LibGuides: Virtual Library Book Displays: Black Lives Matter (Feb 2021)

Books about Black Lives Matter

Spiritual Care in an Age Of #BlackLivesMatter

The Struggle over Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Black Student Union Recommendations

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Call Number: Leisure Books (2nd Floor)
From prize-winning, bestselling author Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
Call Number: Leisure Books (2nd Floor)
"You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have." So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. "There is a fix," Acho says. "But in order to access it, we're going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations."
A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry; Kali Nicole Gross
Call Number: Leisure Books (2nd Floor)
In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism.
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Call Number: E185.61 .B2 1984
In an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad are as powerful today as when they were first written.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Call Number: PS3555.L625 I5 1992
The book's nameless narrator describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", before retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Call Number: PS3515.U789 T5 2000
Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.
Native Son by Richard Wright
Call Number: PS3545.R815 N25
Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection of the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
Call Number: E185.2 .B545 2009
This groundbreaking historical expose unearths the lost stories of enslaved persons and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude shortly thereafter in "The Age of Neoslavery."
Sula by Toni Morrison
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 S9 1974
Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio.
James Baldwin: Early Novels and Stories (LOA #97) by James Baldwin
Call Number: I-Share
Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwin's short fiction, including the masterful "Sonny's Blues," the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: "For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Call Number: PS3573.A425 C6 1982
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Call Number: I-Share
The visionary author's masterpiece pulls us--along with her Black female hero--through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Call Number: PZ7.1.T3655 H38 2017
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Call Number: PS3607.Y37 H66 2016
Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.
The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
Call Number: I-Share
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.

Black Lives Matter Spotify Playlist

Lemonade (Beyonce)
DAMN (Kendrick Lamar)
blkswan (Smino)
What's Going On (Marvin Gaye)
Songs in the Key of Life (Stevie Wonder)
Straight Outta Compton (N.W.A.0
The Score (The Fugees)
Untitled, Unmastered (Kendrick Lamar)
Homecoming (Beyonce)
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Lauryn Hil)

@AugustanaBSU (Twitter and Instagram)

@Theroot (Instagram)

@embracingblackculture (Instagram)

I am not your Negro (available to stream on Netflix and Tubi)
POV: Whose Streets?
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (available to stream on Netflix)
LA 92 (available to stream on Netflix)
Slavery by Another Name

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