Read & Learn ("Let's Talk About Race")

Interested in reading more about the history and presence of race/racism in the United States. Here are is a short list of recommended readings from the Reading Public Library. We have lots more suggestions, please contact us to find out more.

Visit the Reading Public Library to find eBooks, audio versions, and more ...

• Stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi. A comprehensive history of anti-black racism focuses on the lives of five major players in American history, including Cotton Mather and Thomas Jefferson, and highlights the debates that took place between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. Available in regular print, eBook, eAudio

• Stamped: racism, antiracism, and you by Jason Reynolds. A history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted for teens and tweens from the National Book Award winner “Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi. Available in regular print, eBook, eAudio

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day. Available in regular print, eBook, eAudio

• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Available in regular print, eBook, eAudio

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Available in regular print, eBook, eAudio