LibGuides: Race and Inequality : Books/eBooks

Stack of books with yellow background Why books?

Books are perfect starting places to learn more about any topic. There is an abundance of books that are about race, racism, oppression, white privilege, and the lived experiences of marginalized people. Below are suggested reads; some are available online for free, and some can be borrowed from libraries.

Image of stack of books, yellow background (from Canva)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Author: Michelle Alexander
Publication: 2010
Description (from newjimcrow.com): The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.
A People's History of the United States
Author: Howard Zinn
Publication:1980
Description (from Harper Collins): Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace.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, the working poor, and immigrant laborers.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas
Author: Ibram X. Kendi
Publication: 2016
Description (from www.ibramxkendi.com): In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
Authors: Asha Bandele and Patrisse Cullors
Published: 2018
Description (from Google Books): Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, three women – Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors – came together to form an active response to the systemic racism causing the deaths of so many African-Americans. They simply said: Black Lives Matter; and for that, they were labelled terrorists. In this empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and award-winning author and journalist asha bandele recount the personal story that led Patrisse to become a founder of Black Lives Matter, seeking to end the culture that declares Black life expendable. Like the era-defining movement she helped create, this rallying cry demands you do not look away.

There are many ways to access books online. The majority of the books listed below are on Internet Archive. Internet Archive is a "non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more." It oversees one of the world's largest book digitization project, and has nearly 3 million public-domain books.

Some books on the Internet Archive may require you to set up a FREE account in order to borrow certain books for 2 weeks.

Prefer print? Look at our suggestions under "Tredway Library Print Books" and "I-Share Books," or, if you would like to order any of these books, look at our "BIPOC-Owned Bookstores" information!

"Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?"
Author: Beverly Daniel Tatum
Publication date: 1999
The autobiography of an ex-colored man.
Author: James Weldon Johnson
Publication date: 1912
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Author: Patricia Hill Collins
Publication date: 2000
Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings Of Plants
Author: Robin Kimmerer
Publication date: 2013
But Some of Us are Brave
Editors: Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith
Publication date: 1982
The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Publication date: 1944
Custer Died for Your Sins: an Indian Manifesto
Author: Vine Deloria, Jr.
Publication date: 1971
Invisible Man
Author: Ralph Ellison
Publication date: 1972
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Author: Dorothy E. Roberts
Publication date: 1997
Mules and Men
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Publication date: 1990
MUSE in Focus: Confronting Structural Racism
A selection of temporarily free scholarship from Project MUSE publishers on the history of structural racism in the United States and how the country can realize anti-racist reform.
Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family
Author: Pauli Murray
Publication date: 1956
Sister Outsider
Author: Audre Lorde
Publication date: 1984
The Souls of Black Folk
Author: W. E. B. Du Bois
Publication date: 1903
Still Brave
Authors: Stanlie M. James; Frances Smith Foster; Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Publication date: 2009
The Street
Author: Ann Petry
Publication date: 1947
This Bridge Called My Back : Writings by Radical Women of Color
Author: Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
Publication date: 1983
Waking Up White : And Finding Myself in the Story of Race
Author: Debby Irving
Publication date: 2014
The Warmth of Other Suns : The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Author: Isabel Wilkerson
Publication date: 2010

