For Social Justice Awareness Month, the Library Student Ambassador has created both an in-person display of Social Justice Book Recommendations in the CORE Library, and this online display of both physical books and eBooks that the CORE Library provides. You can check out the in-person display across from the Check Out Desk on the first floor of the library. We hope you find some thought-provoking and inspiring reads though both of these displays!
Check out the bottom of this page to access more of our digital displays for Cultural Awareness Months!
The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry: In this work, the author tells the story of inequality, looking at the practices and biases that limit the production and circulation of movies directed by racial minorities. This book examines over 1,300 contemporary films, specifically focusing on directors, to show the key elements at work in maintaining 'the Hollywood Jim Crow'.
Racism in America: A Reader: The excerpts in this volume--culled from works of history, law, sociology, medicine, economics, critical theory, philosophy, art, and literature--are an invitation to understand anti-Black racism through the eyes of our most incisive commentators.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation: In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and the persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens: Desmond Meade tells the story of his fight to pass Amendment 4 in Florida, which would restore voting rights to felons who have served their terms.
Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores Incarceration: Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity’s role in its evolution and expansion. He then shows how Christians can pursue justice that restores and reconciles, offering creative solutions and highlighting innovative interventions.
U.S. Latinos and Criminal Injustice: This book addresses the development and rapid growth of the Latino population in the United States and how race-based discrimination, hate crimes, and other prejudicial attitudes, some of which have been codified via public policy, have grown in response. Salinas explores the degrading practice of racial profiling, an approach used by both federal and state law enforcement agents; the abuse in immigration enforcement; and the use of deadly force against immigrants.
Criminal Justice Ethics: Theory and Practice: Criminal Justice Ethics examines the criminal justice system through an ethical lens by identifying ethical issues in practice and theory, exploring ethical dilemmas, and offering suggestions for resolving ethical issues and dilemmas faced by criminal justice professionals.
Notable native people : 50 indigenous leaders, dreamers, and change makers from past and present: An accessible and educational illustrated book profiling 50 notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people, from NBA star Kyrie Irving of the Standing Rock Lakota to Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: Historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted the expansion of the US empire.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants: As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. She brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take "us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise."
The Politics of Indigeneity: Dialogues and Reflections on Indigenous Activism: The Politics of Indigeneity explores the concept of indigeneity across the world and the ways in which it intersects with local, national and international social and political realities.
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements: A manifesto from one of America's most influential activists which disrupts political, economic, and social norms by reimagining the Black Radical Tradition. Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Unapologetic challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist.
Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Social Injustice: Drawing from the latest research and from popular games such as World of Warcraft and Tomb Raider, Woke Gaming examines resistance to spaces of violence, discrimination, and microaggressions in gaming culture. The contributors of these essays identify strategies to detox gaming culture and orient players toward progressive ends.
Food Justice Now! Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle: The United States is a nation of foodies and food activists, many of them progressives, and yet their overwhelming concern for what they consume often hinders their engagement with social justice more broadly. Food Justice Now! charts a path from food activism to social justice activism that integrates the two. It calls on the food-focused to broaden and deepen their commitment to the struggle against structural inequalities both within and beyond the food system.
Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change: Music is Power takes us on a guided tour through the past 100 years of politically-conscious music, from Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Green Day and NWA. Covering a wide variety of genres, including reggae, country, metal, psychedelia, rap, punk, folk, and soul, Brad Schreiber demonstrates how musicians can take a variety of approaches--angry rallying cries, mournful elegies to the victims of injustice, or even humorous mockeries of authority--to fight for a fairer world.
Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology: Spanning diverse forms, settings, perspectives, and styles, but unified by their drive to imagine new Latinx futures, these stories address the breadth of contemporary Latinx experiences and identities while exuberantly embracing the genre’s ability to entertain and surprise.
Take a Stand: Art Against Hate: The work represents a wide range of proactively humanitarian and nonviolent stances that poets, artists, and activists have taken in response to the many troubles afflicting us in this era. We can regard Take a Stand: Art Against Hate as a print-form peace march, an ongoing campaign for justice for all of the struggles embodied in these writings and depicted in the photos and artwork included here.
Say Her Name: Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists insisting that Black Lives Matter. Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating the creativity, resilience, and courage of Black women and girls.
Citizen Illegal: Poems: In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the story, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, and gentrifying barrios.
African American Communities: Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American communities through pamphlets, newspaper and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity. Also featured is a rich selection of visual material, including photographs, maps and ephemera.
American Indian Newspapers: From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, explore nearly 200 years of indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada.
Ebony Magazine Archive: Covers civil rights, education, entrepreneurship and other social topics with an African American focus. It includes more than 800 issues providing a broad view of African American culture from its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
Jet Magazine Archive: Cover art, news, politics, and other social topics with an African American focus. It includes over 3,100 issues providing a broad view of culture, fashion and entertainment from its first issue in 1951 through 2014.
Chicago Defender: The Chicago news paper was one of the most influential African American newspaper of the 20th century. With the majority of its readership outside of the Chicago region, it served as the de facto national black newspaper in the U.S.
American Indian Histories & Cultures: Explore manuscripts, artwork and rate printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspaper from the mid twentieth century.
Black Thought & Culture: A collection of non-fiction writings by American black leaders, teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers and other figures covering 250 years of history.
Gender: Identity & Social Change: Records from men's and women's organizations advice literature and etiquette books that reveal developing gender roles and relations. Gain an insight into changing societal expectations about gender roles through personal diaries and correspondence and explore the life and careers of key figures and pioneers in gender history.
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice:This source brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world covering an extensive time period from 1490.
Independent Voices: An Open Access Collection of an Alternative Press: A four year project to digitalize over 1 million pages from the magazine, journals, and newspapers of alternate press archives of participating libraries. Starting with collections from feminists and the GI press, the collection will grow to include small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, the minority press (Latino, Black and Native American) and the extreme right wing press.