for "How we fight white supremacy"
Star rating for How we fight white supremacy
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "I can't breathe"
Star rating for I can't breathe
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
A work of riveting literary journalism that explores the roots and repercussions of the infamous killing of Eric Garner by the New York City police--from the bestselling author of The Divide
Book cover for "In search of our mothers' gardens"
Star rating for In search of our mothers' gardens
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Jackson, 1964"
Star rating for Jackson, 1964
Book cover for "Just mercy"
Star rating for Just mercy
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.
Book cover for "Lies my teacher told me"
Star rating for Lies my teacher told me
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a fresh and more accurate approach to teaching American history.
Book cover for "The lynching"
Star rating for The lynching
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Describes the brutal killing of a young black man and subsequent conviction of two Klansmen in 1981 Alabama and the civil suit that exposed the true motives and philosophy of the organization and ultimately bankrupted them.
Book cover for "The making of a racist"
Star rating for The making of a racist
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"This unique blend of memoir and history interweaves autobiography with the history of the slave trade and the American South"--Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "Malcolm X"
Star rating for Malcolm X
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
An authoritative biography of Malcolm X draws on new research to trace his life from his troubled youth through his involvement in the Nation of Islam, his activism in the world of Black Nationalism, and his assassination.