One of our key roles, as a library, is to enable access to information. We stock a wide range of materials, do not censor published content, promote understanding and provide good quality information that helps people educate and inform themselves. To challenge prejudice and discrimination we will be celebrating black authors and cultural role models with a selection of good books – all of which can be found on our shelves.
This will include fictional and factual titles for all ages in three different blogs, starting with Adult Non-Fiction. These books are all available through the BorrowBox App or if you prefer physical books our new Ready Reads book collection service gives you access to a selection of books – chosen for you by our team
They Don’t Teach This
by Eniola Aluko
They Don’t Teach This steps beyond the realms of memoir to explore themes of dual nationality and identity, race and institutional prejudice, success, failure and faith. It is an inspiring manifesto to change the way readers and the future generation choose to view the challenges that come in their life applying life lessons with raw truths of Eni’s own personal experience.
Available as eBook, eAudiobook and physical book
How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
Not being racist is not enough. We have to be antiracist. In this rousing and deeply empathetic book, Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center, shows that when it comes to racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem.
Available as eAudiobook
White Fragility
by Robin DiAngelo
Robin DiAngelo coined the term ‘White Fragility’ in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. Using knowledge and insight gained over decades of running racial awareness workshops and working on this idea as a Professor of Whiteness Studies, she shows us how we can start having more honest conversations, listen to each other better and react to feedback with grace and humility. It is not enough to simply hold abstract progressive views and condemn the obvious racists on social media – change starts with us all at a practical, granular level, and it is time for all white people to take responsibility for relinquishing their own racial supremacy.
Available as eBook and eAudiobook
On the Other Side of Freedom
by DeRay McKesson
Five years ago, DeRay Mckesson quit his job as a schoolteacher, moved to Ferguson, Missouri, and spent the next 400 days on the streets as an activist, helping to bring the Black Lives Matter movement into being.
Available as eBook and physical book
Kill the Black one First
by Michael Fuller
Kill the Black One First is a raw and unflinching account of a life in policing during a tumultuous period of race relations throughout the UK.
Available as eBook, eAudiobook and physical book
Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson
In this very personal work–proceeds of which will go to charity–Bryan Stevenson recounts many and varied stories of his work as a lawyer in the U.S. criminal justice system on behalf of those in society who have experienced some type of discrimination and/or have been wrongly accused of a crime and who deserve a powerful advocate and due justice under the law.
Available as eBook and physical book
Inglorious Empire
by Shashi Tharoor
In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain’s stained Indian legacy.
Available as eBook and physical book
Why I’m no Longer Talking to White People about Race
by Reni Eddo-Ledge
A searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today, covering issues from eradicated black history to white privilege, the fallacy of ‘meritocracy’ to whitewashing feminism, and the inextricable link between class and race. Full of passionate, personal and keenly felt argument, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is a wake-up call to a nation in denial about the structural and institutional racism occurring in our homes.
Available as eBook and physical book
The Fire This Time
by Jesmyn Ward
Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, The Fire This Time considers the black experience in modern America. Baldwin’s ‘fire next time’ is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about. Sage, urgent and impassioned, this is an essential collection edited by one of America’s greatest writers.
Available as eBook and physical book
I Can’t Breath
by Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi, bestselling author and “the best polemic journalist in America”, tells the full story of the man who inspired a movement – neither villain nor victim, but a fiercely proud individual determined to do the best he could for his family. Featuring vivid vignettes of life on the street, this powerful narrative of urban America is a riveting work of literary journalism and a scathing indictment of law enforcement in the twenty-first century. I Can’t Breathe tells the story of one man to tell the story of countless others, and the power of people to rise up against injustice.
Available as eBook and physical book
These are just some of the titles in our collection, check out the full collection over on BorrowBox, and find out more about black British authors and their amazing work in our 2019 Black History Month Blog!
Hampshire Libraries 
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