Now more than ever, we all need to come to a deeper place of understanding and unity. That means to never stop listening, learning, and teaching others the messages of the Black Lives Matter movement. These books allow everyone to understand what systemic racism is, how it started, how to talk about it, and how to fight it, and lift the voices of Black Americans.

The following is a list of books recommended by the staff of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison and Breakwater Books in Guilford:

For Adults

American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise

By Eduardo Porter

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

By MALCOLM X, Alex Haley

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

By Eddie S. Glaude

Between the World and Me

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

By Jennifer L. Eberhardt

A Black Women's History of the United States

By Daina Ramey Berry, Kali Nicole Gross

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

By Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald

The Bluest Eye

By Toni Morrison

The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States

By Walter Johnson

Citizen: An American Lyric

By Claudia Rankine

The Color of Law: A Forgotten |History of How Our Government Segregated America

By Richard Rothstein

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

By Gilbert King

The End of Policing

By Alex S. Vitale

Equality's Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America

By Deborah Diesen, Magdalena Mora (Illustrator)

The Fire Next Time

By James Baldwin

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race

By Jesmyn Ward

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

By Mikki Kendall

How to Be an Antiracist

By Ibram X. Kendi

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

By Bryan Stevenson

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

By James Forman, Jr.

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

By Layla Saad, Robin Diangelo (Foreword by)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By Michelle Alexander

The Nickel Boys: A Novel

By Colson Whitehead

2020 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction

Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

By Jennifer Harvey

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

By Audre Lorde

So You Want to Talk About Race

By Ijeoma Oluo

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

By Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

By Ibram X. Kendi

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

By Henry Louis Gates

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

By Michael Eric Dyson

Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel

By Zora Neale Hurston

This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work

By Tiffany Jewell, Aurelia Durand (Illustrator)

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By Isabel Wilkerson

Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves

By Glory Edim

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By Robin DiAngelo, Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)

White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America

By Margaret A. Hagerman

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

By Carol Anderson

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race

By Beverly Daniel Tatum

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

By Reni Eddo-Lodge

For Children

After the Shot Drops

By Randy Ribay

A is for Activist

By Innosanto Nagara

AntiRacist Baby

By Ibram X. Kendi, Ashley Lukashevsky (Illustrator)

Black Brother, Black Brother

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

Black Is a Rainbow Color

By Angela Joy, Ekua Holmes (Illustrator)

Citizen Baby: My Vote

By Megan E. Bryant, Daniel Prosterman, Micah Player (Illustrator)

Clean Getaway

By Nic Stone

Equality's Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America

By Deborah Diesen, Magdalena Mora (Illustrator)

Genesis Begins Again

By Alicia D. Williams

Hair Love

by Matthew A. Cherry, Vashti Harrison (Illustrator)

I'm Not Dying with You Tonight

By Gilly Segal, Kimberly Jones

Kent State

By Deborah Wiles

Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks

By Jason Reynolds, Alexander Nabaum (Illustrator)

My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

By Ibi Zoboi

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights

By Lawrence Goldstone

Sulwe

By Lupita Nyong'o, Vashti Harrison (Illustrator)

The Undefeated

By Kwame Alexander, Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)