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This is a fantastic novel about the emotional complications we experience, but seldom talk about, when confronting police brutality and social injustice. It raises some difficult questions and then leaves the reader to figure out their own answers. Don't let the Young Adult label fool you; this book should be required reading for all age groups.
– Gary L.

This is one of the most important books I've ever read. Each chapter profiles the life of a child killed by gun violence on the same randomly selected day in America, 11/23/13. Younge is quick to point out that this isn't a book about gun control; instead, it's a book about what happens when gun control is nonexistent in a country where poverty, racism, and segregation are endemic. Another Day forced me to look at the ways that economic inequality and structural racism rob millions of kids of safe, stable childhoods, and as a result leave thousands of them victim to the lure and violence of guns. It doesn't matter where you stand on gun ownership; none of us should be content to live in a country with so many young ghosts.
– Rhianna

Sometimes a slim volume encompasses a huge narrative; this one certainly does. Between the World and Me is such an important book. It is personal yet universal. And Ta-Nehisi Coates has a big heart. I wish everyone would read this.
– Adrienne

Citizen is a personal, emotional, poetic account of being black in America. Some of it is told in snippets, as the experiences themselves are snippets — a comment at Starbucks, a shove on the subway. There are longer pieces, too, like her essay about Serena Williams, which blew my mind. The specificity and introspection of this book made for one of the most powerful reading experiences I've had.
– Britt

First and foremost, The Fire Next Time is the most powerful account of being black in America that I have ever read. However, it is also a beautiful exploration of love, hate, history, death, and the universal human need to make art in order to heal. Baldwin delves into the darkness of humanity without ever once turning away from the light.
– Marlena

After Trayvon Martin was murdered, Jesmyn Ward went looking for community. She went to Twitter, where she knew people would be outraged. It didn’t last, though; other topics took over. She wanted more. She wanted something she could hold. The Fire This Time is that book. It is a must-read.
– Britt

In this series of interviews with Davis, conducted by Frank Barat, lines are drawn between Ferguson and Palestine in profound yet succinct ways. With her signature style of connecting issues to people and explaining complicated issues in a manner that is easy to understand, Davis talks about many subjects, including Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, her personal history, and the connection between local and globalized oppression.
– Lonnan

In her ambitious survey, Taylor traces the trajectory of the Black Lives Matter movement from its origins and more recent catalysts (extending far beyond police brutality), to the turbulent present day, to her vision for a future where black liberation is possible. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to take the long view on the movement.
– Renee

In her stunning debut novel, Yaa Gyasi illustrates the emotional turmoil individuals face when their fate rests in circumstances beyond their control. Gyasi’s novel brings forth the painful history of racism and its impact on family, dreams, and self-identity in a striking, vivid way.
– Kate L.

Henrietta Lacks was a black woman in the 1950s whose cells — shaved from a tumor, cultured without her knowledge, and grown to amazing proportions — would change the face of science and medicine forever. The HeLa line has sold continuously since its inception, and has made billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical and medical industries. Yet Henrietta died in pain, poverty, and obscurity, and her family knew nothing of her legacy. Still living in poverty today, Henrietta's family asks, "If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?" While the irony is staggering, Skloot also addresses the fact that historically blacks have been taken advantage of by the medical community, and often in much more deliberate and destructive ways. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating, unforgettable story.
– Dianah

“I am invisible,” the narrator of Ralph Ellison’s award-winning novel explains, “simply because people refuse to see me.” Full of irony and wit and jazz-like music, Invisible Man addresses race, identity, individuality, and betrayal. It is the book on which President Obama modeled his own Dreams From My Father.
– Gigi

Melding candid detail with trenchant analysis, Smith shares a revealing, self-aware recap of his coming-of-age as a young black millennial and budding wordsmith. Confronting his own assumptions about a variety of subjects and social issues, Smith is a smart, searching, and skilled writer, one committed to chronicling not only his own challenges, but also those of a culture still mired in prejudice, bigotry, disregard, and disenfranchisement. Smith turns an incisive eye to issues that are often overlooked within his own community — calling out movements that seek solidarity while excluding the most defenseless and vulnerable. Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching is unabashed and unequivocal, and Mychal Denzel Smith is a keen observer of both himself and the world around him.
– Jeremy

Octavia Butler makes Faulkner’s aphorism about the past not being past literal in this tale of a modern black woman, Dana, who is drawn unwittingly back through time to the Antebellum South to interact with her ancestors. Dana is pulled back and forth between past and present, each stay in the slave quarters lasting longer and becoming more dangerous, and as the tension and brutality rises she struggles to understand the connections that are drawing her back in order to escape. Originally written in the ’70s, Butler’s portrayal of the ways that the injustices of the past are woven intimately into the fabric of our present — and our inability to move forward until we gain an understanding of that — rings truer than ever.
– Patrick D.

