Racial Justice Book Club
In partnership with the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, YWCA Northeast Kansas hosts a community book club that will feature books written by Black, Indigenous, and people of color. All are invited to participate in monthly meetings to discuss the books and relevant social issues within our community. Discussions will be guided by Regina Platt, YWCA Racial Justice & Advocacy Coordinator, and Miranda Ericsson, Readers Librarian at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.
In 2022, our book club meets online on the fourth Tuesday of every month from 7:00 to 8:30 PM via the online web conferencing platform Zoom. Although it is preferable to have read the book prior to the sessions, please feel free to join even if you haven’t read the book. Stay updated about Racial Justice Book Club information, including receiving the meeting details and monthly Zoom link by clicking on the button below.
Upcoming Book Discussions:
February 28th: “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies” by Resmaa Menakem
If February’s pick looks familiar, it’s because we’re back for our second month discussing this powerful and transformative book! Whether you read it in January or are just putting it on your list now, we hope you’ll join us for the discussion on February 28th.
Resmaa Menakem is a New York Times best-selling author, trauma specialist, and therapist from Minneapolis who practices somatic abolitionism, a form of racial healing focused on trauma’s effects on the body. My Grandmother’s Hands examines the damage done by racism and how it affects us physically, especially Black and African Americans, but also white Americans and “blue Americans”, or members of law enforcement. It’s part history, part memoir, and part exercise – with guided reflections in each section. Learn more about the author’s work on his website.
Digital copies (ebook and audiobook) are available to check out from the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library on Hoopla.
| MONTH | TITLE | AUTHOR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| January & February | My Grandmother's Hands | Resmaa Menakem | |
| March | Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing | Joy DeGruy Leary |
Here are a few of the books on our wish list for 2023
What titles would you add?
View Past Book Club Reads
My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem (January)
We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (February)
Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi (January)
How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith (February)
First and Only, by Jennifer Farmer (March)
Stand Against Racism Challenge (April)
The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett (May)
The Distance Between Us, by Reyna Grande (June)
The Pride of Park Avenue, by Toriano Porter (July)
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah (August)
Dear White Woman: Please Come Home, by Kimberlee Yolanda Williams (September)
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, by Erika Sanchez (October)
Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (November)
“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?” by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum (January)
“Mediocre, The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America” by Ijeoma Oluo (February)
“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson (April)
“The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives” edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen (May)
“As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock” by Dina Gilio-Whitaker (June)
“The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee (July)
“Rising Out of Hatred” by Eli Saslow (August)
“The Whiteness of Wealth:” by Dorothy Brown (September)
“Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving our Democracy” by Tiffany Cross (October)
“Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America” by Maria Hinojosa (November/December)
“White Fragility” by Robin DeAngelo
“How to Be Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi
“Chokehold: Policing Black Men” by Paul Butler
“When They Call You a Terrorist: a Black Lives Matter Memoir” by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
“An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
“Healing Politics” by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed
“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander
“Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi
“A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law” by Sherrilyn Ifill, Loretta Lynch, Bryan Stevenson, and Anthony C. Thompson
“Citizen” by Claudia Rankine
“We Were Eight Years in Power” by Ta-Nehisi Coates