Auckland Council Libraries: Racism, politics and America

Racism, politics and America

A collection of books that highlight the legacy of racism, racial injustice and oppression of black people in America.

The fire next time

James Baldwin

Book

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. Consisting of two 'letters', this book is an intensely personal and provocative document.

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The fire this time

Book

Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

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Heavy

Kiese Laymon

Book

Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. With charged intellect and piercing candour, provocative essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon shares his experiences of growing up with racial prejudice and violence within his own family and in the culture at large.

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The new Jim Crow

Michelle Alexander

Book

With dazzling candour, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that 'we have not ended racial caste in America, we have merely redesigned it.'

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They can't kill us all

Wesley Lowery

Book

This book brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insights into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it.

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White rage

Carol (Carol Elaine) Anderson

Book

Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage.

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On the other side of freedom

DeRay Mckesson

Book

Five years ago, DeRay Mckesson quit his job as a school teacher, moved to Ferguson, Missouri, and spent the next 400 days on the streets as an activist, helping to bring the Black Lives Matter movement into being.

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Fight of the century

eBook

In collaboration with the ACLU, prize-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays about landmark cases in the ACLU's 100-year history.

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The autobiography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Book

Written by Alex Haley from conversations with the leader, over a period of two years before his death.

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The color of law

Richard Rothstein

Book

Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighbourhoods.

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Citizen

Claudia Rankine

Book

This book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. In essay, image and poetry, this is a powerful testament to the effects of racism in our contemporary, 'post-race' society.

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The making of black lives matter

Christopher J. Lebron

Book

Drawing on the work of revolutionary black public intellectuals, Lebron clarifies what it means to assert that 'Black Lives Matter' when faced with contemporary instances of anti-black law enforcement.

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Why we can't wait

Martin Luther King

Book

As inspiring and resonant as it was upon publication, Why We Can't Wait is both a unique historical document and an enduring testament to one man's wise, courageous and endlessly hopeful vision.

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Nobody

Marc Lamont Hill

Book

Leading public intellectual & acclaimed journalist offers a powerful, paradigm-shifting analysis of America's current state of emergency, finding in these events a larger and more troubling truth about race, class, and what it means to be 'Nobody.'

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Stony the road

Henry Louis Gates

Book

If emancipation came in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? Understanding this bitter struggle is essential if America's deepest wounds are ever truly to heal.

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Auckland Council Libraries:Book list Recommended reading lists about different topics and genres to help you find new books to read.