Black Studies: Wellbeing

Racial Battle Fatigue by Jennifer L. Martin (Editor) [B]rings together a collection of personal stories and critical reflections on the repercussions of doing social justice work in the field and in the university ... [A]ctivists, scholars, activist scholars, and public intellectuals share experiences of microaggressions, racial battle fatigue, and retaliation because of their identities, the people for whom they advocate, and what they study

The Body Is Not an Apology: the Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.

Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting : Real Talk for When There's Nowhere to Go but Up by Terrie M. Williams This book identifies emotional pain--uniquely and profoundly affecting the Black experience--as the root of lashing out through desperate acts.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.

Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance.

Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and Overcoming Depression in Black Men by John Head The author shares the story of his twenty-five-year struggle with depression, presenting a cultural analysis of how mental illness is perceived and perpetuated within African American communities.

The Long Road from Slavery to Mental Illness: White Fear + Racist + Racism + White Supremacy = Black Mental Illness by Calvin Vernon Thomas In "The Long Road from Slavery to Mental Illness", Calvin Thomas examines every aspect of Black life—from media images of Blacks, to civil rights legislation, including the issue of reparations. He describes in great detail how all aspects of White society work towards increasing the sense of disconnection every Black person feels from the society around him, and the distance between his image of himself and White images of him.

Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts by Akiba Solomon (Editor); Ayana Byrd (Editor); Sonia Sanchez (Foreword by) Contains over twenty essays in which African-American women discuss their bodies and physical characteristics, including selections from Iyanla Vanzant, Jill Scott, Melyssa Ford, and others.

Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: a Story of Bulimia by Stephanie Covington Armstrong In this moving first-person narrative, Armstrong describes her struggle as a black woman with a disorder consistently portrayed as a white woman’s problem. Trying to escape her selfhatred and her food obsession by never slowing down, Stephanie becomes trapped in a downward spiral. Finally, she can no longer deny that she will die if she doesn’t get help, overcome her shame, and conquer her addiction to using food as a weapon against herself.

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton The story of Christine Jorgensen, Americas first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives-ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects.

Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now by Maya Angelou his is Maya Angelou talking from the heart, down to earth and real, but also inspiring. This is a book to treasured, a book about being in all ways a woman, about living well, about the power of the word, and about the power spirituality to move and shape your life. Passionate, lively, and lyrical, Maya Angelou's latest unforgettable work offers a gem of truth on every page.

Yesterday, I Cried: Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving by Iyanla Vanzant Iyanla Vanzant has had an amazing and difficult life -- one of great challenges that unmasked her wonderful gifts and led to wisdom gained. In this simple book, she uses her own personal experiences to show how life's hardships can be re-languaged and revisioned to become lessons that teach us as we grow, heal, and learn to love. The pain of the past does not have to be today's reality.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis.

Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, MFA '99 Danquah, a black single mother and Ghanian-born immigrant, who moved to the U.S. at age six in 1973, has battled melancholy and despair, culminating in episodes of overwhelming depression. A performance artist and poet who has worked as a creative writing instructor, she discusses movingly how she overcame clinical depression in this candid memoir. Addressing the special circumstances of being both depressive and an African American woman, she notes, for example, that talking about one's parents is frowned on in African as well as African American culture.

Spell Breaking: Remembered Ways of Being by Carole Ione, '59, editor Eighteen members of an international Women's Mysteries community write about the way we experience the potency of Yoruba ritual, the deepest grief of loss, the awakening of creativity and life purpose,the renewal of resolve and the transcendence of life threatening illness. ​In these pages, feelings, dreams, memories emerge illuminating the often harrowing process of "Spell Breaking" that can lead to a special kind of satisfaction, the remembering of deep and essential "ways of being".

Brothers on the Mend: Understanding and Healing Anger for African-American Men and Women by Ernest H. Johnson; Ernest Johnson Johnson, who has been helping black men cope with anger -- including his own -- for more than a decade, offers hope and answers. He shows how anger can be used -- rather than avoided -- to build a life filled with love, self-respect, and peace. Exploring the sources of frustration particular to black men today, Dr. Johnson offers prescriptions for managing anger and coping with stress.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Lights in a Time of Darkness: Mediations by Alice Walker A book of spiritual ruminations with a progressive political edge, from the Pulitzer Prize-winner who has devoted her life to befriending the earth. Walker has long been a force for sanity in a chaotic world. Here she draws on her deep spiritual grounding, her political conviction and experience, and her literary gifts to offer a series of meditations filled with wisdom, hope, encouragement, and, at times, serenity to a world in need of all these things.

