Death at an Early Age

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too

Christopher Emdin

"Multiplication Is for White People": Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children

Lisa Delpit · 234 pages

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Monique Morris · 277 pages

"Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almo

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates · 155 pages

An Amazon Best Book of July 2015: Readers of his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his thoughtful and influential writing on race in America. Written as a series of letters to his teenaged son, his new memoir, Between the World and Me, walks us through the course of his life, from the tough neighborhoods of Baltimore in his youth, to Howard University—which Coates dubs “

Readings for Diversity and Social Justice

Maurianne Adams, Carmelita Rosie Castaneda, Heather W. Hackman, Madeline L. Peters, Ximena Zuniga, Warren J. Blumenfeld · 652 pages

But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: Black Women's Studies

Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, Barbara Smith · 418 pages

Winner of the Outstanding Women of Colour Award, and the Women Educator's Curriculum Material Award. This ground-breaking collection provides a wealth of materials needed to develop course units on black women, from political theory to literary essays on major writers to work on black women's contributions to the blues. Bibliographies and a collection of syllabi provide readers with essential clas

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

Michael Lewis · 345 pages

Follows one young man from his impoverished childhood with a crack-addicted mother, through his discovery of the sport of football, to his rise to become one of the most successful, highly-paid players in the NFL.

Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington · 192 pages

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transi

The Water is Wide

Pat Conroy · 260 pages

"A young white teacher goes to an island off the coast of South Carolina to teach a group of functionally illiterate black children. Yamacraw Island is backward and primitive, a world for the most part left untouched by the 20th century....By ignoring the textbooks and concentrating on meaningful situations and dialogue...he begins to make headway. He also, unfortunately arouses the ire of the pow

Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98

George Dawson, Richard Glaubman · 280 pages

Lies My Teacher Told Me

James W. Loewen · 414 pages

Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has gone on to win an American Book Award, the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and to sell over half a million copies in its various editions. What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls "an extremely convincin

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama · 384 pages

Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics--a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in Congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of our democracy. He explores those forces--from the fear of losing, to the perpetual need to raise money, to the power

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

bell hooks · 208 pages

In Teaching to Transgress bell hooks—writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual—writes about a new kind of education, *education as the practice of freedom*. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.

White Teacher

Vivian Gussin Paley · 140 pages

Vivian Paley presents a moving personal account of her experiences teaching kindergarten in an integrated school within a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood. In a new preface, she reflects on the way that even simple terminology can convey unintended meanings and show a speaker's blind spots. She also vividly describes what her readers have taught her over the years about herself as a

The Freedom Writers Diary

Erin Gruwell, Zlata Filipovic, The Freedom Writers · 292 pages

Shocked by the teenage violence she witnessed during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Erin Gruwell became a teacher at a high school rampant with hostility and racial intolerance. For many of these students--whose ranks included substance abusers, gang members, the homeless, and victims of abuse--Gruwell was the first person to treat them with dignity, to believe in their potential and help t

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray · 845 pages

Breaking new ground and old taboos, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray tell the story of a society in transformation. At the top, a cognitive elite is forming in which the passkey to the best schools and the best jobs is no longer social background but high intelligence. At the bottom, the common denominator of the underclass is increasingly low intelligence rather than racial or social disa

Just Mercy a story of justice and redemption By Bryan Stevenson & So You Want to Talk About Race By Ijeoma Oluo 2 Books Collection Set

Bryan Stevenson, Ijeoma Oluo

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education

John Taylor Gatto · 104 pages

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa · 265 pages

A statistical analysis of survey responses, transcript data, and the Collegiate Learning Assessment to determine how well students learn during their first few years of college. The analysis shows almost half the students surveyed show no significant improvement in skills such as critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing. The analysis goes on to consider possible causes for this educatio

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

Paul Tough · 256 pages

Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in this book the author argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-con

Among Schoolchildren

Tracy Kidder · 340 pages

Year-long case study of a fifth-grade Holyoke, Massachusetts, teacher and her class.

We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

Myles Horton, Paulo Freire · 276 pages

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X, Alex Haley · 484 pages