Whether you're familiar with Congressman John Lewis or not, his memoir is a must-read. The graphic novel format makes it a welcome introduction to Lewis's life and activism during the Civil Rights Movement, but it's also a compelling story if you're already versed in the history.
– Ashleigh

If this book was only what it is on the surface — a memoir of Ward’s experience watching four young men, including her brother, die before any of them turned 25 — it would be among the most deeply felt and moving memoirs I’ve ever read. But this book is also a powerful investigation of how poverty, race, and the history of injustice in the Deep South have all conspired to make simply living one’s life a dangerous proposition for young black men. Ward doesn’t let her subjects off the hook for their behavior and their roles in their own downfall, but she doesn’t let us as a society off either.
– Tim B.

Somehow, the combination of dark humor, nautical adventure, and the horrors of the slave trade masterfully combine in Charles Johnson's National Book Award–winning novel. It's a short yet epic tale which tempers wrenching historical realities with piercing insight and sardonic wit. Most memorably, New Orleans Freedman Rutherford Calhoun is one of the most vivid literary characters I've ever encountered.
– Andy D.

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that mass incarceration is the single most pressing civil rights issue of the 21st century. Tracing the history of the prison boom from the Reconstruction to the War on Drugs, Alexander's informative and enraging account will open your eyes and spur you to action.
– Marlena

Nobody is a book that reminds us that all of us are somebody — that, until we love and respect black bodies, we cannot truly and honestly move forward. If you wish all people understood systemic racism, that it comes from all of us, and that all our perceptions and biases contribute to an existence where all bodies are not honored equally, then Nobody is the book for you. From Ferguson to Flint, Hill chronicles how oppression has seeped into the core of our country, building a foundation so unbalanced that equitable footing is nearly impossible.
– D Lozano

Pushout exposes the unique and daunting challenges black girls face in our schools. They’re singled out. They’re belittled. They’re hypersexualized. And they’re pushed into our juvenile justice system at an alarming rate. In her urgent, compassionate book, Morris shares their stories and compels readers to take action.
– Renee

What is intriguing about The Residue Years is the balance it keeps throughout the entire story of absolute despair and blossoming hope. Somehow this book managed to make me feel both that all the events were destined to be doomed from the start, and that at any moment everything could change for the better.
– Zoe

Wesley Lowery is an astonishingly young and talented reporter who covers race relations for the Washington Post. They Can’t Kill Us All, his first book, is a deeply researched exploration of the police shootings that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, and a candid depiction of what it’s like to be a black journalist investigating and often entering into highly charged situations between white officers and the African American communities they police. The result is a critical early history of the 21st-century civil rights movement and an exemplar of disciplined and compassionate reporting.
– Rhianna

Renee Watson's young adult novel is set in Portland, Oregon, where gentrification threatens to erase a primarily black neighborhood's history. Follow twins Maya and Nikki as they come of age in a quickly changing city and find the meaning of "home." This is not only a story of transformation but one of discovery and healing.
– Lisa A.

Best known for her play, A Raisin in the Sun, author and playwright Lorraine Hansberry was at the forefront of civil rights activism. Despite succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the young age of 34, Hansberry’s influence still resounds today. Published posthumously, To Be Young, Gifted and Black collects journal entries, assorted writings, interviews, letters, and other short prose — offering not only a glimpse into a stunning talent taken too soon, but also a stirring range of human emotion.
– Jeremy G.

Colson Whitehead imagines a literal Underground Railroad in his latest novel of the same name. Stealthily shuttling blacks from the South to the North, the operators of the railroad are hyperaware of every possibility, but still, every moment discovery seems imminent. Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation, is helped with her escape, but even when she seems safe, fear is her constant companion. Her harrowing run from her owner is truly the stuff of literature. Don't miss Whitehead's scathing commentary on the Antebellum South.
– Dianah

History writ large is a shambling, cumbersome thing — it being larded with the biases of its profiteers. In We Love You, Charlie Freeman, Greenidge demonstrates that language, and how we use it, can corrode a culture through the lithe, seemingly anodyne tools of euphemism and insinuation. A pulsating debut rich with perspective on faith, family, and the burden of lineage.
– Justin W.

In this succinct and powerful book, Professor Anderson reminds us that throughout American history, whenever any event signifying racial progress has been celebrated, it has always been met with fierce and sustained opposition.
– Keith M.

As a POC (person of color), Phoebe Robinson puts a hilarious twist on subjects that are difficult to have conversations about, such as racism in media or being a female POC in today's society. This collection of essays is great if you still want to educate yourself about some big issues but also want to have a good laugh at the same time.
– Carina