Diversity Reads - Black VoicesLike this list

20 items

• Unlike the Rest

  a Doctor's Story

  Oriuwa, Chika Stacy

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  From childhood, Chika Oriuwa dreamed of being a doctor. The high of being accepted to the University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine in 2016 came crashing down when Oriuwa discovered she was the only Black student in her incoming…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Darker Shade of Blue

  a Police Officer's Memoir

  Merith, Keith

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  A transparent first-hand account of a Black officer maneuvering through three terrifying yet rewarding decades of policing, all while seeking reform in law enforcement.

• All We Were Promised

  a Novel

  Lattimore, Ashton

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  The paths of three young Black women in pre-Civil War Philadelphia unexpectedly -- and dangerously -- collide in this dramatic debut novel inspired by the explosive history of a city at war with itself.

• Black Boys Like Me

  Confrontations With Race, Identity, and Belonging

  Morris, Matthew R.

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  What does it mean to be a young Black man with an immigrant father and a white mother, teaching in a school system that historically has held an exclusionary definition of success? Startlingly honest, bracing personal essays from a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• My Fighting Family

  Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us

  Campbell, Morgan

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  The debut memoir from award-winning journalist Morgan Campbell: an incredible history of a family's battles across generations, a hilarious and emotional coming-of-age story, and a powerful reckoning with what it means to be Black in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Be a Revolution

  How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--and How You Can, Too

  Oluo, Ijeoma

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  Looking at many of our most powerful systems -- like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more -- the author highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity.

• Ordinary Notes

  Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth

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  Ordinary Notes explores with immense care profound questions about loss, and the shapes of Black life that emerge in the wake. In a series of 248 brief and urgent notes that gather meaning as we read them, Christina Sharpe skillfully…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Homebodies

  a Novel

  Denton-Hurst, Tembe

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  When she loses her coveted media job, Mickey Hayward writes an angry letter outlining the racism and sexism she has endured as a Black woman in media only to have it met with overwhelming silence, and retreats to her hometown to seek a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Renaissance of Our Own

  a Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining

  Cargle, Rachel E. (Rachel Elizabeth)

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  A deeply personal and illuminating approach to antiracism and allyship, revealing the power of imagination and action to dismantle oppressive systems and build liberating ones, from a highly lauded lecturer, public academic, writer, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Now Let Me Fly

  a Portrait of Eugene Bullard

  Wimberly, Ronald

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  On the eve of World War I, Eugene Bullard was a refugee of the Jim Crow South who was determined to find a place where a Black man would be treated as a fellow human being. His search took him from rural Georgia to the streets of Paris,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Quietly Hostile

  Essays

  Irby, Samantha

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  The success of Irby's career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Decent People

  a Novel

  Winslow, De'Shawn Charles

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  When three siblings are found shot to death in the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, in 1976, and the white authorities show no interest in solving the case, Josephine Wright sets out to prove the innocence of her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Invisible Boy

  a Memoir of Self-discovery

  Mooney, Harrison

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  A narrative that amplifies a voice rarely heard -- that of the child at the centre of a transracial adoption -- and a searing account of being raised by religious fundamentalists.

• Black Joy

  Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration

  Lewis-Giggetts, Tracey M.

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  When writer, Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts wrote a piece for The Washington Post, "My daughter reminded me that black joy is a form of resistance" she had no idea just how much or how widely it would resonate with parents across America. As a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Trayvon Generation

  Alexander, Elizabeth, 1962-

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  In the midst of civil unrest in the summer of 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, one of the great literary voices of our time, Elizabeth Alexander, wrote a moving reflection on the psyche of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Memphis

  a Novel

  Stringfellow, Tara M.

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  In the summer of 1995, ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father's violence to the only place they have left: her mother's ancestral home in Memphis. When her aunt opens the door, Joan sees the cousin who once…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Don't Cry for Me

  a Novel

  Black, Daniel

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  On his deathbed, a dying black man writes a letter to his estranged, gay son and shares with him the truth that lives in his heart and tries to create a place where the pair can find peace.

• By the Book

  Guillory, Jasmine

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  Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing after college, she did not expect to be twenty-five, still living at home, and one of the few Black employees at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Shine Bright

  a Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop

  Smith, Danyel

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  From one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation, a radiant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music -- from the Dixie Cups to Gladys Knight to Janet, Whitney, and Mariah -- as the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Black Love Matters

  Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters

  Pryde, Jessica P.

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  An incisive, intersectional essay anthology that celebrates and examines romance and romantic media through the lens of Black readers, writers, and cultural commentators, edited by Book Riot columnist and librarian Jessica Pryde.