Collection of books recommended by Michael Eric Dyson in his book, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America”. Here’s a New York Times book review.
Many Thousands Gone, Ira Berlin (1998) - incisive history of slavery before cotton became king
Closer to Freedom, Stephanie Camp - explores the fate of enslaved women
Out of the House of Bondage, Thavolia Glymph - probes the relationships between black and white women
The Known World, Edward P. Jones - about a black family that owned enslaved blacks in the antebellum south
Middle Passage, Charles Johnson - about a newly freed slave who hops aboard a slave ship
Beloved, Toni Morrison - probes the aftereffects of enslavement on the minds and souls of black folk
Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison - slim classic that brilliantly probes the white literary imagination and how it silences and distorts the dark agency from which it derives its meaning
Slavery, politics, & economy
A Nation Under Our Feet, Steven Hahn
The Counterrevolution of Slavery, Manisha Sinha
Soul by Soul, Walter Johnson
Empire of Cotton, Sven Beckert
The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward E. Baptist
The Reaper’s Garden, Vincent Brown
This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust
The civil war (and after)
Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson
Black Reconstruction, W. E. B. Du Bois
Reconstruction, Eric Foner
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
Modern civil rights movement
Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, Aldon Morris
Voices of Freedom, Henry Hampton - based on the monumental documentary television series Eyes on the Prize
America in the King Years, Taylor Branch - trilogy on MLK
Parting the Waters
Pillar of Fire
At Canaan’s Edge
Bearing the Cross, David Garrow - exhaustive and illuminating study on MLK Jr.
Carry Me Home, Diane McWhorter - account of the movement’s impact on white families in Birmingham
Devil in the Grove, Gilbert King - shines light on Jim Crow as he probes the case of four young black men accused on raping a 17-year-old white girl in Florida and the valiant defense they got from future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, Barbara Ransby - moving portrait of the great organizer and activist
This Little Light of Mine, Kay Mills - study of freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hammer
In Struggle, Clayborne Carson - study of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Black freedom struggle
Malcom X, Manning Marable
Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hours, Penial Joseph - invites us to understand the rich sweep of the black power movement
Stokely, Penial Joseph - penetrating study of the black power movement’s most icon leader, Stokely Carmichael
Black against Empire, Joshua Bloom & Waldo Martin, Jr. - comprehensive study of the history and politics of the Black Panthers
Race Rebels, Robin Kelly - the struggle of black working class folk
Intersection of gender, class, sexuality, and feminist politics
Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
The Truth That Never Hurts, Barbara Smith
Ain’t I a Woman?, bell hooks
Black Macho and the Myth of Superwoman, Michele Wallace
Critical Race Theory, Kimberlé Crenshaw
Say Her Name, Kimberlé Crenshaw & Andrea Ritchie
Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill
The Color Purple, Alice Walker - struggles of black women for room to breathe and love in the south in the 1930s
Essays
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois - groundbreaking essays that limn the color line at the turn of the twentieth century
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison - wrestles with the perennial black problem of not being seen by the white world