The Read Between the Vines Podcast team stands with the protestors fighting for justice and equality. We recognize the systemic racism that is so pervasive in organizations that are meant to serve and protect.
With the help of our community, we have put together a reading list to educate, challenge, and inspire those who wish to become more involved with the Black Lives Matter movement. We suggest reading one book every month and talk through the content with your friends and family; it is not enough to read and not practice.
Now is not the time to disappear into the background for fear of retribution. Now is the time to stand up for those who cannot stand themselves, speak up for voices that cannot be heard, and fight for those who have carried the weight for too long. We support the Black Lives Matter movement, the retraining and fund reallocation for police departments nationwide, oversight and accountability for law enforcement, and the just, fair treatment of all.
Check out the Black Lives Matter website to find your local chapter.
| White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin J. DiAngelo |
| Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi |
| Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Dorothy Roberts |
| Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves edited by Glory Edim |
| Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde |
| Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock |
| The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston |
| The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes |
| The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison |
| The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman |
| West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story? by Suzanne Model |
| Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Racial Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson |
| Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph |
| How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor |
Poets featured on our BLM Miniseries:
Episode 1:
- Phyllis Wheatley
- James Madison Bell
- Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Charlotte L. Forten Grimké
Additional poets from the 1700s and 1800s you should explore:
- Lucy Terry Prince
- Jupiter Hammon
- George Moses Horton
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- James Monroe Whitfield
- Samuel Wright
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Charles Lewis Reason
- Joshua McCarter Simpson
- Harriet Jacobs
- Henrietta Cordelia Ray
- Daniel Webster Davis
- James Edwin Campbell
- Elymas Payson Rogers
(Read) Between the Vines 