9 Crucial Reads That Help to Educate Us on Racism in America
We asked poet Claudia Rankine to compile a reading list with the aim of making all of us more educated and enlightened citizens.
By Claudia Rankine
The Literary Criticism You Might Not Have Read Since College
This Required History Reading
This James Baldwin Essay
"Stranger in the Village" by James Baldwin (from his book
Notes of a Native Son)
This Groundbreaking Article
"The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (From
The Atlantic’s June 2014 issue)
On the Modern Protest Movement
On Mass Incarceration
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist and playwright. She is the author of Citizen and her next book, Just Us: An American Conversation is forthcoming with Graywolf Press. She teaches at Yale University.
Published 07/29/2020
