Black Lives Matter Reading List
At Feminist Press, we believe that in order to bring about fundamental societal change, it's important to continue dissecting power and imagining freedom. Books foster empathy, shift culture, and provide us with words when we are speechless. Here’s what we’re reading today:
PARENTING FOR LIBERATION by Trina Greene Brown: Rooted in an Afrofuturistic vision of connectivity and inspiration, the community created within these pages works to image a world that amplifies Black girl magic and Black boy joy, and everything in between.
THE NAMES OF ALL THE FLOWERS by Melissa Valentine: Set in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss. The Names of All the Flowers connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all Black people who die too young.
ALL THE WOMEN ARE WHITE, ALL THE BLACKS ARE MEN, BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith: The first comprehensive collection of Black feminist scholarship, this book is vital to today's conversation on race and gender in America. Featuring essays by Alice Walker, the Combahee River Collective, and Barbara Smith.
Scroll through for our full reading list.
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Melissa Valentine
Set in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss.
Edited by Brittney C. Cooper, Susana M. Morris, and Robin M. Boylorn
Essays on hip-hop feminism.
Zora Neale Hurston
A collection preserving the legacy of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s greatest writers.
Edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith
This beloved, groundbreaking collection developed black women's studies in the US.
Edited by Stanlie M. James, Frances Smith Foster, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall
The Evolution of Black Women's Studies
Girls for Gender Equity, Joanne Smith, Meghan Huppuch, and Mandy Van Deven
A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets
Safiya Bukhari
The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, & Fighting for Those Left Behind
Juniper Fitzgerald and Elise Peterson
Mamas work in different ways to take care of their babies, but everything they do is out of love.
Edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure
Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique