September's Book
We'll meet on Tuesday, September 14, 7pm-8:30pm on Zoom, to discuss The Color Purple by Pullitzer Prize winner Alice Walker. From the publisher we read:

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature,  The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.  The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

I will be ordering bulk copies of this book at discount for anyone interested from a local seller. Please contact Jon Stotts by Friday, August 20 if you would like a copy. You'll be able to pay for the book via our parish app, or with cash or check.
 

(In No Particular Order)

• Bryan Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church 
• Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 
• Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
• W.E.B. Du Bois, The Soul of Black Folk
• Ta-Nahesi Coates, Between the World and Me
• Cyprian Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States
• Matthew Cressler, Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migration
• Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
• Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time
• Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
• Michael Eric Dynson, Tears We Cannot Stop
• Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns
• Robbie Jones, White Too Long
• Ibram Kendi & Keisha Blain, Four Hundred Souls 

Strangers in Their Own Land
by Arlie Russell Hochschild

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right is a 2016 book by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. The book sets out to explain the worldview of supporters of the Tea Party Movement in Louisiana.

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My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
by Resmaa Menakem

My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

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The Hate U Give
by Angie Thomas

This work of fiction tells the story of Starr, a Black sixteen year old girl who lives in the hood but attends a predominantly white wealthy private school.  When she witnesses a friend shot by a police officer, she comes face to face with what it means to live in two worlds.

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Breathe: A Letter to My Sons
by Imani Perry

Perry offers a gripping meditation on what it means to raise Black children in a society that persistently refuses to see them as fully human, and how to find hope and beauty in the midst of injustice.

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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, 
by Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson's Caste is a wide-ranging analysis of the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

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His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope
by Jon Meacham

Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

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Fatal Invention, by Dorothy Roberts

This book examines how the myth of the biological concept of race—revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases—continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era.

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The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
Baldwin is widely considered to be one of the most eloquent and passionate essayists from the United States. This collection of two essays discusses the centrality of race in the United States, as well as the relationship between racial identity and religion. 

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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
by Richard Rothstein

This book chronicles the U.S. government's history of residential segregation, demonstrating that racism is rooted not primarily in personal prejudice but in racist laws and policies. 

• Book Guide and Other Resources
• Richard Rothstein on NPR
• The Nashville Scene Chronicles This History in Action
• "Segrated by Design" - This video makes Rothstein's point.

 
Segregated By Design from Silkworm on Vimeo.

• Facing North: Jefferson Street, Nashville, an Nashville Public Television original documentary, explores the untold stories of a Nashville community struggling to preserve its vibrant African American culture.

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How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

This book provides a solid and important foundation for further discussions of racism, white supremacy, and racial justice.