89 books like Representing the Race

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a renowned Harvard professor and author of a series of deeply insightful books on African American history. He has also become one of the most recognizable public figures in the nation, from the PBS series Finding Your Roots and Reconstruction to a cameo in Watchmen in which he played the United States Treasury Secretary. It can be easy to forget that “Skip” Gates was raised in the hills of West Virginia, part of a tight-knit, quirky, distinctly African American community. In Gates’ affectionate memoir detailing his growing up, a series of fascinating characters leap from the page—some Churchgoing, some anything but; some strait-laced; some definitely not; some ambitious, some content to do as little as possible to get by.  Everyone we meet in Colored People is both recognizable and a revelation, and Gates has created a moving and nostalgic look at African American culture that… show more.

I love this book, which was published in 1903, because of how timeless it is and because of how relevant Du Bois’ words are to our present moment in which racial inequality and racism persist.

I appreciate the historical perspective Du Bois provides his readers so the past is not forgotten, so the past helps us understand the historical trajectory that led us to right now. The writing is clear, smart, and beautiful, offering a blend of genres—from music to memoir—that keeps readers engaged as they read Du Bois’ astute analyses of the past and his suggestive projections about the future.

As an English professor, I love introducing my students to this classic text, which inevitably evokes empathy from them and, in some, elicits a desire for activism. This is a text that moves people. 

Hughes, whose poetry is standard fare in many American high schools, led an amazing, globetrotting life in the 1930s, which he details with a poet’s eye in this fascinating memoir.  Whether in Stalinist Russia with the famed novelist Arthur Koestler or in Madrid during the height of the Spanish Civil War, Hughes recounts his wanderings part wide-eyed, part coldly rational, but always with wit and panache. What makes this book so compelling is the casual acceptance of Hughes across Europe and West Asia, where the color of his skin rarely makes the slightest difference to those he encounters. Equally, Hughes recounts his adventures with minimal reference to race, although the lack of bigotry he encounters abroad always lurks in the background. 

I Wonder as I Wander is the sort of book that becomes a page-turner without trying—deceptively gentle, deeply penetrating, and fun.

A brilliant hypnotic novel that almost no one read. Albert French was the victim of a publishing nightmare—his editor and his publisher, both of whom had primed his novel for a major publicity push, left for new jobs before the pub date, after which his book was orphaned and abandoned. For anyone not in the book business, it might seem hard to believe that a terrific novel would be left to languish, but, sadly, such an event is not uncommon in American publishing.

Set in an African American section of Pittsburgh in 1950, I Can’t Wait on God evokes both the day-to-day lives of ordinary people and the striving and hopelessness of African Americans trying to escape the doomed existence to which so many are condemned.  French weaves a tale that is starkly realistic, yet with a mystical overtone that creates a sort of intoxicating haze. The narrative seems straightforward,… show more.

People often ask me who is the most important yet least known woman in U.S. history. Of course I am partial to Helen Hamilton Gardener, the woman whose biography I wrote, but overall I think the woman we all need to know about is Pauli Murray. We love to love RBG, but RBG credited Pauli Murray with some of her most effective legal strategies. In fact, Murry was the legal mastermind behind landmark civil rights and sex discrimination cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. And she bravely lived her life on her own terms (as what today we would likely understand as a trans man). Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, I think we could use a refresher on the 14th Amendment and how Americans, none more so than Pauli Murray, have used it to champion equality for all. 

Like Andrew Young, Vernon Jordan was another generous, legendary person who I treasured interviewing for Nine Days. Sadly, he passed away this year, but left us a captivating account of his life, from childhood in Georgia to being a young lawyer under Donald Hollowell facing life and death stakes to surviving an assassination attempt. Jordan was a masterful orchestrator of change who appreciated his mentors and taught us all through this book.

Young people need to know that they are a part of history. I believe this with all my heart and so does Ellen Levine.

In Freedom’s Children the words fly as young African Americans describe their ugly experiences growing up in the segregated South and then their exhilarating involvement in major civil rights events including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Birmingham Movement, and the Selma voting rights campaign.

Ellen Levine travelled south and interviewed many, capturing these riveting stories. And I include the voices of some of these amazing young people in a book I wrote about the Birmingham marches. Readers of both books will see the vital role young people played in the civil rights movement. 

In a clever move, Charlie Cobb uses the form of a travel guide—I love it better than a Lonely Planet—to introduce the events and people of the 1960s Civil Rights struggles. An active participant, Cobb takes us into, behind, and around the sit-ins, the formation of SNCC, campaigns for voting rights, Mississippi Summer of 1964, and other day-by-day battles for Civil Rights. We meet close up and learn about the work of the young people, many unknown and unsung, whose determination and daring carried the Movement forward. And, yes, the book also provides many pictures and documents, as well as a “guided tour” of the homes, churches, shops, and bars where the real action happened.   

Civil rights have been denied to many groups in the United States at different times in different ways—and sometimes in very much the same way, as I learned from this book about a landmark school desegregation case in 1946 in California. Eight-year-old Sylvia Mendez didn’t understand why she had to go to the “Mexican school,” a rough shack without a playground or a cafeteria, when there was a much nicer public school close to her house. So her family decided to fight—not just for Sylvia and her brothers, but for all children in segregated schools in California. Ultimately, they won, with help (as Tonatiuh points out) from the American Jewish Congress, the Japanese American Citizens League, and the NAACP.

Now teaching at UT Austin after founding the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University, Joseph recently wrote a twin biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. called The Sword and the Shield. His first published book, Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour (2006), was a thriller; it helped shift the prevailing narrative of the core years of the Civil Rights era toward the essential legacies of Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, and other Black “radicals” whose contributions were too long willfully neglected.