A #BLACK LIVES MATTER READING LIST FOR TEENS

It seems like every week there is another shooting of an unarmed Black man, and with football season in swing the silent protest of Colin Kaepernick has brought the fight for an end to police brutality to the forefront. The Black Lives Matter movement is controversial to some and a necessary progression of the civil rights movement to others. However you feel, it cannot be ignored and that means there is an opportunity to gain more understanding through books. I’ve sifted through my stacks and pulled a number of titles that address:

• ·         The Prison Industrial Compex
• ·         Jim Crow laws and their legacy
• ·         Slavery and the roots of the modern prison system
• ·         The War on Drugs
• ·         The Civil Rights Movement
• ·         The Black Power Movement

All of these topics give insight into how and why the Black Lives Matter is important. Here is my list. It’s a great list to take to your librarian and if you’re a librarian, it serves as a good purchase list. I've included some fiction from Walter Dean Myers, Jason Reynolds and Kekla Magoon, because fiction can speak to us in a way that raw information cannot on an emotional level. Let me know if you've read any of these and please go check them out.

Alexander, Michelle. The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York : New Press, 2010.

Cates, David. The Scottsboro boys [electronic resource].

Duke, Bill. Dark Girls. [S.l.] : Buyservice T1, c2014.

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. We want freedom : a life in the Black Panther Party. Cambridge, MA : South End Press, c2004.

Duneier, Mitchell. Ghetto: The Invention Of A Place, The History Of An Idea. [S.l.] : Buyservice T1, c2016.

Edwards, Sue Bradford. Black lives matter. Minneapolis, MN : Abdo Publishing, 2016, c2016.

Guyatt, Nicholas. Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation. [S.l.] : Buyservice T1, c2016.

Kitwana, Bakari. The hip hop generation : young Blacks and the crisis in African American culture. New York : Basic Civitas, c2002.

Moore, Wes. The other Wes Moore : one name, two fates. New York : Spiegel & Grau, 2010.

Morris, Monique W. Pushout: The Criminalization Of Black Girls In Schools. [S.l.] : Buyservice T1, c2016.

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. (Fiction)

Reynolds, Jason. All American boys. (Fiction)

Shakur, Assata. Assata : an autobiography. Chicago, Ill. : L. Hill, c1987.

Shipp, Robbin. Justice While Black. [S.l.] : Bolden, c2014.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The beautiful struggle : a father, two sons, and an unlikely road to manhood. New York : Spiegel & Grau, 2009, c2008.

Magoon, Kekla. How it went down. (Fiction)

Watkins, D. Beast Side: Living and Dying while Black in America. [S.l.] : Buyservice T1, c2015.

Haas, Jeffrey. The assassination of Fred Hampton : how the FBI and the Chicago police murdered a Black Panther. Chicago : Lawrence Hill Books, c2010.