#BlackLivesMatter for Teen Readers
 
As the Black Lives Matter movement grows in the wake of ongoing racial injustice and police brutality against Black Americans, it can be difficult to understand current events. The books and podcasts on this list offer a starting place for exploring racism, prejudice, discrimination, and inequity in a manner accessible to teens and young adults.
 
Fiction
All American boys
by Jason Reynolds

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend
All the days past, all the days to come
by Mildred D. Taylor

A long-awaited conclusion to the story that began in the Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry finds young adult Cassie Logan searching for a sense of belonging before joining the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s Mississippi.
Anger is a gift
by Mark Oshiro

Struggling with panic attacks and grief over his father's death, high school junior Moss, in the face of a racist school administration, decides to organize a protest that escalates into violence
Backfield boys : A Football Mystery in Black and White
by John Feinstein

When best friends Tom and Jason leave New York City for an elite, sports-focused boarding school in Virginia to play football, they find some coaches and teammates to be steeped in racism
Black enough : stories of being young & black in America
by Ibi Zoboi

Edited by the National Book Award finalist and featuring contributions by a prestigious group of best-selling, award-winning and emerging African American young-adult authors, a timely literary collection shares modern insights into what it is like to be young and black in today's America.
Dear Martin
by Nic Stone

Profiled by a racist police officer in spite of his excellent academic achievements and Ivy League acceptance, a disgruntled college youth navigates the prejudices of new classmates and his crush on a white girl by writing a journal to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the hopes that his iconic role model's teachings will be applicable half a century later. 
Dreamland burning
by Jennifer Latham

A dual-narrated tale by the author of Scarlett Undercover explores how race relations have changed in the past century through the story of 17-year-old Rowan, who investigates a century-old murder committed during the race riots of 1921 Tulsa. 
The hate u give
by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
How it went down
by Kekla Magoon

When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot to death, his community is thrown into an uproar because Tariq was black and the shooter, Jack Franklin, is white, and in the aftermath everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events agree
I'm not dying with you tonight
by Kimberly Jones

Told from two viewpoints, Atlanta high school seniors Lena and Campbell, one black, one white, must rely on each other to survive after a football rivalry escalates into a riot
Lies we tell ourselves
by Robin Talley

The civil rights movement in 1959 Virginia irrevocably changes the lives of two girls: a persecuted black student who is one of the first to attend a newly integrated school and a white integration opponent's daughter with whom she confronts harsh truths during a school project. 
Light it up
by Kekla Magoon

A follow-up to the award-winning How It Went Down finds the community of Underhill thrown into upheaval by the police shooting of an unarmed 13-year-old girl, a mistake that triggers clashes between justice-seeking protestors and white-supremacist demonstrators.

Lexile Measure HL 480 L
Loving vs. Virginia : a documentary novel of the landmark civil rights case
by Patricia Hruby Powell

A tale inspired by the landmark 1955 civil rights case follows the relationship between two young people who challenged period segregation, prejudice and injustice to pursue a relationship at the center of a Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage. By the award-winning author of Josephine.
Monster
by Walter Dean Myers

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken. A Coretta Scott King Honor Book.

#OwnVoices
Slay
by Brittney Morris

Hiding her identity as the developer of an elite online role-playing game, a talented teen, one of the only black students in her school, is targeted with violent racism when an in-game dispute escalates into a player’s murder. 
Tyler Johnson was here
by Jay Coles

Accompanying his twin to a party that is thrown into chaos by a shooting, Marvin, a multicultural teen, is horrified when his brother goes missing and is found dead, possibly at the hands of a racist police officer.
Watch us rise
by Renée Watson

Fed up with gender imbalances at their progressive NYC high school, two friends start a women's rights club and post poems, essays and videos online until their work goes viral, compelling the principal to shut them down. Co-written by the Newbery Honor-winning author of This Side of Home.
X : a novel
by Ilyasah Shabazz

Follows the childhood of the civil rights leader to his imprisonment at age twenty, where he found the faith that would lead him to his path towards activism and justice
Nonfiction
Accused! : the trials of the Scottsboro Boys : lies, prejudice, and the Fourteenth Amendment
by Larry Dane Brimner

The award-winning author of Blacklisted! chronicles the harrowing story of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American teens whose lives were destroyed in the wake of racist false accusations during the Great Depression.
The Freedom Summer murders
by Don Mitchell

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer murders, a young reader's introduction to the harrowing story traces the events surrounding the KKK lynching of three young civil rights activists who were trying to register African-Americans for the vote.
Getting away with murder : the true story of the Emmett Till case
by Chris Crowe

