Books about Black History that have informed who I am today: Part III

Books are a lifeline for me. I read as much as I can, to challenge my own understanding of the world, to gain insight into and analysis about how systems of oppression work and to be inspired by those who have come before me.

The books about Black History that have informed and formed who I am today, will be in three categories: 1) books about Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement; 2) books about the larger Black Freedom Struggle up to and including the Civil Rights Movement, and 3) book that have been written in the past 50 years, books that have expanded my understanding of the Black Freedom Struggle and why we need to dismantle the system of White Supremacy!

Two weeks ago, we posted a list from category #1. Last week we posted a list of books about the larger Black Freedom Struggle up to and including the Civil Rights Movement. Today, we are sharing the the list of books that have been written in the past 50 years, books that have expanded my understanding of the Black Freedom Struggle. These books primarily deal with how Structural Racism and the system of White Supremacy continues to morph into new ways, always defending the system of White Supremacy, especially since the Neo-Liberal push back against the gains made by the Black Freedom Struggle in the 1950s through the late 1970s.

Black Liberation and the American Dream: The Struggle for Racial and Economic Justice, edited by Paul Le Blanc

Black Looks: Race and Representation, by bell hooks

Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, by bell hooks

Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race, and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s – 70s New Left Organizing, by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy

Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender and Race in US Culture, by Joy James

Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths About Mass incarceration, by Victoria Law

Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons and Torture, by Angela Davis

Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century, by Barbara Ransby

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michele Alexander

The Meaning of Freedom and Other Difficult Dialogues, by Angela Davis

The Nation of No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, by William Anderson

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, by Carol Anderson

White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide, by Dylan Rodriquez

A Field Guide to White Supremacy, edited by Kathleen Belew and Ramon Gutierrez

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, by Charlene Carruthers

How to Be Less Stupid about Race, by Crystal Fleming

As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation, by Zoe Samudzi and William Anderson

Presidential: Black America and the Presidents, by Margaret Kimberely

Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond, by Marc Lamont Hill

How to Be an AntiRacist, by Ibram X. Kendi

Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie Glaude Jr.

We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, by Mariame Kaba