Research and Course Guides: Anti-racism: Books

Anti-racism books

The books listed here are all in the Library's collection, but we are looking to grow that collection. If you know of other books that we should add, please let us know!

We've seen a big demand for books on this topic recently. Most of the books are in our print collection and may already be checked out by others in our community. You can place a request on the item and then you'll be notified when the book is available. Some of the books are available as ebooks and can be read at your own pace on a browser (no need to download any software).

Click a book cover to see the book in our catalog, or scroll down for more details on all of the books.

book cover for An African American and Latinx History of the United States

book cover for Voices of a People's History of the United States

Minnesota-specific books on racism / anti-racism

A Good Time for the Truth (print) by Sun Yung Shin (Editor)
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library F615.A1 G66 2016

Publication Date: 2016

Sixteen of Minnesota’s best writers provide a range of perspectives on what it is like to live as a person of color in Minnesota. Minnesota communities struggle with some of the nation’s worst racial disparities. As its authors confront and consider the realities that lie beneath the numbers, this book provides an important tool to those who want to be part of closing those gaps.

Books about the Rondo Neighborhood

The Days of Rondo (print) by Evelyn Fairbanks
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library F614.S4 F19 1990

Publication Date: 1990

In the 1930s and the 1940s Rondo Avenue was at the heart of St. Paul's largest black neighborhood. The Days of Rondo is Evelyn Fairbanks's affectionate memoir of this lively neighborhood. Her story ends in the mid-1950s, a few years before the Rondo neighborhood was destroyed by freeway construction.
Voices of Rondo (ebook) by Kate Cavett (As told to)
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2017

In Voices of Rondo, real-life stories illuminate the northern urban Black experience during the first half of the twentieth century, through the memories and reflections of residents of Saint Paul's historic Rondo community. We glimpse the challenges of racism and poverty and share the victories of a community that educated its children to become strong, to find personal pride, and to become the next generation of leaders in Saint Paul and beyond.

Native Americans in Minnesota

What Does Justice Look Like? (print) by Angela Cavender Wilson
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E78.M7 W553 2008

Publication Date: 2008

Written by Wahpetunwan Dakota scholar and activist Waziyatawin of Pezihutazizi Otunwe, What Does Justice Look Like? offers an opportunity now and for future generations to learn the long-untold history and what it has meant for the Dakota People.
As We Have Always Done (ebook) by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2017

Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking.
An Infinity of Nations (ebook) by Michael Witgen
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2013

An Infinity of Nations explores the formation and development of a Native New World in North America. Historian Michael Witgen recreates the world of the indigenous peoples who ruled the western interior of North America. The Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples of the Great Lakes and Northern Great Plains dominated the politics and political economy of these interconnected regions, which were pivotal to the fur trade and the emergent world economy.

Race and Minnesota History

Double Exposure (print) by John Glanton (photographer))
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.93.M55 G55 2018

Publication Date: 2018

After serving in World War II, John Glanton returned home to Minnesota and began taking his camera around the streets, parks, clubs, restaurants, and private homes of Minneapolis, capturing the sights and scenes of everyday life for African Americans in the city. A selection of 200 of the more than 800 images are featured here, along with commentary that further illuminates the lives and experiences of African Americans in postwar Minnesota.
A Peculiar Imbalance (print) by William D. Green
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library F614.S4 G745 2007

Publication Date: 2007

History professor William D. Green examines the many racial disparities and injustices that emerged as Minnesota was transformed from a wilderness territory to a state, and the concepts of race and ethnicity grew more rigid and more arbitrary.
Degrees of Freedom (print) by William D. Green
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library F615.N4 G74 2015

Publication Date: 2015

Spanning the half-century after the Civil War, Degrees of Freedom draws a rare picture of black experience in Minnesota and of the nature of black discontent and action within a predominantly white, ostensibly progressive society.
The Children of Lincoln (print) by William D. Green
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.93.M55 G74 2018

Publication Date: 2018

Framed around four white champions of African Americans in Minnesota, The Children of Lincoln reveals a little known but critical chapter in the state’s history as it intersects with the broader account of race in America. It reveals a pattern of racial paternalism, describing how even “enlightened” white Northerners would come to embrace policies that reinforced a notion of black inferiority.
Hope in the Struggle by Josie R. Johnson; Arleta Little; Carolyn Holbrook
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.97.J6925 A3 2019

Publication Date: 2019

How a Black woman from Texas became one of the most well-known civil rights activists in Minnesota, detailing seven remarkable decades of fighting for fairness in voting, housing, education, and employment. A memoir about shouldering the cause of social justice during the darkest hours and brightest moments for civil rights in America--and, specifically, in Minnesota--Hope in the Struggle shines light on the difference one person can make.

Books on racism / anti-racism

Me and White Supremacy (ebook) by Layla F. Saad; Robin DiAngelo (Foreword by)
Publication Date: 2020

Me and White Supremacy takes readers on a 28-day journey, complete with journal prompts, to do the necessary and vital work that can ultimately lead to improving race relations. This critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases.
Between the World and Me (print) by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.615 .C6335 2015

Publication Date: 2015

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion.
So You Want to Talk about Race (print) by Ijeoma Oluo
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E184.A1 O454 2018

ISBN: 9781580056779

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.
Stamped from the Beginning (print) by Ibram X. Kendi
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.61 .K358 2016

Publication Date: 2016

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. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
My Grandmother's Hands (print) by Resmaa Menakem
Call Number: Keffer Library E185.615 .M38 2017

Publication Date: 2017

Therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide. Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention.
Conversations in Black (print) by Ed Gordon
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.615 .G663 2020

Publication Date: 2020

In Conversations in Black, Gordon brings together some of the most prominent voices in Black America today, including Stacey Abrams, Harry Belafonte, Charlamagne tha God, Michael Eric Dyson, Alicia Garza, Jemele Hill, Iyanla VanZant, Eric Holder, Killer Mike, Angela Rye, Al Sharpton, T.I., and Maxine Waters, and so many more to answer questions about vital topics affecting our nation today, such as: Will the black vote control the 2020 election? Do black lives really matter? After Obama's presidency, are black people better off? Are stereotypical images of people of color changing in Hollywood? How is "Black Girl Magic" changing the face of black America?
White Fragility (print) by Robin DiAngelo
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Leisure Reading HT1521 .D486 2018

Publication Date: 2018

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. You can find readers' guides at www.beacon.org/whitefragility.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (ebook) by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2003

Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious.

Race and the Criminal Justice System

The New Jim Crow (ebook) by Michelle Alexander
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2012

Legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control -- relegating millions to a permanent second-class status -- even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.
Locking up Our Own (print) by James Forman
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library HV9950 .F655 2017

Publication Date: 2017

Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation's urban centers.
Chokehold (ebook) by Paul Butler
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2017

Paul Butler’s Chokehold is an exploration of modern American policing and its tragic consequences for black communities across the country. Butler locates policing within a larger cultural context of white supremacy, entertainment, sports, and a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Deploying his academic acumen as a legal scholar and his substantial prosecutorial experience in the federal system, Butler produces a searing account of the racialized animus structurally at work in our criminal justice system today.
The Condemnation of Blackness (ebook) by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2011

Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, Khalil Gibran Muhammad reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Race and United States History

The Color of Law (print) by Richard Rothstein
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.61 .R8185 2017

Publication Date: 2017-05-02

Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explains how de jure segregation--the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments--promoted the discriminatory patterns that racially divided American cities and that continue to this day.
Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement (print) by Yohuru Williams
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.61 .W7377 2015

Publication Date: 2015

In Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement, Yohuru Williams has synthesized the complex history of this period into a clear and compelling narrative. Considering both the Civil Rights and Black Power movements as distinct but overlapping elements of the Black Freedom struggle, Williams looks at the impact of the struggle for Black civil rights on housing, transportation, education, labor, voting rights, culture, and more, and places the activism of the 1950s and 60s within the context of a much longer tradition reaching from Reconstruction to the present day.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States (print) by Paul Ortiz
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E184.S75 O79 2018

Publication Date: 2018

Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. 2018 Winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
Fatal Invention (print) by Dorothy Roberts
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library GN269 .R64 2011

Publication Date: 2011

A decade after the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying population by race.
A People's History of the United States (print) by Howard Zinn
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E178 .Z75 2003

Publication Date: 2005

A People's History of the United States tells America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.
Voices of a People's History of the United States (print) by Howard Zinn (Editor)
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E173 .Z564 2004

Publication Date: 2004

Here in their own words are Frederick Douglas, George Jackson, Chief Joseph, Martin Luther King Jr, Plough Jogger, Sacco and Vanzetti, Patti Smith, and Malcolm X. Each text is prefaced by a short introduction written by Zinn. The chapters in this book are parallel to those in Zinn's A People's History.

Autobiography and memoir

Sister Outsider (print) by Audre Lorde
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library PS3562.O75 S5 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (print) by Maya Angelou
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library PS3551.N464 Z466 1997

Publication Date: 1997

Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. It is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (print) by Malcolm X
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library BP223.Z8 L57943 1992

Publication Date: 1992

In this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (print) by Damon Young
Call Number: O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library E185.97.Y632 A3 2020

Publication Date: 2020

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.