Understanding Racism

Books to start the conversation about race.

View our full list of Race & Ethnicity titles

The "Huddled Masses" Myth
The disconnect between national rhetoric, the law, and public policy

"We Live in the Shadow": Inner-City Kids Tell Their Stories through Photographs
The inner-city world of young at-risk teens though their powerful photos and stories

The African American Jeremiad
An enduring verbal tradition links African American leaders from Frederick Douglass to Malcolm X to Alan Keyes

African American Perspectives on Political Science
African American political scientists speak out about their discipline, academic issues and racism in the profession.

African American Writing
Essays that honor the achievement of African American writers from the Enlightenment to the present

The Afrocentric Idea
Asante's spirited engagement with culture warriors, neocons, and postmodernists updates this classic

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round
An examination of individuals who enacted change in the status, opportunities, and treatment of African Americans in the rural South

Americans First
The Second World War’s role in bringing Chinese Americans into the mainstream of American society

The Audacity of Hoop
The influence Barack Obama has had on basketball and vice versa, in essays and photographs

Baltimore '68
The first comprehensive study of one city, Baltimore, forty years after the unrest that swept across some 120 U.S. cities

The Battles of Germantown
Lessons from Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood on how the public engages the past

Behind the Backlash
How Muslim-American identity has been shaped by 9/11 and its after effects

Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman
Explores the restrictive myth of the strong black woman through interviews, revealing the emotional and physical toll this “performance” can have

Black Baltimore
Community self-help movements in Old West Baltimore provide an example of participatory democracy for other neighborhoods

Black Corporate Executives
A revealing study of the promising entry of Blacks into managerial ranks in corporations and the disappointing trend that tracked them into increasingly vulnerable jobs

Black Regions of the Imagination
Establishing an imaginative space for blackness, four mid-century American writers resist literary segregation

Black Theatre
An insider's view of Black theatres of the world and how they reflect their culture, concerns, and history

Black Venus 2010
Analyzing contemporaneous and contemporary works that re-imagine the “Hottentot Venus”

Celebrating Debutantes and Quinceañeras
How young women's coming of age rites cement community relations and reinforce ethnic identity

Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture
New perspectives on making and writing Chinese American history

A City within a City
A view of the civil rights movement in the crucible of the North

Civic Intimacies
Mapping the political and personal stakes of Black queer lives in Baltimore

The Coolie Speaks
A remarkable examination of bondage in Cuba that probes questions of slavery, freedom, and race

Critical Race Theory
A significant revision of a classroom mainstay for the twenty-first century

Daily Labors
Examining the vulnerabilities, discrimination, and exploitation—as well as the sense of belonging and community—that day laborers experience on an NYC street corner

Disabled Futures
Offering a new avenue for understanding race, gender, and disability as mutually constitutive through an analysis of literature and films Read a blog entry by the author

The Disenfranchisement of Ex-Felons
A thought-provoking look at one population's loss of voting rights in the United States

Do Right by Me
Invites readers into a conversation on how best to raise black children in white families and white communities Read an interview with the authors

The End of Empires
A trailblazing book that details the close historic ties between Black America and India over the decades

The End of White World Supremacy
How the marginalization of African Americans turned into a social phenomenon for the nation and world

Envisioning Emancipation
What freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era

Extraordinary Racial Politics
Explores the promise and perils of racially-based mass mobilizations and state emergencies

From Black Power to Hip Hop
A provocative analysis of the new contours of black nationalism and feminism in America

From Slave Ship to Supermax
The first interdisciplinary study of mass incarceration to intersect the fields of literary studies, critical prison studies, and human rights

Global Philadelphia
A comprehensive analysis of the processes and consequences of immigration to Philadelphia over time

The Great Migration and the Democratic Party
Examining the political impact of Black migration on politics in three northern cities from 1915 to 1965

Greening Africana Studies
Establishes the need to include Environmental Studies as part of the Africana Studies curriculum

Hapa Girl
A vivid depiction of the racism suffered by a mixed-race family in rural South Dakota

Healing Our Divided Society
Examining inequality in America fifty years after the Kerner Report

Hip Hop Underground
Race and authenticity in America, explored through the Bay Area’s multiracial underground hip hop scene

How Racism Takes Place
How racism shapes urban spaces and how African Americans create vibrant communities that offer models for more equitable social arrangements

How to Be South Asian in America
A variety of immigrant narratives portray the dynamic process of South Asian Americanization

Illegal Migrations and the Huckleberry Finn Problem
If you knew a runaway slave or undocumented immigrant, would you tell?

