Antiracist Literature
The fight for equality and racial justice is everyone’s fight.
It’s not enough for allies to say they’re “not racist”— instead, we need to actively adopt a commitment to antiracism. One way of beginning the work of dismantling systemic racism is through education: learning about the history of oppression and racism in our country; learning about the underlying issues driving the current racial tensions in America; learning about the implicit bias and unconscious prejudice enforced by structural racism; and learning about how to be an actively anti-racist ally.
This list of antiracist literature is intended to provide book recommendations to help readers take the first step toward adopting a commitment to anti-racism by learning about the histories, policies, and systems in place in contemporary U.S. society responsible for the persistence of inequality as well as shed light on the daily realities experienced by people of color across the nation. However, scholars, activists, and booksellers are quick to point out that the work may start with reading a book, but it can’t end there. To be truly antiracist, we must take action and demand actual racial justice and equality in education, jobs, health care, and housing even after the protests have died down.
For easier navigation, our antiracist literature list is organized into the following categories: (1) History of Race in America, (2) Black Feminism, (3) Introduction to Antiracism, (4) BLM Movement, (5) Persistence of Racism, and (6) Additional Anti-racist Resources.
It’s not enough for allies to say they’re “not racist”— instead, we need to actively adopt a commitment to antiracism. One way of beginning the work of dismantling systemic racism is through education: learning about the history of oppression and racism in our country; learning about the underlying issues driving the current racial tensions in America; learning about the implicit bias and unconscious prejudice enforced by structural racism; and learning about how to be an actively anti-racist ally.
This list of antiracist literature is intended to provide book recommendations to help readers take the first step toward adopting a commitment to anti-racism by learning about the histories, policies, and systems in place in contemporary U.S. society responsible for the persistence of inequality as well as shed light on the daily realities experienced by people of color across the nation. However, scholars, activists, and booksellers are quick to point out that the work may start with reading a book, but it can’t end there. To be truly antiracist, we must take action and demand actual racial justice and equality in education, jobs, health care, and housing even after the protests have died down.
For easier navigation, our antiracist literature list is organized into the following categories: (1) History of Race in America, (2) Black Feminism, (3) Introduction to Antiracism, (4) BLM Movement, (5) Persistence of Racism, and (6) Additional Anti-racist Resources.
History of Race in America
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
Ronald Takaki
Takaki addresses minority perspectives of multicultural America by providing histories of different ethnic groups; public attitudes, policies, and laws toward minorities during certain periods; and perceptions of the minority group members toward their own situation.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States
Paul Ortiz
Ortiz draws on rich narratives and primary source documents to illustrate the intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights and, ultimately, offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights.
Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy
Darryl Pinckney
Through the combination of memoir, historical narrative, contemporary political analysis, and personal experience, Pinckney investigates the struggle for Black voting rights from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement to the election of America’s first Black president.
Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations
Joe Feagin
Feagin illustrates the origins of racism in the U.S. and how it still pervades white culture today.
Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi
Kendi chronicles the entire history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society, and he also offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking in our own lives.
The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America
Anders Walker
Walker re-examines the history of civil rights in the U.S. through the lens of a generation of prominent intellectual scholars and demonstrates with great clarity and insight that racial segregation fostered not simply terror and violence, but also diversity.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
Rothstein exposes how American governments deliberately imposed, as well as continuously reinforced, racial segregation in neighborhoods nationwide, forcing us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority
Ellen D. Wu
Wu explains the emergence of Asian Americans as the “model minority” stereotype—peoples distinct from the white majority but praised as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values—during the mid-twentieth century, and she reveals how this influential process continues to have profound implications for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood today.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander
Alexander breaks down the historic "war on crime" and how the explosive increase in the number U.S. citizens incarcerated, namely Black men, is just another trickier, evolved, version of slavery and Jim Crow.
Ronald Takaki
Takaki addresses minority perspectives of multicultural America by providing histories of different ethnic groups; public attitudes, policies, and laws toward minorities during certain periods; and perceptions of the minority group members toward their own situation.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States
Paul Ortiz
Ortiz draws on rich narratives and primary source documents to illustrate the intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights and, ultimately, offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights.
Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy
Darryl Pinckney
Through the combination of memoir, historical narrative, contemporary political analysis, and personal experience, Pinckney investigates the struggle for Black voting rights from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement to the election of America’s first Black president.
Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations
Joe Feagin
Feagin illustrates the origins of racism in the U.S. and how it still pervades white culture today.
Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi
Kendi chronicles the entire history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society, and he also offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking in our own lives.
The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America
Anders Walker
Walker re-examines the history of civil rights in the U.S. through the lens of a generation of prominent intellectual scholars and demonstrates with great clarity and insight that racial segregation fostered not simply terror and violence, but also diversity.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
Rothstein exposes how American governments deliberately imposed, as well as continuously reinforced, racial segregation in neighborhoods nationwide, forcing us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority
Ellen D. Wu
Wu explains the emergence of Asian Americans as the “model minority” stereotype—peoples distinct from the white majority but praised as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values—during the mid-twentieth century, and she reveals how this influential process continues to have profound implications for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood today.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander
Alexander breaks down the historic "war on crime" and how the explosive increase in the number U.S. citizens incarcerated, namely Black men, is just another trickier, evolved, version of slavery and Jim Crow.
Black Feminism
Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women & Feminism
bell hooks
Hooks investigates the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the Civil Rights Movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s, arguing that the convergence of sexism and racism during slavery contributed to Black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in American society.
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Patricia Hill Collins
Collins explores the words and ideas of prominent Black feminist intellectuals, using an interpretive framework to share the under-recognized rich intellectual tradition of African-American women, to provide the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
Brittney Cooper
Cooper argues that Black women’s anger has been distorted into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy, but that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In this collection of essays and interviews, Taylor brings together the voices of contemporary activists and the founding members of the Combahee River Collective, a ground-breaking group of radical Black feminists, as they reflect on the legacy of the organization’s contributions to Black feminism today.
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
Alice Walker
Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist in this anthology of early essays and other nonfiction pieces ranging from the personal to the political as she sets out to define the concept of a “womanist”.
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Janet Mock
Mock courageously relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population.
Road Map for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism, and Advocacy for All
Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, & Jamia Wilson
Page, Gerin, and Wilson deliver lessons on practical tactics for navigating and protecting one’s personal democracy in a politically volatile country in this handbook for effective activism, advocacy, and social justice for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Sister Outsider
Audre Lorde
In this collection of essays, Lorde confronts sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class to advocate for social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
In this novel, Morrison examines our society’s obsession with beauty and conformity, while also asking powerful questions about race, class, and gender, as she tells the distressing story of a young Black girl.
Women, Race & Class
Angela Y. Davis
Davis examines the history of the women’s liberation movement in the U.S. to demonstrate how the fight for freedom has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.
bell hooks
Hooks investigates the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the Civil Rights Movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s, arguing that the convergence of sexism and racism during slavery contributed to Black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in American society.
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Patricia Hill Collins
Collins explores the words and ideas of prominent Black feminist intellectuals, using an interpretive framework to share the under-recognized rich intellectual tradition of African-American women, to provide the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
Brittney Cooper
Cooper argues that Black women’s anger has been distorted into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy, but that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In this collection of essays and interviews, Taylor brings together the voices of contemporary activists and the founding members of the Combahee River Collective, a ground-breaking group of radical Black feminists, as they reflect on the legacy of the organization’s contributions to Black feminism today.
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
Alice Walker
Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist in this anthology of early essays and other nonfiction pieces ranging from the personal to the political as she sets out to define the concept of a “womanist”.
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Janet Mock
Mock courageously relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population.
Road Map for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism, and Advocacy for All
Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, & Jamia Wilson
Page, Gerin, and Wilson deliver lessons on practical tactics for navigating and protecting one’s personal democracy in a politically volatile country in this handbook for effective activism, advocacy, and social justice for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Sister Outsider
Audre Lorde
In this collection of essays, Lorde confronts sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class to advocate for social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
In this novel, Morrison examines our society’s obsession with beauty and conformity, while also asking powerful questions about race, class, and gender, as she tells the distressing story of a young Black girl.
