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 41 - 60 of 82  There are a total of 82 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Me and white supremacy"
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Average Rating:
3.3 stars
Description:
"When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never predicted it would become a cultural movement. She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it ... Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and over 80,000 people downloaded the supporting work Me and White Supremacy. Updated and expanded from the original edition, Me and White Supremacy...
Book cover for "Motherhood so white"
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"In America, Mother = White. That's what Nefertiti, a single African American woman, discovered when she decided she wanted to adopt a Black baby boy out of the foster care system. Eager to finally join the motherhood ranks, Nefertiti was shocked when people started asking her why she wanted to adopt a 'crack baby' or said that she would never be able to raise a Black son on her own. She realized that American society saw motherhood through a white...
Book cover for "My brown baby"
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Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
"After publishing almost 2,000 posts aimed at lifting the voices of moms and dads of color, Millner has now curated My Brown Baby, a collection of the website's ... essays. This ... parenting book offers perspectives on the issues moms of color and mothers of children of color face as they raise their kids--from birthing while black to negotiating discipline to preparing children for racism"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "Negroland"
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Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic

Jefferson takes us into an insular and discerning society: “I call it Negroland,” she writes, “because I still find ‘Negro’ a word of wonders, glorious and terrible.”
 
Margo...
Book cover for "The new Jim Crow"
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Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.
Book cover for "Not quite not white"
Star rating for Not quite not white
Book cover for "On the other side of freedom"
Star rating for On the other side of freedom
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Drawing from his own experiences, DeRay Mckesson, the civil rights activist and organizer, offers ways for all Americans to work to dismantle the legacy of racism and to take responsibility for imagining and building a better world"--
Book cover for "The other Wes Moore"
Star rating for The other Wes Moore
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Traces the parallel lives of two youths with the same name in the same community, describing how the author grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar and promising business leader while his counterpart suffered a life of violence and imprisonment.
Book cover for "A people's history of the United States"
Star rating for A people's history of the United States
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:

THE CLASSIC NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A wonderful, splendid book—a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." –Howard Fast

Historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in

...
Book cover for "Race man"
Star rating for Race man
Description:
"An inspiring, historic collection of writings from one of America's most important civil rights leaders"--
Book cover for "Racism"
Star rating for Racism
Average Rating:
1 stars
Description:
From subtle discrimination in everyday life and scandals in politics, to incidents like lynchings in the American South, cultural imperialism, and 'ethnic cleansing', racism exists in many different forms, in almost every facet of society. But what actually is race? How has racism come to be so firmly established? Why do so few people actually admit to being racist? How are race, ethnicity, and xenophobia related? Racism: A Very Short Introduction...
Book cover for "Racism without Racists"
Star rating for Racism without Racists
Description:
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's acclaimed Racism without Racists documents how, beneath our contemporary conversation about race, there lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for—and ultimately justify—racial inequalities. The fifth edition of this provocative book makes clear that color blind racism is as insidious now as ever. It features new material on our current racial climate, including...
Book cover for "Reconstructing the Gospel"
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Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Rest in power"
Star rating for Rest in power
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
An intimate portrait of Trayvon Martin shares previously untold insights into the movement he inspired from the perspectives of his parents, who also describe their efforts to bring meaning to his short life through the movement's pursuit of redemption and justice.
Book cover for "Rising out of hatred"
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Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
An "account of Derek Black's journey from white supremacist hero to apostle of tolerance"--
Book cover for "The second coming of the KKK"
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Book cover for "A sin by any other name"
Star rating for A sin by any other name
Description:
An activist, pastor, and indirect descendant of Confederate general Robert E. Lee traces his upbringing in the American South with a name associated with the double-sided realities of honor, privilege, inequality, and the misinterpretation of Christian values.
Book cover for "Sister outsider"
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Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.
“[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”—The New York Times 
In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism,...
Book cover for "So you want to talk about race"
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Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"[The author] explores the complex reality of today's racial landscape--from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter movement--offering straightforward clarity that readers need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "Some of my best friends are Black"
Star rating for Some of my best friends are Black
Description:
Chronicles America's troubling relationship with race through four interrelated stories: the transformation of a once-racist Birmingham school system; a Kansas City neighborhood's fight against housing discrimination; the curious racial divide of the Madison Avenue ad world; and a Louisiana Catholic parish's forty-year effort to build an integrated church.