20 Books About Black Lives Matter and Civil Rights to Put on Your Essential Reading List

In the form of two letters written on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963, the incredible James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is both personal and educational. The shorter letter is written to his nephew about being Black in America, and the longer one shares thoughts on race, religion, and life. It’s a great place to start when comparing the Civil Rights era to today — you’ll see how much, and how little, has changed.

In her book, The New Jim Crow, legal scholar Michelle Alexander challenges the idea that the turn of the decade and the election of President Obama meant that American society was seeing past race—which, even if it was true, oversimplifies the struggles that Black people face. Alexander presents the facts: the US criminal justice system is a form of racial control and perpetuates the American racial caste.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah is a story of two Nigerians, one who moves to America, and another who moves to England. While it is a fictional love story, it sheds light on the lives of Black immigrants, and how having a strong connection to a homeland poses a different set of struggles.

Poet and essayist Claudia Rankine’s book, Citizen, unpacks racism in contemporary society, from micro-aggressions to intentional offensives. With specific instances in the twenty-first century, like media comments about tennis star Serena Williams, to coded language in daily life, Rankine illuminates how these aggressions weigh on a person’s ability to speak, perform, exist in the public eye, and simply stay alive.

In Between the World and Me, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates pens a series of essays in the form of a letter to his son. Coates identifies the role race in America has played in shaping the country’s history, and how present-day society still operates on a system of systemic oppression—from police brutality and the death of Michael Brown, to the flawed justice system that allowed Trayvon Martin’s killer to walk free, and the undeniable, constant threats that target Black bodies in the US.

World-famous activist Angela Davis uses Freedom Is a Constant Struggle as a way to connect the Black American experience with other issues of state violence and oppression around the world. She tackles topics from Black feminism, to intersectionality, to prison abolitionism, highlighting the Black Freedom Movement, the anti-Apartheid movement, and the cruelty from Ferguson to Palestine, challenging readers to build a world where human liberation is a reality.

Comedian Phoebe Robinson takes a different approach to portraying the Black experience than many of the other books on this list. Using pop culture references and a candid sense of humor, You Can’t Touch My Hair discusses race and feminism in a way that makes her narrative accessible without divorcing it from history.

Journalist Wesley Lowery calls out the unacceptable amount of police violence in America and demands justice for the Black lives lost at their hands, like Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray. They Can’t Kill Us All considers the factors that have obstructed racial equality, and offers a glimpse of what it’s like to try to report on and put a stop to these crimes.

Professor and journalist Marc Lamont Hill examines state violence in America, analyzing the deaths of Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin, the government negligence that has prevented Flint, Michigan from having clean water, and the ways our authoritative and capitalist systems exploit certain groups more than others. Nobody looks at what it’s like to be exactly that — a Nobody in twenty-first century America.

The scope of White Rage spans from the Civil War to contemporary life, looking to reframe conversations about race by focusing on the opposing forces to Black progress in America. Historian Carol Anderson’s detailed linking of past and present lifts the veil on governmental decisions made in the name of democracy and economic responsibility.

Author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor examines the social, political, and economic aspects of the persistent, racist structures in America society like mass incarceration, police murders, and Black unemployment. Written in 2016, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation makes the case that the newest struggle against police brutality has the potential to create a stronger, broader push for Black liberation — a glimmer of hope in the wake of recent deaths and current protests.

Through her essays and poems about race, Jesmyn Ward’s The Fire This Time acts as a response to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Ward looks at the past, present, and future of America’s notion of race, and the progress made from Baldwin’s era up until now. Baldwin said that if we don’t solve our country’s problem of racial inequality, our society will be set ablaze, and Ward proves that that fire has already started.

Frustrated with the way discussions about race are so commonly led by those who are ignorant to its legacy and impact, British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge created a masterpiece: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Her book covers the erasure of Black history, the purpose of White dominance, and Whitewashed feminism, while also teaching ways to identify and counter racism in daily life. Her writing is applicable on a global scale, making this an essential book to understanding structural racism.

Using the life stories of five figures in American history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the legendary Angela Davis, Ibram X. Kendi traces how racist ideas were created and spread throughout society. Stamped From the Beginning argues that racism as we know it is less about ignorance or hatred, and more about finding ways to justify the discriminatory systems that are deeply engrained in America, so those who benefit can stay on top.

The cofounder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Khan-Cullors (with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi), experienced the prejudice and persecution that Black Americans are subject to firsthand, and refused to stay silent. The powerful memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist, written alongside asha bandele, sheds light on how Black lives are considered expendable in American society, and how Black people are condemned as a threat to this country. This book is both an account of resilience and perseverance, and serves as a call to action for change.

Between 2012 and 2016, the Black Lives Matter movement drew attention to violence against Black Americans, and has since given way to a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, supported by organizations and young leaders, many of them women, and many of them identifying as queer, expanding the goals to include intersectional racial justice. Historian and activist Barbara Ransby wrote Making All Black Lives Matter as a way to include the whole Black community in the movement, and serve as a resource for all people looking to make change.

Police killings, lengthy prison sentences, unequal access to education, housing, and jobs—America continues to have systems in place that will purposefully target and remove Black people from society, one way or another, one person at a time. Ben Crump, the attorney for Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, among others, wrote Open Season as a way to demand justice and protection for all Americans.

So You Want to Talk About Race is a popular guide written by Ijeoma Oluo that gives readers of all races the language to have respectful, constructive dialogue about race. From racist jokes, to hair-touching, to White supremacy, affirmative action, “model minorities,” and structural injustice, you’ll how to communicate more empathetically, and more importantly, to listen.

How to Be an Antiracist is a majorly eye-opening book for immigrants and non-White minorities in America, and will make you think about colorism within your own race or ethnicity, and the views you may have unknowingly developed through assimilation. Author Ibram X. Kendi challenges the idea that there are only two types of people: racist and not racist. Not being racist isn’t enough — being antiracist means making active choices to undo the components of society that maintain inequality.

Through a series of essays, Mikki Kendall looks at how White feminism fails to include women of color, and more specifically, Black women, in its agenda. She covers a range of topics from the hyper-sexualization of Black women, pop culture and media influence, and stigmas of mental health. This book is an explanation as to why a true feminist movement means the advancement of all women, not simply increasing the privilege of the women who already have the most. Hood Feminism makes a case for prioritizing intersectional solidarity.