Zimring, Franklin E. When Police Kill. Harvard University Press, 2017.

Franklin Zimring compiles data from federal records, crowdsourced research, and investigative journalism to provide a comprehensive, fact-based picture of how, when, where, and why police resort to deadly force. Of the 1,100 killings by police in the United States in 2015, he shows, 85 percent were fatal shootings and 95 percent of victims were male. The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population.

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: an American Lyric. Graywolf Press, 2014.

Claudia Rankine’s bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty- first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

Chang, Je . We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Re- segregation. Picador, 2016.

Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing and distinguished cultural criticism, We Gon’ Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington D.C., the Great Migration to resurgent nativism. Chang explores the rise and fall of the idea of “diversity”, the roots of student protest, changing ideas about Asian Americanness and the impact of a century of racial separation in housing. He argues that resegregation is the unexamined condition of our time, the undoing of which is key to moving the nation forward to racial justice and cultural equity.

Lowery, Wesley. They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. Little, Brown and Company, 2016.

A behind-the-scenes account of the #BlackLivesMatter movement shares insights into the young men and women behind it, citing the racially charged controversies that have motivated members and the economic, political and personal histories that inform its purpose.

McSpadden, Lezley. Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, and Love of My Son Michael Brown. Regan Arts, 2016.

When Michael Orlandus Darrion Brown was born, he was adored and doted on by his aunts, uncles, grandparents, his father and most of all by his sixteen-year-old mother, who nicknamed him Mike Mike. McSpadden never imagined that her son’s name would inspire the resounding chants of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and ignite the global conversation about the disparities in the American policing system. In Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil, McSpadden picks up the pieces of the tragedy that shook her life and the country to their core and reveals the unforgettable story of her life, her son and their truth.

Asim, Jabari. A Taste of Honey: Stories. Broadway Books, 2010.

Through a series of fictional episodes set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent years in modern history, Asim brings into pin-sharp focus how the tumultuous events of ‘68 affected real people’s lives and shaped the country we live in today. The sixteen connected stories in this exciting debut are set in the fictional Midwestern town of Gateway City, where second generation offspring of the Great Migrators have pieced together a thriving, if fragile existence.

Maas, Peter. Serpico. HarperCollins, 2005.

The 1960s was a time of social and generational upheaval felt with particular intensity in the melting pot of New York City. A culture of corruption pervaded the New York Police Department, where payoffs, protection, and shake- downs of gambling rackets and drug dealers were common practice. The so-called blue code of silence protected the minority of crooked cops from the sanction of the majority. Into this maelstrom came a working class, Brooklyn born, Italian cop with long hair, a beard and a taste for opera and ballet. Frank Serpico was a man who couldn’t be silence—or bought—and he refused to go along with the system.

Beatty, Paul. The Sellout. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, the narrator spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Vintage International, 1995. (Originally published in 1956.)

A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.

Asim, Jabari. A Child’s Introduction to African American History: The Experiences, People, and Events that Shaped Our Country. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2018.

Critically acclaimed writer Jabari Asim guides readers ages 9-12 through the history of African Americans, from the slave trade to the Black Lives Matter movement, in the latest volume in Black Dog’s bestselling, award-winning Child’s Introduction series. This illustrated introduction to African American history goes beyond what’s taught in the classroom giving young readers a more comprehensive look at this timely and important topic.

Edwards, Sue Bradford. Black Lives Matter. Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing, 2016.

Black Lives Matter covers the shootings that touched off passionate protests, the work of activists to bring about a more just legal system, and the tensions in US society that these events have brought to light.

Rogers, Amy B. What’s Racism? KidHaven Publishing, 2018.

Racism is a difficult issue to face, but people must confront it if they hope to move beyond it. Confronting challenging social issues such as racism often begins with education. As readers discover the roots of racism in America and how it still isolates people from one another, they learn what their generation can do to combat racism create a more inclusive society. This sensitive topic is presented in an age-appropriate an informative way, using fact boxes, graphic organizers, and full-color photographs enhance the reading experience.

Moore, Dan P. Mark Twain Was Right: 2001 Cincinnati Riots. Microcosm Publishing, 2012.

Dan P. Moore’s first graphic novel Mark Twain Was Right charts the course of the 2001 Cincinnati Riots, the largest urban unrest (the first in the 21st century) since the 1992 LA Riots. Moore’s book is an engaging work of journalism—as-narrative-comic, tracing the riot’s genesis from the senseless police killing of a 19-year-old black man to the man’s funeral six days later. What results is a tumultuous cocktail of nonviolent civil disobedience, frustration-fueled looting and further police violence.

McGruder, Aaron. A Right to be Hostile: The Boondocks Treasury. Three Rivers Press, 2003.

Here’s the first big book of The Boondocks, more than four years and 800 strips of one of the most influential, controversial and scathingly funny comics ever to run in a daily newspaper.

Coles, Jay. Tyler Johnson Was Here. Little, Brown and Company, 2018.

When Marvin Johnson’s twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid. The next day Tyler is missing, and it’s up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels, mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

Reynolds, Jason. All American Boys. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015.

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn’s alternating viewpoints.

Stone, Nic. Dear Martin. Crown, 2017.

Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. HarperCollins, 2017.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter navigates between the poverty stricken neighborhood she has grown up in and the upper-crust suburban prep school she attends. Her life is up-ended when she is the sole witness to a police officer shooting her best friend, Khalil, who turns out to have been unarmed during the confrontation—but may or may not have been a drug dealer. As Starr finds herself even more torn between the vastly different worlds she inhabits, she also has to contend with speaker her truth and, in the process, trying to stay alive herself.

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and Black Public Media.