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown The author's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when her parents told her they named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. She grew up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, and has spent her life navigating America's racial divide as a writer, a speaker, and an expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. While so many institutions claim to value diversity in their mission statements, many fall short of matching actions to words. Brown highlights how white middle-class evangelicalism has participated in the rise of racial hostility, and encourages the reader to confront apathy and recognize God's ongoing work in the world.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay Roxane Gay addresses the experience of living in a body that she calls 'wildly undisciplined.' She casts an insightful and critical eye over her childhood, teens, and twenties -- including the devastating act of violence that was a turning point at age 12 -- and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.

Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a "lifelong endeavor," or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice--Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family.

Soulfires: Young Black Men on Violence and Love by Daniel J. Wideman; Rohan B. Preston (Editor); Henry Louis Gates (Introduction by) Deepening our understanding of the young Black male experience, artists, poets, novelists, rappers, filmmakers, journalists, and romantics from socially and economically diverse backgrounds speak out in voices that both harmonize with and argue against each other. Gathered here to address the major themes of love and violence are works of fiction, as well as biography, poetry, letters, essays, eulogies, drama, and love songs.

Black Womanist Leadership: Tracing the Motherline by Toni C. King (Editor); S. Alease Ferguson (Editor) Black Womanist Leadership: Tracing the Motherline offers a culturally based model of Black women’s leadership practices, and examines the mother-daughter transmission of these skills. The personal narratives fit into a storytelling tradition that reveals the ways Black mothers and women of the community—the Motherline—teach girls the “ways women lead.”

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock A young woman recounts her coming-of-age as a transgender teen--a portrait of self-revelation, adversity, and heroism.

No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies by E. Patrick Johnson (Editor) The follow-up to the groundbreaking Black Queer Studies, the edited collection No Tea, No Shade brings together nineteen essays from the next generation of scholars, activists, and community leaders doing work on black gender and sexuality. Building on the foundations laid by the earlier volume, this collection's contributors speak new truths about the black queer experience while exemplifying the codification of black queer studies as a rigorous and important field of study.

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks Everyone needs to love and be loved -- even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are -- whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Salvation is the Issue: a Self-Care Zine for Women of Color by Emily Gordis, Ash Haywood, Fiona McGovern, Lushik Wahba

Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low by C. Riley Snorton Snorton traces the emergence and circulation of the down low in contemporary media and popular culture to show how these portrayals reinforce troubling perceptions of black sexuality. Reworking Eve Sedgwick's notion of the 'glass closet, ' Snorton advances a new theory of such representations in which black sexuality is marked by hypervisibility and confinement, spectacle, and speculation.

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen.

Speak My Name: Black Men on Masculinity and the American Dream by Don Belton (Editor, Introduction by); August Wilson (Foreword by) Including the work of Derrick Bell, Trey Ellis, Haki Madhubuti, Clarence Major, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson, among others, Speak My Name explores the intimate territory behind the myths about black masculinity.

Black women and resilience : power, perseverance, and public health by Kisha B Holden, editor; Camara Phyllis Jones, editor Black Women and Resilience brings together a wealth of qualitative and quantitative research to help foster broad understanding and advancement of Black women's collective health and wellbeing. Throughout, Kisha Braithwaite Holden, Camara Phyllis Jones, and their contributors use a health equity lens, maintaining that achieving health equity requires valuing all individuals and populations equally, recognizing and rectifying historical injustices, and providing resources according to need. Across four sections, scholars, practitioners, and community leaders address cultural narratives of Black womanhood; significant health issues affecting Black women; trauma, stressors, and strategies for healing; and advocacy for social justice and collective action. Multivocal and multidisciplinary, Black Women and Resilience models and invites exchange across sectors and specializations while consistently centering the experiences and contributions of Black women as catalysts for transformation.