Immigrant Crossroads
Highlights immigrant engagement in urban development, policy, and social movements

Incidental Racialization
Examining racialization, inequality, and professional socialization

Invisible People
Unforgettable profiles of immigrants, natives, loners, villains, eccentrics, and oracles

Islam in Urban America
How does the practice of Islam and its community of believers change in the American context?

Japanese American Millennials
A groundbreaking study of ethnic identity and community in the everyday lives of Japanese American millennials

Jesus, Jobs, and Justice
Now in paperback, an extraordinary history of African American women, and their struggle for gender and racial equality in the church and society

Just Who Loses?
A rich vein of data that lays bare pervasive discriminatory environments and their systemic consequences for "targets and non-targets" of discrimination.

Latino Lives in America
A nuanced and insightful assessment of Latino life in America

Latinos in New England
The first comprehensive look at the growing Latino presence in New England

Look, a White!
From a celebrated scholar on race, a book on ways of seeing, and seeing through, whiteness

The Machinery of Whiteness
An extensive critique of the structures of whiteness and how they produce racism in the United States

Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood
How immigrants are reinventing Sunset Park, forming new multi-racial alliances, and reshaping its community

The Man-Not
Introduces the conceptual foundations for Black Male Studies, going beyond gender theories that cast the Black Male as a pathological aspiring patriarch

Mavericks, Money, and Men
Examining the black player experience in the American Football League

Mediating America
How black and Irish journalists in the Gilded Age used newspapers to shape and constrain the struggle for American belonging

Men's College Athletics and the Politics of Racial Equality
Profiles of college athletes and teams that challenged the color line in America

The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation
A landmark history of the New York Young Lords, and what their activism tells us about contemporary Latino/a politics

No More Invisible Man
Making visible the experiences of black professional men in white male-dominated occupations

Not from Here, Not from There/No Soy de Aquí ni de Allá
A lively autobiography by a community activist, judge, and public advocate who blazed a trail for Latinos in Philadelphia

Orientals
A compelling study of how the label "oriental" came into being

The Palestinian Idea
A window into the Palestinian freedom struggle, drawing on an analysis of Palestinian film and media

The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
The twentieth anniversary edition of a widely influential book—now updated to address racial privilege in the age of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Donald Trump

The Puerto Rican Diaspora
Histories of the Puerto Rican experience

Race and Class Matters at an Elite College
How race and class collide at a prestigious liberal arts college

Race Appeal
Why, when, and how often candidates use race appeals, and how the electorate responds

Re-Viewing James Baldwin
A focus on Baldwin as an experimental writer

Reframing Transracial Adoption
A provocative critique of transnational, transracial adoption from a critical race and feminist perspective and a vision for reform

Resurrecting Slavery
Revealing how the histories of slavery and colonialism are being resurrected and racialized in France today

Revolution Around the Corner
The first book-length story of the radical social movement, the Puerto Rican Socialist Party

Savage Portrayals
How the media's racialized coverage of the Central Park Jogger case influenced the conviction of five young minority men accused of "wilding" and affected the American juvenile justice system

Savoring the Salt
An anthology that celebrates the life and work of a major African American writer

Selling Transracial Adoption
Examines cross-race adoptions from the perspectives of adoption providers, showing how racial hierarchies and the supply and demand for children shape the process

Silent Gesture
The story of the most famous protest in sports history, written by one of the men who staged it

Somalis in the Twin Cities and Columbus
Examining the political, economic and social incorporation of Somali Americans in Minnesota’s Twin Cities and in Columbus, Ohio

Tasting Freedom
The life and times of the extraordinary Octavius Catto, and the first civil rights movement in America

Tensions in the American Dream
The contradictions of the promise - and reality - of the American Dream

Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants
A comprehensive analysis of changes in immigration policy, politics, and enforcement since 9/11

Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice
Offers a fresh, important new understanding of racial and sexual discrimination

There Goes the 'Hood
How does gentrification affect residents who stay in the neighborhood?

Understanding Mainland Puerto Rican Poverty
A new understanding of the impoverishment of Puerto Ricans living on the mainland

Unsettled Solidarities
Illuminates the intersecting logics of settler colonialism and racialization through analysis of contemporary Asian and Indigenous crossings in the Américas

Upon the Ruins of Liberty
A behind-the-scenes look at the development of the memorial to slavery in Independence Mall

We Shall Be Free!
In primary sources, unearthing the writings of African American Communists and the forgotten promise of radical politics