Improve Yourself with This List

It is not an exaggeration to say that I turn to books to learn and push myself. When the architecture office where I work held a meeting to brainstorm ways to educate the non-black staff about the BLM movement and what we can do, I - of course - offered to create a list of books and other sources. What follows is that list, garnered from my library research, coworker suggestions, and quite a few social media posts I saved. Thank you to those other list-makers out there who share their knowledge so we can educate ourselves!

NONFICTION BOOKS/ ARTICLES

• How to be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi
• White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
• So You Want to Talk About Race? Ijeoma Oluo
• Cast the Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson
• Between the World and Me, Tanahese Coates
• The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
• When They Call You a Terrorist – Patrisse Khan-Cullers & Asha Bandele
• In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World – Judith Carney & Richard Nicholas Rosomoff
• Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing – Stephanie Stokes Oliver
• Citizen – Claudia Rankine
• Blind – Mashonda Tifrere
• Unapologetic – Charlene A. Carruthers
• The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl – Issa Rae
• Redefining Realness – Janet Mock
• Angela Davis an autobiography
• Black Boy -Richard Wright
• Baccaroon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo – Zora Neale Hurston
• Black Man in a White Coat – Damon Tweedy
• Medical Apartheid - Harriet A. Washington
• Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Healthcare
• Unmasking Racism in Health Care – Marie Edwige Seneque
• The Health Gap – Michael Marmot
• Black & Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
• The Home Place – J. Drew Lanham
• Black Women in Sequence: Re-Inking Comics, Graphic Novels and Anime – Deborah Elizabeth Whaley
• Bicycle / Race – Adonia Lugo
• Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism
• The Color of Law – Richard Rothstein
• Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code – Ruha Benjamin
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reno Eddo-Lodge
• The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander
• Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X. Kendi
• White Rage – Carol Anderson
• American Lynching – Ashraf H.A. Rushdy
• Fatal Invention – Dorothy Roberts
• Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think & Do – Jennifer L. Eberhardt
• The Fire This Time – Jesmyn Ward
• Me and White Supremacy – Layla Saad
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria – Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape – Lauret Savoy
• Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome – Joy Degruy
• The End of Policing – Alex Vitale

BOOKS ON MUSIC

• Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation – Jeff Chang
• The Hip-Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip-Hop and Why It Matters – Tricia Rose
• Go Ahead in the Rain – Hanif Abdurraqib
• When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost – Joan Morgan
• That’s the Joint! – Murray Forman & Mark Anthony Neal
• No Disrespect – Sister Souljah
• Prophets of the Hood - Imani Perry
• Old Town Road’s Lil Nas X Is Breaking Barriers – But He’s Not the First Black Country Artist To Do It – Michelle Darrisaw
• Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow – Karl H. Miller
• Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South – Charles L. Hughes
• My Country: The African Diaspora’s Country Music Heritage – Pamela E. Foster
• Why Is Everyone Always Stealing Black Music? – Wesley Morris
• Race, Rock and the Rolling Stones: How Rock and Roll Became White – Jack Hamilton
• Right to Rock – Maureen Mahan
• How Bessie Smith Influenced A Century of Popular Music – Maureen Mahan
• Tina Turner: The Making of a Rock ’n’ Roll Revolutionary – Daphne A. Brooks
• Detroit Is a Techno City and Techno Is Black – Imani Mixon
• Reflections of a Black Woman in Dance Music – Ash Lauryn
• Gay Black Men Helped Create EDM Why Do Straight White Men Dominate It? – Katie Bain
• Uproot: Travels in 21st Century Music and Digital Culture – Jace Clayton
• All Crews:: Journeys Through the Jungle/ Drum and Bass Culture – Brian Belle-Fortune
• Dayglo!: The Poly Styrene Story – Celeste Bell & Zoe Howe
• Black Card: a novel – Chris L. Terry
• Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk – Don Letts
• Finding Joseph I: An Oral History of H.R. from Bad Brains – Howie Abrams
• Death Was Punk Before Punk Was Punk – Mike Rubin
• The Forgotten Story of Pure Hell, America’s First Black Punk Band – Cassidy George

FICTION BOOKS (some to start you off – I can’t do everything for you)