Ain't I a Woman by bell hooks
Call Number: E185.86 .H68
Publication Date: 1987
In this classic study, cultural critic bell hooks examines how black women, from the seventeenth century to the present day, were and are oppressed by both white men and black men and by white women.Illustrating her analysis with moving personal accounts, Ain't I a Woman is deeply critical of the racism inherent in the thought of many middle-class white feminists who have failed to address issues of race and class.While acknowledging the conflict of loyalty to race or sex is still a dilemma, hooks challenges the view that race and gender are two separate phenomena, insisting that the struggles to end racism and sexism are inextricably intertwined.
Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble
Call Number: ZA4230 .N63 2018
Publication Date: 2018
In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.
Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins
Call Number: E185.86 .C58167 2004
Publication Date: 2004
In Black Sexual Politics, one of America's most influential writers on race and gender explores how images of Black sexuality have been used to maintain the color line and how they threaten to spread a new brand of racism around the world today.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Call Number: PS3568.A572 C58 2014
Publication Date: 2014
Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship.
God Is Red by Vine Deloria
Call Number: BL2776 .D44 1973
Publication Date: 1973
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Call Number: PZ7.1.T3655 H38 2017
Publication Date: 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. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does--or does not--say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Call Number: Leisure Reading Collection (2nd floor)
Publication Date: 2017
Hidden Figures is the untold true story of the African-American female mathematicians, "colored computers," at NASA who provided the calculations that helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space, set against the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement.
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
Call Number: E184.A1 P29 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of "whiteness" for economic, scientific, and political ends.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Call Number: E184.A1 K344 2019
Publication Date: 2019
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.
I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
Call Number: E185.615 .B7335 2018
Publication Date: 2018
Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, "I had to learn what it means to love blackness," a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker, and expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Call Number: E76.8 .D86 2014
Publication Date: 2014
The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Call Number: KF373.S743 .A3 2015
Publication Date: 2015
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice--from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
Call Number: E184.O6 H64 2020
Publication Date: 2021
Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative--and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Call Number: Leisure Reading Collection (2nd floor)
Publication Date: 2017
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Call Number: E184.A1 O454 2018
Publication Date: 2018
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
Call Number: D769.8.A6 T355 2019
Publication Date: 2019
George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Publication Date: 2016
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
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young
Call Number: Leisure Reading Collection (2nd floor)
Publication Date: 2019
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as "How should I react here, as a professional black person?" and "Will this white person's potato salad kill me?" are forever relevant. What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young's efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo; Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)
Call Number: HT1521 .D486 2018
Publication Date: 2018
PLEASE SEE NOTE UNDER "SUGGESTED READING LISTS."
Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
White Rage by Carol Anderson
Call Number: E185.61 .A5438 2017
Publication Date: 2017
From the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. Carefully linking historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage.
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Call Number: DA125.A1 E33 2017
Publication Date: 2017
In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote 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. She posted a piece on her blog, entitled: "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race." Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanized by this clear hunger for open discussion, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism.
Writing Beyond Race by bell hooks
Call Number: E184.A1 H654 2013
Publication Date: 2013
What are the conditions needed for our nation to bridge cultural and racial divides? By "writing beyond race," noted cultural critic bell hooks models the constructive ways scholars, activists, and readers can challenge and change systems of domination.