Women, Race & Class
Angela Y. Davis
Davis examines the history of the women’s liberation movement in the U.S. to demonstrate how the fight for freedom has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.
Introduction to Antiracism
How to be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi
Kendi describes concepts of racism and their intersection with demographics like gender, class, and sexuality; summarizes historical eras of racial segregation in the U.S.; and proposes models for antiracist individual actions and systemic changes.
How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Crystal Fleming
Meant to serve as a primer on the topics of racial oppression and white supremacy, Fleming helps people understand the historical roots of white supremacy, draw connections between past and present racism, and learn concrete steps that can be taken to help dismantle systemic racism.
Killing Rage: Ending Racism
bell hooks
Responding to the lack of female voices in public discourse on race, hooks pens twenty-three essays from a Black and feminist perspective that tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it.
Me and White Supremacy
Layla Saad
Saad describes the common reasons why white people aren't actively antiracist and includes tangible steps for being a better ally.
Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach
Tanya Golash Boza
An excellent overview of systemic and institutionalized racism, Boza tackles crucial topics including the history and development of race as well as how structural racism has created inequality.
So You Want to Talk About Race
Ijeoma Oluo
Oluo answers often unspoken questions about race and racism; prompts people of all races to start having honest conversations about race; and provides readers phrases and questions to start unpacking racism within their own social networks.
The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing
Anneliese A. Singh
Singh offers powerful and practical tools to help us understand the role history plays in racial stereotypes, navigate experiences of racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, develop racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and begin to heal.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
Beverly Daniel Tatum
Tatum explains the psychology of racism underlying the dynamics of race in America and argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
Ibram X. Kendi
Kendi describes concepts of racism and their intersection with demographics like gender, class, and sexuality; summarizes historical eras of racial segregation in the U.S.; and proposes models for antiracist individual actions and systemic changes.
How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Crystal Fleming
Meant to serve as a primer on the topics of racial oppression and white supremacy, Fleming helps people understand the historical roots of white supremacy, draw connections between past and present racism, and learn concrete steps that can be taken to help dismantle systemic racism.
Killing Rage: Ending Racism
bell hooks
Responding to the lack of female voices in public discourse on race, hooks pens twenty-three essays from a Black and feminist perspective that tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it.
Me and White Supremacy
Layla Saad
Saad describes the common reasons why white people aren't actively antiracist and includes tangible steps for being a better ally.
Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach
Tanya Golash Boza
An excellent overview of systemic and institutionalized racism, Boza tackles crucial topics including the history and development of race as well as how structural racism has created inequality.
So You Want to Talk About Race
Ijeoma Oluo
Oluo answers often unspoken questions about race and racism; prompts people of all races to start having honest conversations about race; and provides readers phrases and questions to start unpacking racism within their own social networks.
The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing
Anneliese A. Singh
Singh offers powerful and practical tools to help us understand the role history plays in racial stereotypes, navigate experiences of racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, develop racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and begin to heal.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
Beverly Daniel Tatum
Tatum explains the psychology of racism underlying the dynamics of race in America and argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
BLM Movement
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Angela Davis
Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles and highlights connections to today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In this stirring and insightful analysis, Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary damages of racism and persistence of structural inequality, arguing that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond
Marc Lamont Hill
Hill provides a thoughtful analysis of state-sanctioned violence and incidents of gross negligence by governments to uncover patterns and policies of authority that allow some citizens to become disempowered, disenfranchised, poor, uneducated, exploited, vulnerable, and disposable. He also examines the effects of unfettered capitalism, mass incarceration, and political power while urging us to consider a new world in which everyone has a chance to become somebody.
The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea
Christopher LeBron
LeBron presents a condensed and accessible intellectual history of the ideas that have built into the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and argues that the plea that “Black Lives Matter” comes out of a much older and richer tradition arguing for the equal dignity of Black people.
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele
Khan-Cullors describes the experiences and events leading up to her co-founding #BlackLivesMatter (with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi), which began the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of color.