When fourteen-year-old Emmett Till left Chicago to visit family in a small town in Mississippi and was soon murdered for whistling at a white woman, a series of events took place that changed the ways of the south and the nation forever.
Malcolm X : by any means necessary
by Walter Dean Myers

Traces the life of the controversial Black leader, describes his involvement with the Nation of Islam, and looks at his speeches and assassination
March: Book one
by John Lewis

A first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights spans his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement
The Port Chicago 50 : disaster, mutiny, and the fight for civil rights
by Steve Sheinkin

The Newbery Award-winning and National Book Award finalist author of Bomb presents an account of the 1944 civil rights protest involving hundreds of African-American Navy servicemen who were unjustly charged with mutiny for refusing to work in unsafe conditions after the deadly Port Chicago explosion.
Stamped : racism, antiracism, and you
by Jason Reynolds

A timely reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America while explaining their endurance and capacity for being discredited. 100,000 first printing. Simultaneous eBook. Illustrations.
This Book is Anti-Racist : 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work
by Tiffany Jewell

Discusses social identities, describes the history of racism and resistance against it, and offers guidance on becoming an anti-racist voice to move the world toward equality.
They called themselves the K.K.K. : the birth of an American terrorist group
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Using personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents and diaries, the author of the Newbery Honor book, Hitler Youth, unveils the creation of the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, and its spread across the American South.
Things that make white people uncomfortable : Adapted for Young Adults
by Michael Bennett

Presents a young readers adaptation of the book that uses humor to discuss racism and violence, denounce the NFL's abuses, and encourage black athletes in the NCAA and NFL to speak out against injustice both on and off the field
Turning 15 on the road to freedom : my story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March
by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

A 50th-anniversary tribute shares the story of the youngest person to complete the momentous Selma to Montgomery March, describing her frequent imprisonments for her participation in nonviolent demonstrations and how she felt about her involvement in historic Civil Rights events.
We are not yet equal : understanding our racial divide
by Carol Anderson

From the end of the Civil War to the tumultuous issues in America today, an acclaimed historian reframes the conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America
Podcasts
Activist You! Podcast
Activist, You! is a brand new youth podcast focusing on social justice. Every episode features an interview with different kid and teen activists, learning about their dedicated social justice topic, and how and why they became activists! They recently had an episode with a teen racial justice activist.
 
Book Club for Kids Podcast Episode: “On the Come Up by Angie Thomas”
The Book Club for Kids podcast primarily focuses on middle grade books, but in this episode features Angie Thomas’s YA novel On the Come Up. Host Kitty Felde talks with three eighth graders from Washington, D.C. about the book, and listeners hear how rap and hip-hop shape the story of main character Bri. Thomas shares her writing process and the playlist that inspired this story.
 
Code Switch Episode: "On the Shoulders of Giants"
Code Switch is an adult podcast discussing race and racism, but recently the hosts curated a series of episodes for kids and families. In this one, hosts from NPR’s Throughline, a podcast exploring present events through the lens of the past, focus on the activism of Colin Kapernick kneeling during the National Anthem at NFL games. Listeners travel back to learn about the activism of boxer Jack Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and basketball player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.
 
Kojo For Kids: Jason Reynolds Talks About Racism And The Protests
Best-selling YA author Jason Reynolds has grappled with racism personally and in his writing. The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature also recently co-authored a book for young people on fighting racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Reynolds joins Kojo For Kids to help us understand what has led to the tensions we’ve seen over the last week, and to talk about why racism persists and what we can do to build a less racist society.
 
ReadMore Podcast Episode: "Brittany Morris"
The ReadMore Podcast interviews authors about their books and writing process. Here, host Marva Hinton, also a writer and editor, interviews author Brittney Morris about her YA novel Slay. Morris discusses how the movie Black Panther motivated her to write Slay in 14 days. She talks about how the feeling of living a double life at the time—working in a place where she was one of only two black employees, and going home to be surrounded by Black friends and family—helped her develop the theme for her book. Slay explores the effects of marginalization through the lens of video gaming, and what it means to create inclusionary, safe spaces in the virtual realm and beyond, and can open up discussions on those issues.
 
Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast
The podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class covers past events that don't always make it into the curriculum. Teens (and adults!) can delve into our nation's tumultuous history in racial prejudice with episodes like The Port Chicago Disaster, Red Summer 1919,  or The Tulsa Race Riot and Black Wall Street and celebrate the strides Black Americans have made with episodes like How the Tuskegee Airmen Worked.
 
Unlocking Us Podcast Episode: "Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist"
Podcast host Brené talks with professor Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist about racial disparities, policy, and equality, focusing on How to Be an Antiracist, a groundbreaking approach to understanding uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves.
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