| How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on... by Marcia ChatelainIn this thought-provoking and well-researched corrective, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marcia Chatelain (Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America) spotlights the crucial but little-known contributions Black women activists made to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Further reading: Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African
American Women in the Civil Rights Movement by Janet Dewart Bell. |
|
| Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City by Anand GiridharadasOn May 1, 2023, Jordan Neely, a Black unhoused man experiencing a psychotic episode on the New York City subway, was placed in a chokehold by a fellow passenger, white former Marine Daniel Penny, until he died. Investigative journalist Anand Giridharadas’ nuanced account looks beyond the headlines to reveal the complexity of the tragedy, exploring themes of race and privilege, homelessness, mental health care, and America’s criminal justice system. Further reading: In the Shadow of Freedom: The Enduring Call for Racial Justice by Alessandra Harris. |
|
| End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra TaylorAuthors and activists Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s incisive collaboration examines how ethno-nationalists, technocrats, and religious fundamentalists sow societal chaos by espousing apocalyptic worldviews. Try this next: The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit. |
|
| The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World by Nathaniel PhilbrickHistorian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathaniel Philbrick’s sweeping latest explores the wide-ranging impact of the California Gold Rush, detailing how it spurred America toward civil war and led to technological advancements including the transatlantic railroad and the motion picture industry. Featuring profiles of figures from the era, this propulsive chronicle also utilizes more than 80 maps and illustrations. For fans of: Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West by Peter Cozzens. |
|
Focus on: Native American Heritage Month
|
|
| We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCatBlending elements of memoir and reportage with oral storytelling traditions, Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation filmmaker and activist Julian Brave NoiseCat spotlights contemporary Indigenous life in North America, highlighting the triumphs and travails of misrepresented communities. Try this next: Sugarcane, NoiseCat's documentary for which he became the first Indigenous American filmmaker nominated for an Academy Award; Rez Rules: My Indictment of Canada's and America's Systemic Racism Against Indigenous Peoples by Chief Clarence Louie. |
|
|
|
Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity
by Leah Myers
In this unflinching and intimate memoir, Myers excavates the stories of four generations of women in order to leave a record of her family. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family's totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven. As she pieces together their stories, Myers weaves in tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. She tells the larger story of how, as she puts it, her culture is being bleached out, offering sharp vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds: her na ve childhood love for Pocahontas, her struggles with the Klallam language, the violence she faced at the hands of a close White friend as a teenager. Crisp and powerful, Thinning Blood is at once a bold reclamation of one woman's identity and a searingly honest meditation on heritage, family, and what it means to belong.
|
|
|
|
On the Turtle's Back: Stories the Lenape Told Their Grandchildren
by Camilla Townsend
On the Turtle's Back is the first collection of folklore from the Lenape people, New Jersey's native inhabitants. Originally compiled by anthropologist M. R. Harrington over a century ago, but never published until now, it shares the tribe's cherished tales about the world's creation, epic heroes, and ordinary human foibles.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|