Buy the books on this reading list at black-owned stores.
Over the past few weeks, police brutality has raged across America in response to nationwide protests against police brutality. Some people have been left searching for answers. Were the police always this bad? How can so many violent events possibly have happened? Should we just get rid of the police altogether? What would that even look like?
I’ve compiled a reading list of nonfiction books that can help you understand where we are right now, how we got here, and where we can go next. But I want to be clear: Reading the books below is not enough. We’re in a moment of national crisis, and reading is only helpful insofar as it informs your actions. Let these books be a starting point, not the only thing you do. Take action.
Also, please buy these books from black-owned bookstores. All the links I’ve provided below will take you to a black-owned bookstore whenever possible, and here’s a list of other black-owned bookstores where you can shop.
In one of the most influential books of the past 20 years, Alexander shows how the criminal justice system works to replicate the effects of Jim Crow laws and create a new racial caste system. This book laid the intellectual basis for the revitalized critique of America’s criminal justice system over the past decade and is essential reading.
Law professor Franklin Zimring goes deep into the numbers to figure out how often the police kill civilians, why, and who they are killing. This book is a data-driven snapshot of the situation on the ground circa 2018.
While sexual violence committed by police is the second-most frequently reported form of police misconduct, it is not the second-most talked about. Police misconduct attorney Andrea J. Ritchie aims to change that in this book, which looks at the often-ignored ways in which police can prey on women from vulnerable communities.
Matthew Horace, a black man who spent 28 years in law enforcement, explains the culture of racism deeply embedded in America’s police departments. Horace’s first-person account is supplemented with reporting by journalist Ron Harris, but what’s most indelible in this book is Horace’s account of finding himself with a gun to his head and pinned to the ground by a white officer.
In this provocative anthology, 16 writers explain what it’s like to live as a person of color in Minnesota, the state where George Floyd was killed by police.
