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Black History Month

Reading lists organized by annual theme.

Black History Month, February 1 to March 1, 2022

Books that Reflect the 2022 Theme of Black Health and Wellness

Medicalizing blackness: making racial difference in the Atlantic world, 1780 to 1840. Author Rana A. Hogarth.

Medicalizing Blackness

In this fascinating medical history, Hogarth examines the creation and circulation of medical ideas about blackness in the Atlantic World during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She shows how white physicians deployed blackness as a medically significant marker of difference and used medical knowledge to improve plantation labor efficiency, safeguard colonial and civic interests, and enhance control over black bodies during the era of slavery.

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen: the emotional lives of Black women. Author Inger Burnett-Zeigler.

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Black women's strength is intimately tied to their unacknowledged suffering. An estimated eight in ten have endured some form of trauma—sexual abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, childhood abandonment, victim/witness to violence, and regular confrontation with racism and sexism. This informative guide shows Black women how to prioritize the self and find everyday joys in self-worth, as well as discover the fullness and beauty within both her strength and vulnerability.

Reproductive justice: an introduction. Authors Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger.

Reproductive Justice

Written by two legendary scholar-activists, Reproductive Justice introduces students to an intersectional analysis of race, class, and gender politics. Ross and Solinger put the lives and lived experience of women of color at the center of the book and use a human rights analysis to show how the discussion around reproductive justice differs significantly from the pro-choice/anti-abortion debates that have long dominated the headlines and mainstream political conflict.

Skimmed: breastfeeding, race, and injustice. Author Andrea Freeman.

Skimmed

Skimmed tells the heartbreaking story of America's first recorded African American quadruplets, their rise to fame and use as advertising symbols for baby formula companies, and the damage done both to their lives and the greater health and wellbeing of generations of African American families in the US. This book brings to light the true causes of the dramatic racial disparities in breastfeeding rates in America.

Spiritual care in an age of #BlackLivesMatter: : examining the spiritual and prophetic needs of African Americans in a violent America. Editor Danielle J. Buhuro.

Spiritual Care in an Age of #BlackLivesMatter

This vital resource guide offers specific spiritual care strategies and interventions for African Americans dealing with particular physical, social and emotional health challenges in the midst of rising statistics of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia leading to violence in the United States.