Abolition of White Democracy by Joel Olson
Publication Date: 2004
Olson (political science, Northern Arizona U.) examines the American obsession with race according to its politics.
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Publication Date: 2014
In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of colour (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.
A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing by Damaris Hill
Publication Date: 2019
A revelatory work in the tradition of Claudia Rankine's Citizen, DaMaris Hill's searing and powerful narrative-in-verse bears witness to American women of color burdened by incarceration.
Breaks in the Chain: : what immigrant workers can teach America about democracy by Paul Apostolidis
Publication Date: 2010
In Breaks in the Chain, Paul Apostolidis investigates the personal life stories of a group of Mexican immigrant meatpackers who are at once typical and extraordinary.
Breathe by Imani Perry
Publication Date: 2019
Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity.
Caught by Marie Gottschalk
Publication Date: 2016
A major reappraisal of crime and punishment in America The huge prison buildup of the past four decades has few defenders, yet reforms to reduce the numbers of those incarcerated have been remarkably modest. Meanwhile, an ever-widening carceral state has sprouted in the shadows, extending its reach far beyond the prison gate. It sunders families and communities and reworks conceptions of democracy, rights, and citizenship--posing a formidable political and social challenge.
Chokehold by Paul Butler
Publication Date: 2017
With the eloquence of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the persuasive research of Michelle Alexander, a former federal prosecutor explains how the system really works, and how to disrupt it.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Publication Date: 2018
Widely heralded as a "masterful" (Washington Post) and "essential" (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law offers "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation" (William Julius Wilson).
The Constraint of Race by Linda Faye Williams
Publication Date: 2004
The Constraint of Race offers a challenging new approach to understanding the evolution of American social policy and the racial politics shaping it. Rather than focusing on the disadvantages suffered by blacks in the American welfare state, Linda Faye Williams looks at the other side of the coin: the advantages enjoyed by whites.
Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Publication Date: 2018
So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
Publication Date: 2007
Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, this page-turner about the power of family is a popular text in classrooms and a touchstone for communities across the country to engage in meaningful discussions about this essential American subject.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeang-Yamahtta Taylor
Publication Date: 2016
The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry out violence against Black people and punctured the illusion of a postracial America. The Black Lives Matter movement has awakened a new generation of activists. In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment.
Girl in Black and White by Jessie Morgan-Owens
Publication Date: 2019
When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family's freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. Famous abolitionists Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Albion Andrew would help Mary and her family in freedom, but Senator Charles Sumner saw a monumental political opportunity. Due to generations of sexual violence, Mary's skin was so light that she "passed" as white, and this fact would make her the key to his white audience's sympathy. During his sold-out abolitionist lecture series, Sumner paraded Mary in front of rapt audiences as evidence that slavery was not bounded by race.Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources and arresting images, including the daguerreotype that turned Mary into the poster child of a movement, Jessie Morgan-Owens investigates tangled generations of sexual enslavement and the fraught politics that led Mary to Sumner.
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
Publication Date: 2020
Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few.
Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin
Publication Date: 2019-09-20
Everyone comes to motherhood differently, and while all moms have to deal with choosing baby names, potty training, finding your village, and answering your kid's tough questions, some moms have to deal with a lot more than that. Writer and professor Nefertiti Austin chose to start her family by adopting. She knew she wanted to adopt a Black boy out of the Los Angeles foster care system. She also chose to do it as a single mother. All those factors would make it tough enough, but Nefertiti hadn't bargained with the lack of resources available to her, or the pushback she would get from her own family. You see, Nefertiti is Black and the path she chose to follow was nearly unheard of in her community. Like all great trailblazers, Nefertiti forged ahead.In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces off against stereotypes of single Black moms, and confronts the reality of what it looks like to raise children of color in racially charged, modern-day America.
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
Publication Date: 2008
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, The Plague of Doves--the first part of a loose trilogy that includes the National Book Award-winning The Round House and LaRose--is a gripping novel about a long-unsolved crime in a small North Dakota town and how, years later, the consequences are still being felt by the community and a nearby Native American reservation.
Policing the Planet by Jordan T. Camp (Editor); Christina Heatherton (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
Policing has become one of the urgent issues of our time, the target of dramatic movements and front-page coverage from coast to coast in the United States, and, indeed, across the world. Now a star-studded, wide-ranging collection of writers and activists offers a global response, describing ongoing struggles over policing from New York to Ferguson to Los Angeles, as well as London, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and Mexico City.
The Power of One by Judith Bloom Fradin; Dennis Brindell Fradin
Publication Date: 2004
The life of civil rights leader Daisy Bates is vividly detailed in this stirring new biography by an acclaimed husband-wife team.
Spiritual Care in an Age Of #BlackLivesMatter by Danielle J. Buhuro (Editor); Chanequa Walker-Barnes (Foreword by); Lee H. Butler (Introduction by)
Publication Date: 2019
This vital resource guide incorporates the basic understandings of spiritual care with the current social, emotional, existential and spiritual needs of African Americans simply surviving in Trump's violent America.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds; Ibram X. Kendi
Publication Date: 2020
The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future.
Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
Publication Date: 2017
As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice is heard above the rest. In his New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Isabel Wilkerson called it "an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain" and "crushingly powerful," and Beyonce tweeted about it. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop--a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.
White Guys on Campus by Nolan L. Cabrera
Publication Date: 2018
White Guys on Campus is a critical examination of race in higher education, centering Whiteness, in an effort to unveil the frequently unconscious habits of racism among White male undergraduates. Nolan L. Cabrera moves beyond the "few bad apples" frame of contemporary racism, and explores the structures, policies, ideologies, and experiences that allow racism to flourish. This book details many of the contours of contemporary, systemic racism, while engaging the possibility of White students to participate in anti-racism.

