Books and Films from Prior Years
The SDARJ Book & Film Group was founded by Dr. Aimee Wiest (1940-2022) upon completion of an in-depth study session of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. We meet once a month at the Lewes Public Library as well as virtually on Zoom. Browse through the books and films archive below to see what we’ve discussed in prior months and years. You can view the upcoming list of titles and register for our upcoming Book & Film Group meeting here.
Books and Films Archives
2024
January 23 – Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown
February 27 – The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
March 26 – But Will You Love Me Tomorrow: An Oral History of the ‘60s Girl Groups by Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz
April 23 – Origin (film) / Supplemental reading: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
May 28 – I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War on Reconstruction by Kidada E. Williams
June 25 – Women of the Post: A Novel by Joshunda Sanders / Supplemental viewing: Six Triple Eight (film)
July 23 – Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
August 27 – I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO and Notes of a Native Son by Raoul Peck + James Baldwin
September 24 – Fiction: Daddy Was a Numbers Runner by Louise Merriweather
October 22 – Film + Book GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT +
Make Me Rain: Poems and Prose
2023
January 24 The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward et al.
February 28 A Most Beautiful Thing (2020 film; companion book by Arshay Cooper)
March 28 The Trees by Percival Everett (book) and Till (2022 film)
April 25 United Skates (2018 film)
May 23 Kindred by Octavia Butler
June 27 Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005 film) and Higher Is Waiting by Tyler Perry)
July 25 Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
August 22 Ernie Freeman The Man and His Times by Agin A. SHaheed
September 26 Finding Me by Viola Davis, plus any movie starring Viola Davis
October 24: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
November The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharris, plus 2022 documentary based on the book.
December: No meetings
2022
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot
by Mikki Kendall
One Night in Miami (Film; 2020)
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning of the History of Slavery Across America
by Clint Smith
Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of the Runaway Slave Ona Judge
by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
The Color of Water
by James McBride
The Sweetness of Water
by Nathan Harris
West of Rehoboth
by Alexs D. Pate
Dolomite Is My name (Film; 2019)
The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin
Just As I Am: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson plus any movie starring Ms. Tyson
Somebody’s Daughter
by Ashley C. Ford
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Film; 2020)
2021
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
How To Be An AntiRacist
by Ibram X. Kendi
I Am Somebody’s Child (Film; 2019)
The Color of Law
by Richard Rothstein
My Grandmother’s Hands
by Resmaa Menakem
Begin Again
by Eddie Glaude
Car Wash (Film; 1976)
The Sum of Us
by Heather McGhee
Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes At Home and At War
by Linda Hervieux
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett
Real American
by Julie Lythcott-Haims
2020
The Water Dancer
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Black and the Blue
by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Film; 2019)
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
by David W. Blight
Born a Crime
by Trevor Noah
Tears We Cannot Stop
by Michael Eric Dyson
The Color Purple (Film; 1982)
and book by Alice Walker
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
by Nell Irvin
I Can’t Date Jesus
by Michael Arceneux
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Film; 2017)
and book by Rebecca Skloot
The Souls of Black Folks
by W.E.B. DuBois
Mudbound (Film; 2008)
Previous decade Books and Films Archive
2019
Fences (Film; 2016) and play
by August Wilson
Alice’s Ordinary People (Film; 2018)
From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History
by Mitch Landrieu
On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope
by DeRay Mckesson
Let Freedom Sing: How Music Inspired the Civil Rights Movement (Film; 2016)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
by Ibram X. Kendi
Becoming
by Michelle Obama
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
by Zora Neale Hurston
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Race
by Robin DiAngelo
Wade in the Water: Poems
by Tracey K. Smith
Thank you for visiting the books and films archives. View the upcoming list of titles and register for our upcoming Book & Film Group meeting here.