The Purpose of This Page

The Social Justice Education book resource page for learners lists several books ranging from racism, intersectionality, and race that are meant to develop and strengthen your understanding of social injustice and justice by guiding your self-exploration and self-learning.

• Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Y. Davis
• Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur 
• Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave My Bondage and My Freedom Life and Times by Frederick Douglass
• I am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin
• James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming
• Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela 
• Revolutionary Suicide  by Huey P. Newton
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley 
• The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King (Jr.) and Clayborne Carso

• Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation by Sarah Knopp & Jeff Bale
• Education for Critical Consciousness by Paulo Friere
• On Intellectual Activism by Patricia Hill Collins
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire 
• Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman
• Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by bell hooks
• Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom by bell hooks
• Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks
• Theories of Knowledge: How to Think about What You Know by Joseph H. Shieber
• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
• The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann
• The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race by Caprice Hollins and llsa Govan 
• Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusive Excellence: Transdisciplinary and Global Perspectives by Seth N Asumah and Mechthild Nagel (eds)
• Inclusive Conversations: Fostering Equity, Empathy, and Belonging across Differences by Mary-Frances Winters
• Inclusive Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Developing and Executing an Impactful Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: - Locally and Globally by Charlotte Sweeney and Fleur Bothwick
• One Without the Other: Stories of Unity Through Diversity and Inclusion by Shelley Moore
• Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships Across Differences by Tiffany Jana and Matthew Freeman
• The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh
• Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright 

• Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
• Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women by Brittney Cooper
• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
• Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice edited by Bonnie Thorton Dill, Ruth Enid Zambrana, and Patricia Hill Collins
• Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks
• Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center by bell hooks
• Intersectionality by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge
• Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries by Vivian M May
• Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology by Margaret L. Anderson and Patricia Hill Collins
• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde and Cheryl Clarke
• Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics (The Politics of Intersectionality) by Ange-Marie Hancock
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
• Women, Race, and Class by Angela Y. Davis
• Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics by bell hooks

• Brotherhood of Corruption: A Cop Breaks the Silence on Police Abuse, Brutality, and Racial Profiling by Juan Antonio Juarez 
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams
• Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter edited by Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton 
• The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea by Christopher J. Lebron
• Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission by Barry Friedman
• Violence Against Black Bodies: An Intersectional Analysis of How Black Lives Continue to Matter edited by Sandra E. Weissinger, Dwayne A. Mack, and Elwood Watson
• White People and Black Lives Matter: Ignorance, Empathy, and Justice by Johanna C. Luttrell 
• Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?: Police Violence and Resistance in the United States by Maya Schenwar, Joe Macare, Alana Yu-lan Price, and Alicia Garza

• Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture by Angela Y. Davis
• A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon 
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble
• Being Unequal: How Identity Helps Make and Break Power and Privilege by Peter L. Callero
• Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt 
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
• Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke
• Class, Race, and Marxism by David Roediger
• Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire 
• Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing by Miranda Fricker
• How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa by Olufemi Taiwo
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
• I Don’t See Color: Personal and Critical Perspectives on White Privilege edited by Bettina Bergo and Tracey Nicholls
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild 
• Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient by Edward Said
• Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa edited by Paul E. Lovejoy and Toyin
• Power Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault 
• Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson
• Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality by Kathleen J. Fitzgerald
• The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in the 17th Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne
• The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
• The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Baptist Edward
• The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth by Tom Burgis
• Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
• White Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Consciousness by Joe Feagin and Eileen O’ Brien
• Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Marimba Ani

• Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing The Black Radical Tradition, From W.E.B Du Bois and C.L.R James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabal by Reiland Rabaka
• An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race in America by George Yancy 
• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson
• Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race by Charles W. Mills
• Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past (American Crossroads, 10) by David R. Roediger 
• Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
• Critique of Black Reason by Achille Mbembe 
• Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society (3 Vol Set) by Richard T. Schaefer
• Everyone is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race by Daniel J. Fairbanks
• Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts
• From Babylon to Timbuktu: A History of the Ancient Black Races Including the Black Hebrews by Rudolph R. Windsor
• How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society by Manning Marable
• How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Eclipse of Post-Racialism by David R. Roediger
• Living Black History: How Reimagining the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future by Manning Marable
• Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa by Cheikh Anta Diop 
• Race: Are We So Different? by Alan H. Goodman, Yolanda T. Moses, and Joseph L. Jones
• Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant 
• Representing Race: Racisms, Ethnicity, and the Media by John Downing and Charles Husband 
• Rethinking the American Race Problem by Roy L. Brooks
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi 
• Superior: The Return of Race Science by Saini Angela
• The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality by Cheikh Anta Diop
• The Black Imagine in the Whited Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 by George M. Fredrickson 
• The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America by Shelby Steele
• The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation by Stuart Hall
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward
• The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life by Manning Marable
• The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
• The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control by Theodore W. Allen and Jeffrey B. Perry
• The Invention of the White Race, Volume 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America by Theodore W. Allen and Jeffrey B. Perry
• The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
• The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea by Robert Wald Sussman 
• They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima 
• Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race by Patrick Wolfe 
• White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness by Berger Maurice
• White on White/Black on Black by George Yancy and Cornel West
• “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni-Eddo-Lodge

• Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change by John Lewis
• As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation by Zoe Samudzi and William C. Anderson
• Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ejeris Dixon
• Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism by Charles W. Mills
• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
• How to Re-imagine the World: A Pocket Guide for Practical Visionaries by Anthony Weston
• How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance by Angela Y. Davis
• Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century by Barbara Ransby
• Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
• Overcoming Epistemic Injustice: Social and Psychological Perspectives edited by Benjamin Sherman and Stacey Goguen
• Overcoming Our Racism: The Journey to Liberation by Derald Wing Sue 
• Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
• Race Talk and Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race by Derald Wing Sue
• The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues by Angela Y. Davis and Robin Kelley
• Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radicial Movements by Charlene A. Carruthers  
• Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel
• Why We Can’t-Wait (King Legacy) by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

• A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America by Shelby Steele 
• Alienation and Freedom by Frantz Fanon and Steven Corcoran
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama (Radical Thinkers) by Manning Marable 
• Black Wealth White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality by Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro 
• Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell
• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
• Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives Are Surveilled and How to Work for Change by Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith
• Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Barbara J. Fields and Karen Fields
• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran
• The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C to 2000 A.D. by Chancellor Williams
• The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality by Thomas M. Shapiro
• These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore
• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• Thicker than Blood: How Racial Statistics Lie by Tukufu Zuberi
• Toward the African Revolution by Frantz Fanon 
• Toxic Inequality: How America’s Wealth Gap Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide and Threatens Our Future by Thomas M. Shapiro 
• When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson
• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
• White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

• A State-By-State History of Race and Racism in the United States by Patricia Reid-Merritt
• Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America by George Yancy
• Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon 
• Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression by Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan
• How Racism Takes Place by George Lipsitz
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 
• killing rage: Ending Racism by bell hooks
• Microaggressions and Modern Racism: Endurance and Evolution by Charisse C. Levchak
• Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America (Critical America) by Jody Armour 
• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing by Joy DeGruy
• Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (Radical Thinkers) by Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein
• Racism: A Short History by George M. Fredrickson
• Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, Future Reparations by Joe R. Feagin
• Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James
• The Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane H. Hill
• The Habits of Racism: A Phenomenology of Racism and Racialized Embodiment by Helen Ngo 
• The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States by Winthrop D. Jordan
• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon 
• Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice by David Pilgrim
• When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Khan-Cullors Patrisse and Bandele Asha
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo 
• White Racism (2nd Edition) edited by Joe R. Feagin, Pinar Batur, and Hernan Vera

• Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines edited by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz
• White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-racism: How Does It Feel to Be a White Problem? edited by George Yancy

• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
• Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris
• The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby 
• The Mis-Education of The Negro by Carter G. Woodson
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

• Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis
• A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington
• Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America by Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton 
• Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States by Carl A. Zimring
• Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr. 
• Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster
• Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
• Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression by Joe R. Feagin 
• Systemic Racism in the United States: Scaffolding as Social Construction by Robbie Tourse, Johnnie Hamilton-Mason, and Nancy Wewiorski
• Systemic Racism: Making Liberty, Justice, and Democracy Real by Ruth Thompson-Miller and Kimberley Ducey
• The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill
• The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing by Anneliese A. Singh
• Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks

• Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery by Seymour Drescher
• Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery by David Brion Davis
• Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke
• From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture by David Brion Davis
• Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World by David Brion Davis
• Questioning Slavery by James Walvin
• Slavery and The Slave Trade: A Short Illustrated History by James Walvin
• Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackman
• The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation by David Brion Davis
• The Slave Trade by Hugh Thomas
• The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, Revised Edition by James A. Rawley and Stephen D. Behrendt

*Please note that this page will be updated regularly because this is not an exhaustive list of book resources for learners.