• Kindred – Octavia Butler
• Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
• Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Real Men Knit – Kwana Jackson
• The Gilda Stories – Jewell Gomez
• Lover’s Choice Becky Birtha
• A Song of Wraiths & Ruin – Rosanne A. Brown
• All About Love – bell hooks
• Remember This House – James Baldwin
• The Serpent’s Gift – Helen Elaine Lee
• The Fifth Season – N.K. Jemison
• Binti – Nnedi Okorafor
• Black God’s Drums – P. Djeli Clark
• Cinderella is Dead – Kalynn Bayron
• Black Leopard, Red Wolf – Marlon James
• Blanche on the Lam – Barbara Neely
• A Little Dare – Brenda Jackson
• Now That I’ve Found You – Kristina Forest
• Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta
• The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
• Noughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman
• An American Marriage – Tayari Jone
• Swing Time – Zadie Smith
• The Lesson – Cadwell Turner
• Rosewater – Tade Thompson
• An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon
• Beloved – Toni Morrison
• The Color Purple – Alice Walker
• Black on Both Sides – C Riley Snorton
• Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
• Coffee Will Make You Black – April Sinclair
• Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde
• Not Without Laughter – Langston Hughes
• Passing – Nella Larson
• If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
• Here Comes the Sun – Nicole Dennis Benn
• Elysium – Jennifer Marie Brissett
• The Women of Brewster Place – Gloria Naylor
• Freshwater – Akwaeke Emezi

MOVIES/TV/ YOUTUBE INTERVIEWS

• 13th 
• 16 Shots
• Crime + Punishment (2016)
• The Death & Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)
• Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory
• I Am Not Your Negro
• Let the Fire Burn
• Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement
• When They See Us
• Green Book (and the controversy)
• Segregated by Design
• Central Park 5
• United Shades of America, Kamau Bell, CNN
• Hidden Figures
• blackkklansman
• 12 years a slave
• Selma
• Dear White People
• Fruitvale Station
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Malcolm X (1992)

PODCASTS

• Code Switch
• Yo, Is This Racist?
• Come Through with Rebecca Carrol
• Seeing White
• The Nod
• Identity Politics
• Still Processing
• Pod Save the People
• Tamarindo
• The Stoop
• Atlanta Monster
• We Live Here
• The View from Somewhere
• 70 Million
• See Something, Say Something
• Small Doses with Amanda Seales
• It’s Been a Minute
• What A Day
• Jemele Hill is Unbothered0
• 1619
• Here to Slay
• Lynching in America
• Intersectionality Matters with Kimberle Crenshaw
• Groundings
• Justice in America
• Beyond Prisons
• Ear Hustle
• Radical Imagination
• Truth Be Told
• United States of Anxiety
• The Stakes
• Black History Year
• Afropunk Solution Sessions
• Floodlines
• There Goes the Neighborhood
• 74 Seconds
• In the Dark 
• Uncivil
• Caught
• Natal
• Reveal
• White Lies
• Caught
• At Liberty
• You Had Me at Black
• Closer Than They Appear
• Tremendous Upside
• Historically Black
• The Uncertain Hour
• Counter Stories
• Silence Is Not an Option

WEBSITES not a full list by any means, and heavily weighted to architecture and our firm's backyard.

• www.segregatedbydesign.com
• Architecture, Race & Culture https://www.callisonrtkl.com/you-are-here/architecture-race-and-culture-a-resource-guide-to-the-black-lives-matter-movement/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2020/06/06/dear-companies-your-blm-posts-are-cute-but-we-want-to-see-policy-change/#d2eff311b9c1
• Black Landscapes Matter http://groundupjournal.org/blacklandscapesmatter
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/how-to-design-justice-into-america-s-cities
• African American Museum & Library https://www.oaklandlibrary.org/locations/african-american-museum-library-oakland
• Oakland Museum of California 
• https://museumca.org/projects/black-power
• https://museumca.org/projects/question-bridge-black-males
• https://museumca.org/exhibit/respect-hip-hop-style-wisdom
• https://museumca.org/exhibit/all-power-people-black-panthers-50
• https://museumca.org/exhibit/out-of-the-box-the-rise-of-sneaker-culture