The purpose of this guide is to highlight resources available through Cook Library and other local organizations that can aid in exploring the Black American experience, confronting systemic racism, and envisioning a future which honors the great thinkers and activists who have come before, and those who are at work today.
On this page, you will find a virtual display of e-books that you can access through Cook Library.
Looking for a title we don't have? Interested in purchasing your own copy of one of these e-books? Check out the "Other resources" page to find more books from the Baltimore County Public Library and information about local Black-owned book stores.
by Ijeoma Oluo
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
by Ibram X. Kendi
by Tim Wise
by Charlene A. Carrauthers
By Lawrence Brown
This book discusses the long history of the deleterious effects of racial segregation on health in the United States. Author Brown puts Baltimore under a microscope because Baltimore was the first city in America to enact segregationist legislation and because it remains hypersegregated to this day.
by María Patricia Fernández-Kelly
by Antero Pietila
by Michelle Alexander
by Brittany C. Slatton
by Safiya Umoja Noble
by Rebecca Skloot
by Malcolm X with Alex Haley
by bell hooks
edited by Andrew Edmund Kersten and David Lucander
by W.E.B Du Bois
by Audre Lorde
by Ida B. Wells and
by Heather Andrea Williams
by Robin D. G. Kelley
This guide was created in June 2020 in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, among countless other Black Americans, at the hands of the police. Beyond these horrific killings, COVID-19 and the ensuing global economic crisis have laid bare the impacts of systemic racism manifest not only in our system of law enforcement, but also health care, housing, education, and employment. These recent events have brought conversations about race, racism, anti-racism to the center of the national conversation once again; but, in truth, they have been at the center of our nation's history since the beginning. Activists who speak out now about system racism are part of a long tradition of individuals and organizations who have been fighting to make our nation and our world a place where Black lives matter.
