The SocialEDG Bookshelf: Books on activism, inclusion, vulnerability, black feminism, and intersectionality

Below is a list of some of my favorite books, all found on my personal bookshelf at home.

Many of these like: This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherrie Moraga, and Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde, had a huge impact on how I show up and represent diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and most importantly in my life.

And let's not talk about learning how to set boundaries. I hope a few of the books on this list find a place on your shelf as well!

My Top Picks

• Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde
• Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
• Teaching to Transgress; Education as the Practice of Freedom, by Bell Hooks
• You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown
• We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, by Mariame Kaba
• Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab
• In Search of Our Mother's Garden: Womanist Prose, by Alice Walker
• Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive Engaging Workplaces, by Karen Catlin

Self Care

• Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery, by Bell Hooks

Activism

• How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, by Brittney Cooper
• Young, Gifted & Black: Promotion High Achievement among African-American Students, by Theresa Perry, Claude Steele, and Asa Hillard III
• Keep Marching: How Every Woman Can Take Action and Change Our World, by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
• Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and. Brown Girls
• Women, Race & Class, by Angela Y. Davis
• The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, by Charles M. Blows

Black History

• The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah Jones
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein
• Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain
• Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, by Caitlin Rosenthal
• Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, by David Margolick
• My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience, by Juan Williams
• The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever, by Ken Garrett and Jeanne Ellsworth

Biographies

• Angela Davis: An Autobiography, by Angela Y. Davis
• Black Like ME, by John Howard Griffin
• Song In a Weary Throat, by Pauli Murray

On Race:

• Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body & Spirit, by Mary-Frances Winters
• Stand from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi
• We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race & Segregation, bay Jeff Chang
• Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America, by Nefertiti Austin
• We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood, by Dani McClain
• I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown
• Race & Reality: What Everyone Should Know about Our Biological Diversity, by Guy P. Harrison
• They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, by Stephanie E. Jones-Roger
• The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B. Du Bois

Poetry

• The Collective Poems of Nikki Giovanni
• Selected Poems, buy Gwendolyn Brooks