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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.

View the list of titles and register for our upcoming Book & Film Group meeting here.

Archives

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)

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

View the list of titles and register for our upcoming Book & Film Group meeting here.