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[ellierreads]

Nonfiction Book List

A collection of nonfiction books by Black authors and/or related to intersectional race and gender studies, history, as well as other various topics. The list below is a compilation of various lists I have seen on Instagram, as well as research I’ve done on my own. I am sure I am missing important works, and am happy to add anything that is suggested. This list will be regularly added to and updated. 

Race & Anti-Racism

Diangeo, Robin - White Fragility

Eddo-Lodge, Renni - Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Kendi, Ibrahim X. - How to Be Anti-Racist

Mahzarin, Banaji & Greenwald, Anthony - Blindspot

Oluo, Ijeoma - So you want to talk about race

Omi and Winant - Racial Formation in the United States

Rankine, Claudia - Citizen

Roberts, Dorothy - Killing the Black Body

Smith, Andrea - Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy

Sowell, Thomas - Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Waheema & Lubiano - The House that Race Built

Ward, Jesmyn - The Fire This Time

Prison Abolition & the Justice System

Alexander, Michelle - The New Jim Crow

Davis, Angela - Are Prisons Obsolete?

Murakawa, Naomi - The First Civil Right

Stefanic & Delgado - Critical Race Theory: An Introduction

Stevenson, Bryan - Just Mercy

Rothstein, Richard - The Color of Law  

Policing

Vitale, Alex S. - The End of Policing

Intersectional Feminism

Bambara, Toni Cade - The Black Woman, An Anthology

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

Cooper, Brittney - Eloquent Rage

Collins, Patricia Hill - Black Feminist Thought

Collins, Patricia Hill - Black Sexual Politics

Cottom, Tressie McMillan - THICK and Other Essays

Crenshaw, Kimberle - On Intersectionality

Davis, Angela - Women, Race, & Class

Davis, Dána-Ain - Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth

Gay, Roxane - Bad Feminist

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline - Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugivity

Hernandez, Ed. Daisy and Rehman, Bushra - Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism

hooks, bell - Ain’t I a Woman

hooks, bell - All About Love

hooks, bell - Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

Jenkins, Morgan - This Will Be My Undoing

Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E. - They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Kendall, Mikki - Hood Feminism

Lorde, Audre - Sister Outsider

Morales, Rosario - This Bridge Called My Back

Morgan, Joan - When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip Hop Feminist Breaks it Down

Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ - The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses

Shakur, Assata - Assata: An Autobiography

Simpson, Leanne Beta - As We Have Always Done

Williamson, Terrion L. - Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist Practice and the Making of Black Social Life

Wilson & Russell - Divided Sisters

Yamahtta-Taylor, Keeanga - How We Get Free

Masculinity

hooks, bell - The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

hooks, bell - We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity

History

Asante Jr., M.A. - It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation

Baldwin, James - The Fire Next Time

Berry, Daina Ramey & Gross, Kali Nicole - A Black Women’s History of the United States

Gates Jr., Henry Louis - Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

Blackmon, Douglas A. - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Du Bois, W.E.B. - The Souls of Black Folk

Hartman, Saidiya - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

Hurston, Zora Neale - Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”

Johnson, E. Patrick - Black, Queer, Southern Women.: An Oral History

Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E. - They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Kendi, Ibram X. - Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Snorton, C. Riley - Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

Taylor, Candacy A. - Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America

Washington, Harriet A. - Medical Apartheid

Wilkerson, Isabel - The Warmth of Other Suns

Zinn, Howard - A People’s History of the United States

Politics/Economy

Anderson, Carol - One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

Baptist, Edward E. - The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Psychology

Menakem, Resmaa - My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

Tatum, Beverly Daniel - "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity

Literary Criticism

Morrison, Toni - Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

Education

hooks, bell - Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

Science & Technology

Benjamin, Ruha - Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Skloot, Rebecca - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Shetterly, Margot Lee - Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

Autobiography/Memoir

Angelou, Maya - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Bernard, Emily - Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine

Broom, Sarah M. - The Yellow House

Brown, Austin Channing - I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Coates, Ta-Nehisi - The Beautiful Struggle

Coates, Ta-Nehisi - Between the World and Me

Hinton, Anthony Ray - The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

hooks, bell - Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood

Jones, Saeed - How We Fight For Our Lives

Khan-Kullors, Patrisse and Bandele, Asha - When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

Laymon, Kiese - Heavy: An American Memoir

Mock, Janet - Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

Noah, Trevor - Born a Crime

Obama, Barack - Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Obama, Michelle - Becoming

Shakur, Assata - Assata: An Autobiography

Welteroth, Elaine - More Than Enough

Wright, Richard - Black Boy

X, Malcolm - The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Comedy

Bell, W. Kamau - The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

Haddish, Tiffany - The Last Black Unicorn

Rae, Issa - The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

Robinson, Phoebe - You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain