The BIG Book Club
Below you’ll find a compilation of recommended books that cover issues of racism, psychology, politics, and the intersection of these topics in the context of the history of the United States. We encourage readers to purchase titles from BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) owned book stores and/or locally. Please note that the following icon: ⇒ denotes books we have read in the BIG Book Club. If you have other recommendations to add to this list, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
BOOKS CONCERNING RACISM:
⇒ “Mending America’s Political Divide: What Science Tells Us About Solving the Political
• “Hatred Between the Left and the Right” by Rene H. Levy, PhD, (current book being read)
• “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin
DiAngelo
• “Race & Racism: A Critical Approach” by Tanya Golash Boza
• “How to Be an Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi
• “Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good
Ancestor” by Layla F. Saad
• “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• “Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America” by Michael Eric Dyson
• “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness” by Austin Channing
Brown
• “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White People” by Michael Eric Dyso
Books Concerning Understanding our Brains, Other People, Politics and Framing Our Ideas
• “Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think” by George Lakoff • “Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate” by George Lakoff • “The Political Brain: Why You Can’t Understand 21 st Century American Politics With an 18 th Century Brain”
• “Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change” by Stacey AbramsBooks Concerning Racism & American History
• “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” by
Ibram X. Kendi
• “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zin
• “Trouble in Mind” by Leon F. Litwack
• “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America” by Khalil
Gibran Muhammad
• “Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History 1513-2008” by Henry Louis Gates Jr.