Anti-racist reading lists are circulating heavily right now. Did you know that the first anti-racist reading list was created by a black female children's librarian in 1941? Below are some suggestions to get you started on what books to seek out!

Remember that while reading is a vital and important step to understanding the history and context behind racism and oppression, learning about it doesn't stop there. Read this article by librarian Nicole A. Cooke to learn more steps.

13 Great Books About the Black Experience in America
Recommended readings from the L.A. Times.
17 Books On Race Every White Person Needs To Read
Anti-Racist Reading List (New York Times)
Anti-racist reading list created by Ibram X. Kendi, published in the New York Times.
Black Lives Matter Comics Reading List
"Comic books have always been political."
Dear White People Reading List
Reading list created by The Lit. Bar: Bookstore & Chill.
Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Reading List
Anti-racist reading list created by author Layla F Saad, published in "The Guardian."
NYC's Black-owned bookstores give us their top recommendations Black bookstore owners tell us what to read
Black bookstore owners recommend what to read.
Recommended Reading List
Recommend reading by Robin DiAngelo, author of "White Fragility."
Skokie Pubic Library Black Lives Matter Reading List
Recommended reading from the Skokie Public Library.
Suggested Reading List by Victoria Alexander
Twitter thread on books to read, by anti-racist researcher, Victoria Alexander (@victoriaalxndr).

Note about White Fragility:

Robin DiAngelo's best selling book, White Fragility, appears on many anti-racist readings lists (including some of the ones listed above), and has received many positive reviews. The Tredway Library has this book in our print collection, and can be found in most other libraries. However, it's important to be aware that this book has also been subject to serious critiques:

What's Missing From "White Fragility," by Lauren Michele Jackson

White Fragility is Real. But "White Fragility" is Flawed, by Carlos Lozada

Ordering directly from BIPOC-owned bookstores (and other businesses) is a great way to show support. Look at the bookstore recommendations below, and read why it's important to support black-owned businesses here.

12 Black-Owned Bookstores You Can Support Right Now
List created by Buzzfeed.
Black Owned Bookstores in the United States
Directory of Black-owned bookstores from the African American Literature Book Club (aalbc.com).
Books and Crannies
Books and Crannies is an independent bookstore which opened on September 20, 2016. It is located in Martinsville, VA.
Brain Lair Books
"Bookshop dedicated to developing empathy and building a community centered around the discussion of inclusive books." Located in South Bend, Indiana.
Cafe con Libros
Located in Brooklyn, New York, Cafe con Libros is a intersectional feminist community bookstore and coffee shop
Fulton Street Books and Coffee
Located in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Lit. Bar: Bookstore & Chill
Lithub's List of Black-Owned Independent Bookstores
These bookstores are ready for online orders.
MahoganyBooks
Their mission: MahoganyBooks is a local independent bookstore that believes in social entreprenuership. We take a leadership role in the African American community by promoting reading, writing, and cultural awareness as tools to improve self-esteem, self-love and ultimately our communities to enrich the lives of motivated individuals.
Semicolon Bookstore and Gallery
Chicago's only black woman-owned bookstore and gallery space.
Source Booksellers
Bookstore owned by Janet Webster Jones in Detroit, Michigan.
Word Carrier Trading Post
"Word Carrier Trading Post" is an online shop that carries books on Native American people, current and historic. It is Native American Indian owned and operated.