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8 Memoirs and Essay Collections on Black Freedom and Liberation

by Kim Johnson, July 27, 2020 4:49 PM
This Is My America
Photo credit: JBoy Photography

As America undergoes a reckoning with the legacy of racism, the call for justice has rung for over 400 years. It’s a call that has stirred me since my first awakening as a young teen activist searching for ways to make progress on social justice. While writing This Is My America, I was determined to pull back the layers that the Black Lives Matter movement elevated into American consciousness after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. While the media focused on police brutality caught on tape, I wanted my novel to diagnose it as a symptom of a much larger problem by addressing the systemic issues that plague our criminal justice system. In addition, dispel the myth that acts of white supremacy are not just white cloaks in organizations of terror, but engrained in the DNA of our country — the untended roots of racism at our core. At my novel’s release, never did I imagine it would be during a time our country was in its rawest form of grappling with its history.

In a world filled with darkness, I have always looked for the helpers. Through my work with young people and service in the community, I’m rejuvenated in my philosophy of optimism. It is what draws young people to activism and awakens those who have long forgotten how moving a dream for civil rights can be. This is what fueled me in writing an unflinching yet uplifting story — an aspiration for an America that has lived too long in dream form, but this time rings differently, with our streets calling for justice, and books by Black authors and anti-racist works selling out across the country. This Is My America serves as an ode to young people who are determined to end the cycle of racial injustice through awareness and action. As a literary activist, I am part of a tradition of authors who document insights to understand our state of affairs and imagine Black freedom and liberation. Through the power of story, I find hope. Here are eight powerful collections of essays and memoirs that explore the complexities of racism and hold aspirations of justice and liberation.

Ida: A Sword Among Lions Ida: A Sword Among Lions
by Paula J. Giddings

Ida B. Wells was one of our country’s early Black women leaders fighting for justice. She was a journalist, abolitionist, and feminist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. She went on to found and become integral in groups striving for African American justice. You can’t understand our present if you don’t know the history of movements in our past, from women’s rights through abolition.

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele

The Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the country was founded by three Black women. This memoir is a reflection on humanity, lauded as an empowering account of survival, strength, and resilience and the kind of call to action we need now more than ever.

Thick: And Other Essays Thick: And Other Essays
by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Tressie McMillan Cottom never shies away from using her full voice, combining the personal with the political. In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, this award-winning professor “transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women” (Los Angeles Review of Books), with “writing that is as deft as it is amusing” (Darnell L. Moore).

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
by Audre Lorde

Originally published in 1984 and reprinted in hardcover in 2020, this collection of 15 essays and speeches is filled with Audre Lorde’s take on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and her beliefs on how to make change. Sometimes painful, her sharp lyrical prose is still timely today.
Editor's note: This entry links to the trade paper edition, as the hardcover is out of stock. 

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
by Angela Y. Davis

Angela Davis, an educator and political activist best known for her membership in the Black Panther party, reflects on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism. She discusses liberation struggles against state-sanctioned terror, from the Black Freedom Movement, South African Anti-Apartheid movement, Ferguson, and Palestine.

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s collection of essays that were first published in The Atlantic, including “Fear of a Black President,” “The Case for Reparations,” and “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” along with essays that revisit the Obama administration and his examination of not only his election, but the backlash that occurred after President Obama’s term with the election of our most racially divisive president in America’s modern-day history.

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race
by Jesmyn Ward

After the murder of Trayvon Martin, Jesmyn Ward gathered thinkers and writers to speak on contemporary racism and race. The Fire This Time shines a light on the tragedies of our history, discusses our present situation, and explores ways to a brighter future we can aspire to. This collection is an updated look at The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s revolutionary 1963 essay collection.

James Baldwin: Collected Essays James Baldwin: Collected Essays
by James Baldwin, edited by Toni Morrison

James Baldwin’s collection of essays documented the civil rights era as he lost his close friends to assassinations and terror: Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers. Edited by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, the Library of America’s Collected Essays is the most comprehensive gathering of Baldwin’s nonfiction.
Editor's note: This title is temporarily out of stock. View a collection of James Baldwin's work here. 



Join us for our virtual event with Kim Johnson and Ibi Zoboi on Sunday, September 20, at 2 p.m.
÷ ÷ ÷
Kim Johnson held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen. She’s now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders. This Is My America is her debut novel. It explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park. Kim lives her best life in Oregon with her husband and two kids. Find her at kcjohnsonwrites.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kcjohnsonwrites.



Books mentioned in this post

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Audre Lorde

The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin

Ida A Sword Among Lions Ida B Wells & the Campaign Against Lynching

Paula J Giddings

Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds

James Baldwin

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race

Jesmyn Ward

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

Patrisse Khan Cullors, asha bandele

Thick: And Other Essays

Tressie McMillan Cottom

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Audre Lorde

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle Ferguson Palestine & the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Y. Davis

This Is My America

Kim Johnson
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One Response to "8 Memoirs and Essay Collections on Black Freedom and Liberation"

FilmFourteen July 27, 2020 at 05:33 PM
Good read. Thank you for sharing it here.

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