Race and Inclusion Book List
The Friends of Roslindale Branch Library have formed a Racial Justice and Inclusiveness Committee to plan educational events, discussions, and presentations related to race, ethnicity, religion, and culture.
The listed books below are related to these topics. They have been divided by age group - adults, teens, and children - and can be borrowed from the Roslindale Library.
This is a living book list and it will be updated regularly with new books over time. We also have dedicated book lists related to Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, LGBT Pride, Women's History Month, Disability Rights and Native American Heritage Month. The BPL also maintains a Social Justice page on its website.
Adults
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice
By Adam Benforado
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
By Michelle Alexander
America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
By Jim Wallis
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
By Pamela Newkirk
Caucasia
By Danzy Senna
The Sympathizer
by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
By J. Anthony Lukas
The Underground Railroad
By Colson Whitehead
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
By Matthew Desmond
Queen Sugar
by Natalie Baszile
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White
By Frank Wu
Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote
By Gordon A. Martin
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
By Juan González
A People's History of the United States
By Howard Zinn
The Fire Next Time
By James Baldwin
Dying to Cross: The Worst Immigrant Tragedy in American History
By Jorge Ramos
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race
By Jesmyn Ward
The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
By Gish Jen
A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor
By Joe Starita
Redefining Realness: My Path To Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
By Janet Mock
Black Wealth, White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality
By Melvin Oliver
Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans With Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights
By Lennard Johnson
Living a Feminist Life
By Sarah Ahmed
Homegoing
By Yaa Gyasi
Salvage the Bones
By Jesmyn Ward
Give Us the Ballot: the Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
By Ari Berman
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice & Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations about Race
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Whistling Past the Graveyard
by Susan Crandall
To Die For The People
By Huey Newton
Journey
By Stephen H. Foreman
Waking Up White & Finding Myself in the Story
by Debby Irving
Being Muslim: A Groundwork Guide
by Harrom Siddiqui
What do Muslims Believe: The Roots & Reali
by Ziauddin Sardar
Drown
By Junot Diaz
You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
By Phoebe Robinson
Americanah
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
By Monique Morris
Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond
By Marc Lamont Hill
The House on Mango Street
By Sandra Cisneros
How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America
By Moustafa Bayoumi
Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965
By Juan Williams and Julian Bond
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
By John Lewis
The Warmth of Other Suns
By Isabel Wilkerson
The Gilded Years
By Karin Tanabe
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education
By Mychal Denzel Smith
Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut
By José M. Hernández
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Namesake
By Jhumpa Lahiri
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
By Cathy O'Neil
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
By Daisy Hernandez
The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear
By Rev. William Barber
In The Country We Love: My Family Divided
By Diane Guerrero
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in 20th Century America
By Ira Katznelson
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
By Richard Rothstein
The Making of Asian America: A History
By Erika Lee
We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future
By Deepa Iyer
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
By Ibram X. Kendi
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism
By Edward E. Baptiste
Sing, Unburied, Sing
By Jesmyn Ward
Men We Reaped: a Memoir
By Jesmyn Ward
Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam
by G. Willow Wilson
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism
By Edward E. Baptiste
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People from the Civil War to World War II
By Douglas Blackmon
We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, & Sikh Immigrants Shape the Mul
by Deepa Iyer
Teens/Young Adult
Monster
By Walter Dean Myers
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
By Christoper Paul Curtis
All American Boys
By Jason Reynolds
Letters from a Slave Girl: The Story of Harriet Jacobs
By Mary Lyons
Does My Head Look Big In This?
By Randa Abdel-fattah
Out of Darkness
By Ashley Hope Perez
Weedflower
By Cynthia Kadohata
Ask Me No Questions
By Marina Budhos
When I was Puerto Rican
By Esmeralda Santiago
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By Sherman Alexie
We Love You, Charlie Freeman
By Kaitlyn Greenidge
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
By Julia Alvarez
Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path of Peace
by Patricia Raybon & Alana Raybon
Lucy And Linh
By Alice Pung
The Arab of the Future 2: A Childhood in the Middle East (1984-1985)
By Riad Sattouf
Children
The Story of Ruby Bridges
By Robert Coles
The Hijab Boutique
By Michelle Khan
Baseball Saved Us
By Ken Mochizuki
Shooting Kabul
By N.H. Senzai
Brown Girl Dreaming
By Jacqueline Woodson
Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story
By Nora Raleigh Baskin
Mixed Me!
By Taye Diggs
Six Million Paper Clips: The Making of a Children’s Holocaust Memorial
By Peter W. Schroeder
King For A Day
By Rukhsana Khan
El Pez Arco Iris
By Marcus Pfister
Nappy Hair
by Carolivia Herron
Sonia Sotomayor
By Katleen Krull
Thunder Boy Jr.
By Sherman Alexie
Don't Call Me Grandma
By Vaunda Nelson
I would like to add a book to this list- To Die For the People:the Writings of Huey Newton
with a forward by Toni Morrison
In the words of a black historian- “represents one of the most important analyses of the politics of race, black radicalism and democracy written during the civil rights/Black Power era. it remains a crucial and indispensable text in our contemporary efforts to understand the continuous legacy of social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s.”
Thanks, it’s added!