These books will help all of us to better understand issues of race, social justice an immigration. For more information on any book listed, click here: More Information on Recommended Books

Books on Race and Racism, Catholic Social Teachings and Immigration

A.  Books on Race and Racism

These twenty-three books are grouped by Non-fiction (15), Historical Fiction (5) and Racism and Religion (3)

Non-Fiction 

• Arc of Justice:  A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age,  by Kevin Boyl

• The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee (293 pp.)
• The Warmth of Other Suns:  The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (543 pp.) (Pulitzer Prize Winner book)

•  Waking Up White by Debby Irving (288 pp.)

• Just Mercy:  A Story of Justice and Redemption  by Bryan Stevenson (368 pp.)

• The 1619 Project:  a new origin story, created by Nikole Hannah,  (480 pp, plus 65 pp. of notes)

• Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

• How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
• How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

• White Fragility:  Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

• I’m Still Here:  Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown

• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome:  America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing by Dr. Joy DeGruy (221 pp.)

• Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, Emmanuel Acho

• Mr. Smith’s Forgotten Community, by Marion L. Cornett

• Black and White Like You and Me:  parallel lines sometimes cross, by Thomas F. Daniels and Thomas C. March

Historical Fiction 

1. James by Percivil Everett (Pulitzer Prize winner)

2. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

3. Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump

4. Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

5.   Black Bottom Saints, by Alice Randall

Racism and Religion

• The Color of Compromise:  The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby (218 pp.)

• Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, by Fr. Bryan N. Massingale

• A White Catholic’s Guide to Racism and Privilege by Daniel Horan, OFM

B.      Books on Catholic Social Teaching

• The Church’s Best-Kept Secret:  A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching,  by Mark Shea

• Cathonomics:  How Catholic Tradition can Create a More Just Economy,  by. Anthony M. Annett (284 pp.)
• Compendium of The Social Doctrine of the Church (296 pp), by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004

C.   Books on Immigration

1. Solito Iby Javier Zamora
2. One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: the epic struggle for American immigration – 1924 – 1965 by Jia Lynn Yang