books. for most of my life the practice of reading has felt far out of reach. that changed in early 2021. i committed to a few strategies with which i have found some success in my efforts to read.

each of these books has influenced my formation like sea waves shaping a stone. some i may get to read again. their presence here reminds me how i got to wherever it is that i am.

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“The Souls of Black Folks” by W.E.B Du Bois. With “The Talented Tenth” and “The Souls of White Folk” Introduction by Ibram X. Kendi. “Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)” by Olúfėmi O. Táíwò. “Olúfėmi O. Táíwò is a thinker on fire.” - Robin D. G. Kelley “Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Acedemia as a Woman of Color” by Lorgia García Peña “Against Borders: The Case for Abolition” by Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke De Noronha “The Street: A novel” by Ann Petry. Introduction by Tayari Jones “The Autobiography of Malcom X: As Told To Alex Haley” “their eyes were watching god: a novel” by Zora Neale Hurston. “There is no book more important to me than this one.” - Alice Walker “Designing Disorder: Experiments and Disrubtions in the City” by Pabloe Sendra and Richard Sennett “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin. With a New Introduction by Edward P. Jones “Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity” by C. Riley Snorton “Assata Taught Me: State Violencem Racial Capitalism, and the Movement for Black Lives” by Donna Murch “Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation” By the Bordertown Violence Working Group, Nick Estes, Melanie K. Yazzie, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and David Correia. Foreword by Radmilla Cody and Brandon Benallie. “Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design” by Bess Williamson. “Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890-1920” by Allan H. Spear. “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander. With a new preface by the author. “ain't i a woman: black women and feminism” by bell hooks. “All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” by George M. Johnson. “We Are Not Broken: A Memoir” by George M. Johnson “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin. “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin. “Women Race & Class” by Angela Y. Davis. “The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love” by bell hooks. “Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side” by Eve L. Ewing. “An important addition to any conversation about the future of public schools and those they were designed to serve.” Ta-Nehisi Coates. “To Die for the People” by Huey Newton. Edited by Toni Morrison with a foreword by Elaine Brown. “Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance” by Nick Estes. “Stories of Your Life: and Others” by Ted Chiang. “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang. “Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe” by Michael Löwy. “The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches” by Malcom X. ”Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots“ by Howard Fast. “Paul Robeson: The Artist and Revolutionary” by Gerald Horne. “Here I Stand” by Paul Robeson. With an Introduction by Sterling Stuckey. “Paul Robeson, Negro” by Eslanda Goode Robeson. “Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson” by Shana L. Redmond. “Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson” by Barbara Ransby. “The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898-1939” by Paul Robeson, Jr. “The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: Quest for Freedom, 1939-1976” by Paul Robeson, Jr. “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur. Forewords by Angela Davis and Lennox S. Hinds. “Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South” by Catherine Fosl. With a foreword by Angela Y. Davis. “Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory” by Claudio Saunt. “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price, Ph.D. “The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation” by Natalie Y. Moore. “The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom” by Barbara Smith. “Energy Never Dies: Afro-Optimism & Creativity In Chicago” by Ayana Contreras. “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color” Edited bv Cherrie Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies” Edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott & Barbara Smith New Afterword by Brittney Cooper. “Queer & Trans Artists Of Color: Volume Two” Interviews by Nia King Edited by Elena Rose. “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches” by Audre Lorde. “The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America” Gerald Horne “Looking For Lorraine The Radiant And Radical Life Of Lorraine Hansberry” by Imani Perry. “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot” by Mikki Kendall. “Disability Visibility: First-person Stories from the Twenty-First Century” Edited by Alice Wong. “Selected Poems” by Gwendolyn Brooks. “Even the Saints Audition” by Raych Jackson. “A People’s History of Chicago” Poems by Kevin Coval. Foreward by Chance the Rapper. “There are Trans People Here” by H. Melt. “Electric Arches” by Eve L. Ewing. “How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective” edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, & Possibility” by Marc Lamont Hill. Foreword by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement” by Angela Y Davis. Foreword by Cornel West “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit. “The Mexican Revolution: A Short History 1910-1920” by Stuart Easterling” “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.” “Abolition. Feminism. Now.” by Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent Erica R. Meiners and Beth E. Richie “The Cancer Journals” by Audre Lorde. Foreword by Tracy K. Smith. “Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil” by W.E.B. DuBois. With a new introduction by Honorêe Fanonne Jeffers. “Nothing Personal” by James Baldwin. With a foreword by Imani Perry and an afterword by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. “The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save our Earth” by The Red Nation. “Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Y. Davis. “Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class” by Catherine Liu. “Trans Care” by Hil Malatino. “Ain’t I a Woman? ‘I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?’” by Sojourner Truth. “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)” by Dean Spade. “Narrative of the Life of Fredrerick Douglass: An American Slave” Written by Himself. With an introduction by Peter J. Gomes and a new afterword by Gregory Stephens. “Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963” by Colin Fleming. “Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace” by Aaron Cohen. “The Color Purple: A Novel” by Alice Walker. “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving” by Pete Walker. “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks” Edited by Elizabeth Alexander. “Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’” by Zora Neale Hurston. Edited by Deborah G. Plant. Foreword by Alice Walker. “Go Tell it on the Mountain” by James Baldwin. Introduction by Edwidge Danticat. “Ayoade on Top” by Richard Ayoade. “The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life” by Kyle Beachy. “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler. Foreword from award-winning author N.K. Jemisin “Parable of the Talents” by Octavia E. Butler. “Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism” by Amanda Montell. “The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom” Edited by Alice Kim, Erica R, Meiners, Andrey Petty, Jill Petty, Beth E. Richie, and Sarah Ross “The Yellow House” by Sarah M. Broom “A Wild Sheep Chase” by Haruki Murakami “killing rage: ending racism” by bell hooks “A People‘s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn “Angela Davis: an Autobiography” by Angela Davis “The Black Technical Object: On Machine Learning and the Aspiration of Black Being” by Ramon Amaro “If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance” edited by Angela Y. Davis “Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood” by Cherríe Moraga “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” by bell hooks “Baldwin: Collected Essays” by James Baldwin “The Price of The Ticket” by James Baldwin “Changing My Mind” by Zadie Smith “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name” by Audre Lorde “Palestine: A Socialist Introduction” edited by Sumaya Awad and brian bean “Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler “American Indian Stories” by Zitkála-šá “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics” by Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnik “Mind of My Mind” by Octavia E. Butler “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human In a World of Machines” by Joy Buolamwini “Abolition: Politics. Practices. Promises. Volume I” by Angela Y. Davis “The Evidence of Things Not Seen” by James Baldwin “After the Internet: Digital Networks between Capital and the Common” by Tiziana Terranova “Late Fascism” by Alberto Toscano “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us” by Mariame Kaba