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#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. |
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Duty or Desire
by Patrick Jones
In this adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Alejandro and Chrissie, teens from opposite sides of Minneapolis, are drawn together over their shared experience of brutal police attacks, but while Alejandro struggles with divided loyalties between his duty to his family and crew and his obsessive love, Chrissie debates whether to pursue justice or just move on.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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. Simultaneous eBook.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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