What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander · 301 pages
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States, but Alexander noted that the discrimination faced by African-American males is prevalent among other minorities and socio-economicall
Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition
Silky Shah · 280 pages
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 “
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change
Angela Garbes · 256 pages
The Shame Of The Nation: The Restoration Of Apartheid Schooling In America
Jonathan Kozol · 416 pages
"This is a book about betrayal of the young, who have no power to defend themselves. It is not intended to make readers comfortable." Visiting nearly 60 public schools, Kozol finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, the segregation of black children is at a l
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
Douglas S. Massey, Nancy Denton · 304 pages
Traces the development and consequences of white society's attempts to segregate and isolate blacks as they migrated from the South to other parts of America during the 20th century.
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · 702 pages
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, *A People's History of the United States* is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
Nikole Hannah-Jones · 590 pages
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
Mike Davis · 462 pages
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
William Julius Wilson · 206 pages
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race
Reni Eddo-Lodge · 272 pages
In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote on her blog about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanised, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Ex
The Souls of Black Folk
W.E.B. Du Bois · 192 pages
Du Bois' 1903 collection of essays is a thoughtful, articulate exploration of the moral and intellectual issues surrounding the perception of blacks within American society.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Barbara Ehrenreich · 240 pages
The author's experience holding low-wage jobs in three parts of the U.S. in the late 1990s.
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
Melissa V. Harris-Perry · 378 pages
Jezebel's sexual lasciviousness, Mammy's devotion, and Sapphire's outspoken anger -- these are among the most persistent stereotypes that black women encounter in contemporary American life. Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of stren
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
bell hooks · 205 pages
A world renowned author, scholar, public intellectual, and activist, bell hooks was 19 years old when she wrote *Ain't I a Woman* (published ten years later). It was her first book, and one of the first published by South End Press, an independent, np, collectively-organized publisher dedicated to advancing movements for radical social change.
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
Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010
Charles Murray · 407 pages
A critique of the white American class structure argues that the paths of social mobility that once advanced the nation are now serving to further isolate an elite upper class while enforcing a growing and resentful white underclass.
Race Matters
Cornel West · 159 pages
First published in 1993 on the one-year anniversary of the L.A. riots, Race Matters was a national best-seller, and it has since become a groundbreaking classic on race in America. Race Matters contains West’s most powerful essays on the issues relevant to black Americans today: despair, black conservatism, black-Jewish relations, myths about black sexuality, the crisis in leadership in the bla
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America
Michael Eric Dyson · 228 pages
Fifty years ago, when a white woman asked Malcolm X what she could do for the cause, he told her "Nothing." Now, Michael Eric Dyson believes he was wrong and responds that if society is to make real racial progress, people must face difficult truths-- including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.
Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed
Jason L. Riley · 210 pages
The author believes that "many efforts by liberals to help the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries. The intentions behind welfare programs may be noble, but in practice they have slowed the self-development that was necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they also have a long history o
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
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
Joe Bageant · 288 pages
After thirty years spent scratching together a middle-class life out of a "dirt-poor" childhood, Joe Bageant moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, where he realized that his family and neighbors were the very people who carried George W. Bush to victory. That was ironic, because Winchester, like countless American small towns, is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. T