The Thomas Memorial Library recognizes that systemic racism is a persistent problem in our society. We are committed to providing resources and information to help our community understand issues related to social justice, and to help promote antiracism, diversity, and empathy for all. Please check this page often as we continue to update our recommended resource lists and add to our virtual shelves.

Last updated: January 13, 2021

Resources for Families
Resources for Teens

Browse Our Virtual Shelves

Books for Adults

Books for Children and Young Adults

Coretta Scott King Book Awards

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

Finding Langston

The Parker Inheritance

The Season of Styx Malone

Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut

The Hate U Give

Long Way Down

Piecing Me Together

As Brave as You

Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan

March: Book Three

All American Boys

The Boy in the Black Suit

Gone Crazy in Alabama

X: A Novel

Brown Girl Dreaming

The Crossover

How I Discovered Poetry

How It Went Down

Darius & Twig

March: Book One

P.S. Be Eleven

Words with Wings

Each Kindness

Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller

The Great Migration: Journey to the North

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans

Never Forgotten

Lockdown

Ninth Ward

One Crazy Summer

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty

Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal

Mare's War

Becoming Billie Holiday

The Blacker the Berry

Keeping the Night Watch

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

Elijah of Buxton

November Blues

Twelve Rounds to Glory (12 Rounds to Glory): The Story of Muhammad Ali

Copper Sun

The Road to Paris

Dark Sons

Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue

Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl

A Wreath for Emmett Till

Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem

The Legend of Buddy Bush

Remember: The Journey to School Integration

Who Am I Without Him?: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in Their Lives

The Battle of Jericho

Days of Jubilee

The First Part Last

Locomotion

Bronx Masquerade

The Red Rose Box

Talkin' about Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman

Carver: A Life in Poems

The Land

Money Hungry

Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters

Miracle's Boys

Black Hands, White Sails

Bud, Not Buddy

Francie

Monster

Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence: The Story of New York's African Burial Ground

Heaven

Jazmin's Notebook

The Other Side: Shorter Poems

Bayard Rustin: Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movement

Forged by Fire

I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl, Mars Bluff, South Carolina, 1865

Rebels Against Slavery: American Slave Revolts

Slam!

From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales

Like Sisters on the Homefront

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues

The Captive (Turtleback School & Library)

Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters

I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This

Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea

Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary

Toning the Sweep

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural

Mississippi Challenge

Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman?

Somewhere in the Darkness

Night on Neighborhood Street

Now Is Your Time!: The African-American Struggle for Freedom

The Road to Memphis

When I Am Old with You

The Bells of Christmas

A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Freedom Movement

Nathaniel Talking

Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave

Fallen Angels

A Thief in the Village: And Other Stories

The Friendship

The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit

Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World

Lion and the Ostrich Chicks: And Other African Folk Poems

Which Way Freedom?

The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales

Circle of Gold

Motown and Didi (Turtleback School & Library)

Bright Shadow

Everett Anderson's Goodbye

Lena: A Personal and Professional Biography of Lena Horne (Revised)

The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush

This Strange New Feeling

Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Mary: An Autobiography

Don't Explain: A Song of Billie Holiday

This Life

Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir

James Van Der Zee: The Picture-Takin' Man

The Young Landlords

Escape to Freedom: A Play about Young Frederick Douglass

I Have a Sister--My Sister Is Deaf

Justice and Her Brothers

Africa Dream

The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They Came to Be

Mary McLeod Bethune

The Story of Stevie Wonder

Duey's Tale

The Legend of Africania,

Ray Charles

Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race

Let the Children March

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968

The Stuff of Stars

Before She Was Harriet

Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets

Freedom in Congo Square

In Plain Sight: A Game

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem's Greatest Bookstore

Last Stop on Market Street

Trombone Shorty

Firebird

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone

Knock Knock: My Dad's Dream for Me

Nelson Mandela

Ellen's Broom

H.O.R.S.E.

I Have a Dream [With CD (Audio)]

I, Too, Am America

Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom

Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave

Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix

My People

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane

The Moon Over Star

Jazz on a Saturday Night [With CD]

Let It Shine

The Secret Olivia Told Me

Jazz

Langston Hughes

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom

Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of the Sudan

Rosa

Ellington Was Not a Street

The People Could Fly: The Picture Book

Almost to Freedom

Beautiful Blackbird

Thunder Rose

Rap a Tap Tap: Here's Bojangles - Think of That!

Visiting Langston

Goin' Someplace Special

Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freedom River

Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth

Uptown

Virgie Goes to School with Us Boys

Black Cat

In the Time of the Drums

My Rows and Piles of Coins

The Bat Boy and His Violin

Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra

I Have Heard of a Land

I See the Rhythm

Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry

Harlem

The Hunterman and the Crocodile

In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers

Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman

Neeny Coming, Neeny Going

The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children (Revised)

Running the Road to ABC

The Faithful Friend

The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo

The Creation

Meet Danitra Brown

The Singing Man: Adapted from a West African Folktale

Soul Looks Back in Wonder

Uncle Jed's Barbershop

Little Eight John (Turtleback School & Library)

The Origin of Life on Earth: An African Creation Myth

Sukey and the Mermaid

Working Cotton

All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African-American Spirituals

Night on Neighborhood Street (Turtleback School & Library)

Tar Beach

Aida

The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South

Mirandy and Brother Wind

Storm in the Night

Under the Sunday Tree

The Invisible Hunters: A Legend from the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters Big Book

What a Morning!: The Christmas Story in a Black Spiritual

C.L.O.U.D.S.

Half a Moon and One Whole Star

The Patchwork Quilt

My Mama Needs Me

All the Colors of the Race

Black Child

I'm Going to Sing: Black American Spirituals

Just Us Women

Daydreamers

Mother Crocodile

Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum

Count on Your Fingers African Style

Grandmama's Joy

Cornrows

Ray Charles (Turtleback School & Library)

The Rock and the River

Bird

Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It

The Stars Beneath Our Feet

The Stars Beneath Our Feet (Bot Exclusive)

The Sun Is Also a Star

Hoodoo

When I Was the Greatest

Zora and Me

Standing Against the Wind

Jimi & Me

Missy Violet & Me

The Way a Door Closes

Chill Wind

The Skin I'm in

Another Way to Dance (Turtleback School & Library)

Tears of a Tiger

Mama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop

Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace

Jazzy Miz Mozetta

My Family Plays Music

The Moon Ring

Freedom Summer

The Piano Man

The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Books for Adults and Children by Indigenous Authors

#OwnVoices Children’s Books

Recent recommended books by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color creators

#OwnVoices Books for Adults

Recent recommended books by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color creators