Non-Fiction

Non-fiction titles are great for learning about structural injustice through a social and scientific lense.

American Prison
Democracy in Black
Killing the Black Body
Policing the Black Man
Savage Inequalities
Sister Outsider
Stony the Road
The Broken Ladder
The Color of Law
The Fire Next Time
The New Jim Crow
The Source of Self Regard
We Were Eight Years in Power
White Fragility
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Plays

Plays are great for readers who enjoy learning through theatrical storytelling and dialogue.

Fences
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
The Piano Lesson

Fiction

Fiction titles use literary techniques and take creative liberties to build worlds that often reflect the challenges communities face in our own.

Americanah
Beloved
Homegoing
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Bluest Eye
The Color Purple
The Underground Railroad
Their Eyes Were Watching God

Autobiography/Biography

Biographies tell the true stories of those who lived extraordinary lives.

Between the World and Me
Blood in my Eye
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Just Mercy
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Portable Frederick Douglass

Poetry

Poetry allows complex feelings to live in the abstract.

Citizen: An American Lyric
I, Too, Am America
Life on Mars
Me Aunt Jemima and the Nailgun
Olio
The Completed Collected Poems of Maya Angelou

Black Owned Bookstores

Plays are a great great for readers who enjoy learning through theatrical storytelling and dialogue.

The Lit Bar (Bronx, NY)
Cafe Con Libros Feminist Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY)
Sistah Scifi (Oakland, CA)
Uncle Bobbie's (Phila., PA)
Harriet's Bookshop (Phila., PA)
Loyalty Bookstore (Washington, D.C.)
Mahogany Books Washington, D.C.)
Sankofa Video Books & Café (Washington, DC)
Semicolon Bookstore (Chicago, IL)
Liberation Station Bookstore (Durham, NC)
Shelves Bookstore (Charlotte, NC)
Source Booksellers (Detroit, MI)
Eso Won Bookstore (Los Angeles, CA)
Black Pearl Books (Austin, TX)
The Key Bookstore (Hartford, CT)
Pyramid Books (Boynton Beach, FL)
Books and Crannies (Martinsville, VA)
Fulton Street Books and Coffee (Tulsa, OK)