The Mississippi Humanities Council and Mississippi Library Commission have compiled a list of books to encourage "thoughtful reflection" and "foster a society built on racial equality."
The list includes over 120 books that include titles by "contemporary Mississippi writers like Angie Thomas, Jesmyn Ward, and Kiese Laymon, whose fiction and memoir help inspire empathy in White readers with their honest accounts of the experiences of Black Americans."
Titles available through the Hinds Community College Libraries are profiled within this libguide and are available for checkout. Titles not currently available can be requested through InterLibrary Loan.
You can learn more about the Mississippi Humanities Council's Ant-Racism Reading Shelf Program here.
Suggested Books for Anti-Racism Reading Shelf
Adult Nonfiction:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide – Carol Anderson
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People – Mahzarin R. Banaji
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism – Edward E. Baptist
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II – Douglas A. Blackmon
Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America - Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower – Brittney Cooper
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do - Jennifer L. Eberhardt
How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide – Crystal Marie Fleming
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution – Eric Foner
Stony the Road – Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America - Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching – Paula Giddings
White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in Racially Divided America - Margaret Hagerman
Black Looks: Race and Representation – Bell Hooks
The Book of Night Women – Marlon James
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work – Tiffany Jewell
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South - Stephanie E. Jones Rogers
How to Be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America – Ibram X. Kendi
Heavy: An American Memoir – Kiese Laymon
Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth – Kevin Levin
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood – Trevor Noah
So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
Breathe: A Letter to My Sons – Imani Perry
Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine
How the South Won the Civil War - Heather Cox Richardson
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century – Dorothy Roberts
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America – Richard Rothstein
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor – Layla Saad
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights - Gretchen Sorin
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race – Beverly Daniel Tatum
Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism – Jemar Tisby
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong – James W. Loewen
Silent Racism – Barbara Trepagnier
Memorial Drive – Natasha Trethewey
Native Guard – Natasha Trethewey
Men We Reaped – Jesmyn Ward
Caste – Isabel Wilkerson
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker – Damon Young
Young Adult:
Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha 1) – Tomi Adeyemi
Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orisha 2) – Tomi Adeyemi
We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide – Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden
Tyler Johnson Was Here – Jay Coles
The Girl with the Louding Voice: A Novel – Abi Daré
Blended – Sharon M. Draper
This is My America – Kim Johnson
You Should See Me in a Crown – Leah Johnson
I'm Not Dying with You Tonight – Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal
SLAY – Brittney Morris
Anger is a Gift: A Novel – Mark Oshiro
All American Boys – Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning – Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
Dear Martin (Book 1) – Nic Stone
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Piecing Me Together – Renée Watson
A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, & Hope – Patrice Caldwell
Genesis Begins Again – Alicia D. Williams
Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson
Middle Grade:
March: Book 1 – John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
March: Book 2 – John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
March: Book 3 – John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
The Usual Suspects – Maurice Broaddus
The New Kid – Jerry Craft
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky – Kwambe Mbalia
I Am Alfonso Jones – Tony Medina
A Good Kind of Trouble – Lisa Moore Remée
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness – Anastasia Higginbotham
Black Brother, Black Brother – Jewell Parker Rhodes
Ghost Boys – Jewel Parker Rhodes
Gone Crazy in Alabama – Rita Williams-Garcia
Children’s:
Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 – Helaine Becker
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story About Racial Injustice – Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard
Hair Love – Matthew A. Cherry
Antiracist Baby Picture Book – Ibram X. Kendi
Let’s Talk About Race – Julius Lester
Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina – Lea Lyon & Alexandria LaFaye
Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation – Duncan Tonatium
A Kids Book About Racism – Jelani Memory
Latinx:
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents – Julia Alvarez
Children of the Land: A Memoir – Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From – Jennifer De Leon
American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures – America Ferrera
Shaming into Brown: Somatic Transactions of Race in Latina/o Literature – Stephanie Fetta
White but Not Equal : Mexican Americans, Jury Discrimination, and the Supreme Court – Ignacio M. García
Citizens but Not Americans: Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials – Nilda Flores Gonzáles
Race or Ethnicity?: On Black and Latino Identity – Jorge J.E. Gracia
The Book of Unknown Americans – Cristina Henríquez
Debating Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Identity: Jorge J. E. Gracia and His Critics – Ivan Jaksic
Being Brown : Sonia Sotomayor and the Latino Question – Lazaro Lima
Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice – Ian F. Haney López
An African American and Latinx History of the United States – Paul Ortiz
Ignored Racism: White Animus Toward Latinos – Mark D. Ramirez
Asian-American:
The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, Second Edition – Rosalind S. Chou
Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States – Lon Kurashige
Giving Form to an Asian and Latinx America – Long Le-Khac