Angela Davis
Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles and highlights connections to today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In this stirring and insightful analysis, Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary damages of racism and persistence of structural inequality, arguing that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond
Marc Lamont Hill
Hill provides a thoughtful analysis of state-sanctioned violence and incidents of gross negligence by governments to uncover patterns and policies of authority that allow some citizens to become disempowered, disenfranchised, poor, uneducated, exploited, vulnerable, and disposable. He also examines the effects of unfettered capitalism, mass incarceration, and political power while urging us to consider a new world in which everyone has a chance to become somebody.
The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea
Christopher LeBron
LeBron presents a condensed and accessible intellectual history of the ideas that have built into the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and argues that the plea that “Black Lives Matter” comes out of a much older and richer tradition arguing for the equal dignity of Black people.
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele
Khan-Cullors describes the experiences and events leading up to her co-founding #BlackLivesMatter (with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi), which began the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of color.
Persistence of Racism
American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship
Niambi Carter
Carter argues that African American’s use the issue of immigration as a way to understand the nature and meaning of their American citizenship⏤specifically the way that white supremacy structures and constrains their place in the American political landscape⏤and draws on original interviews and empirical data on African American political opinion to offer the first theory of Black public opinion toward immigration.
Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Bonilla-Silva makes a powerful argument against the idea that race doesn't exist, or that being "colorblind" is an appropriate solution to racism, by helping readers understand how the rhetoric of colorblindness reinforces the racial status quo.
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Muhammad chronicles the emergence of deeply embedded notions of Black people as a dangerous race of criminals and reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
White Rage: the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Carol Anderson
Anderson provides a critical reflection on why racism persists in the U.S. and explores how each time blacks in America have made progress, there has been strong white backlash.
Niambi Carter
Carter argues that African American’s use the issue of immigration as a way to understand the nature and meaning of their American citizenship⏤specifically the way that white supremacy structures and constrains their place in the American political landscape⏤and draws on original interviews and empirical data on African American political opinion to offer the first theory of Black public opinion toward immigration.
Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Bonilla-Silva makes a powerful argument against the idea that race doesn't exist, or that being "colorblind" is an appropriate solution to racism, by helping readers understand how the rhetoric of colorblindness reinforces the racial status quo.
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Muhammad chronicles the emergence of deeply embedded notions of Black people as a dangerous race of criminals and reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
White Rage: the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Carol Anderson
Anderson provides a critical reflection on why racism persists in the U.S. and explores how each time blacks in America have made progress, there has been strong white backlash.
Additional Antiracist Resources
America’s Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM)
ABHM is a memorial museum dedicated to building public awareness of the harmful legacies of slavery in America and promoting racial repair, reconciliation, and healing. Visit ABHM at 401 W. North Ave. in MIlwaukee, WI, or visit their website’s 3200+ page Virtual Museum.
“14 Resources to Educate Yourself on Racism and Anti-Racism”
Elizabeth Johnson, Milwaukee Magazine
“A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources”
Katie Couric, Medium
“Anti-Racist Resource Guide”
Victoria Alexander
“Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Reading List”
Layla Saad, The Guardian
“The False Promise of Anti-Racism Books”
Saida Grundy, The Atlantic
“The Black Women Who Launched the Original Anti-Racist Reading List”
Ashley Dennis, The Washington Post
“What Is An Anti-Racist Reading List For?”
Lauren Michele Jackson, Vulture
ABHM is a memorial museum dedicated to building public awareness of the harmful legacies of slavery in America and promoting racial repair, reconciliation, and healing. Visit ABHM at 401 W. North Ave. in MIlwaukee, WI, or visit their website’s 3200+ page Virtual Museum.
“14 Resources to Educate Yourself on Racism and Anti-Racism”
Elizabeth Johnson, Milwaukee Magazine
“A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources”
Katie Couric, Medium
“Anti-Racist Resource Guide”
Victoria Alexander
“Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Reading List”
Layla Saad, The Guardian
“The False Promise of Anti-Racism Books”
Saida Grundy, The Atlantic
“The Black Women Who Launched the Original Anti-Racist Reading List”
Ashley Dennis, The Washington Post
“What Is An Anti-Racist Reading List For?”
Lauren Michele Jackson, Vulture