Summer Reading, with Purpose

            The last three months have challenged us in ways we never could have imagined, and we know that the work is not done. Our public health crisis is still with us, as is the social crisis of race relations in America. Many educators, students and citizens are taking time this summer to read books about race. We read these books not simply to know more, but to have the knowledge and perspective needed to influence our actions in pursuit of a more just world.

            There are a lot of books to read, and here are a few I’ve read that are well worth recommending. So many more are out there beyond this list, and I hope you find time to read and continue the dialogue.

            Nonfiction for the Moment

            The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

            Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

            The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

            The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

            Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

            Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

            How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

            White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

            The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

            Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

            The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

            These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness by Jennifer Berry Hawes

            Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

            Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us by Claude M. Steele

            Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow

            Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
            Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity by Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi

            The journalism of Nikole Hannah-Jones, including The 1619 Project, her New York Times Magazine and This American Life pieces on school integration & segregation, and her story in this week’s New York Times Magazine

            “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

            “The History that James Baldwin Wanted America to See,” by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

            The social commentary inside the arts criticism of Wesley Morris, including this piece

           

            Fiction

            The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

            The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

            The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

            Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

So many works by Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, August Wilson, James McBride, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, and Alice Walker, to name a few

Books on My Summer Reading List

Waking up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

Begin Again : James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
            Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life by Howard Steven Friedman

Race in America, Through a Grandfather's Lens

            It was around 1930, and my grandfather was playing baseball with a bunch of kids at his elementary school in the Concord section of Staten Island. He was playing third base, which was rare for a lefty, and his brother Jack was pitching. It wasn’t Jack’s day, as he walked a half-dozen batters in a row. Jack turned to the teacher who was coaching, and asked if his brother could pitch instead.

            The teacher, Mr. Henry, agreed to the position switch. He handed my grandfather the ball and let him pitch, for the first time ever. It was one of those small moments that change a life. My grandfather spent the better part of his adolescence striking out batters, and at 18 he was offered a contract to pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. He had family obligations and it was the Great Depression, so he declined. Six years after that, though, he signed to pitch with the Boston Braves organization, and had great success as a minor-league pitcher before calling it quits in 1945.

            Throughout every one of those 15 years between my grandfather’s first pitch and his departure from the minor leagues, the door was open for him to make the major leagues if skill and fortune allowed it. As for the man who’d pointed him in that direction, this was never an option. Mr. Henry, you see, was black.

During our childhood, my brother and I would spend many Sunday mornings with my grandfather. He’d pick us up from Sunday School, at a church that is part of the whitest denomination in the United States. Then he’d drive us around to see relatives, play ball, and visit his soda warehouse – a distributor business he’d leveraged toward success using his notoriety as one of the better Staten Island athletes of his generation.

Our favorite part of these Sundays involved a trip to a cigar and candy store on Bay Street, where my brother and I would load up on baseball cards and comic books while our grandfather placed a few bets on that Sunday’s football games. We’d hustle into the store, as many of the men walking around this area looked poor and somewhat desperate to us. Most of them were African-American, and we didn’t know many people who were black.

Some 35 years later, one mile down the street from that cigar store, a 43-year-old African-American man was approached by police under suspicion of selling loose cigarettes. His conversation with police, the attempted arrest, the chokehold – all are well-documented, and Eric Garner’s parting words of “I can’t breathe” have been echoed around the world many times over.

My grandfather was a role model to my brother and me throughout our lives, in particular for the ways in which he shared clear-eyed stories of his own mistakes, especially with substance abuse. He lived most of his life within three miles of the spot where Eric Garner died, and he did far worse in his life than selling loose cigarettes. But never did a police officer lay a hand on him, save for his own father, who was a cop.

The world in which my grandfather lived was built to protect him – a white heterosexual man of German and English descent who saw around him not just friendly neighbors, but a community in which systemic racism was as ingrained in society as any law. He was able to make mistakes, get back on his feet, and live to tell the tale. He could take advantage of opportunities or bypass them, knowing that there would be a way forward for him either way. He could buy a house or sell it, and could avoid Bay Street except for the bets and the baseball cards and the bars where he’d deliver soda. He could tell his grandsons the story of Mr. Henry and his first pitching gig without even seeing the irony, because his worldview didn’t require that he notice it.

When we tell stories of our grandparents’ generation, part of the narrative is supposed to include the message that things have changed for the better. Yet throughout my grandfather’s life, people of color on Staten Island and throughout America faced racism every day, in every way. Eight years after my grandfather died, a man lost his life on Bay Street in a police chokehold for no reason, and many others died in similar ways. Six years after that, the streets of America were filled with protests – in the midst of a pandemic, mind you – after more individuals of color died in ways we cannot understand.

I miss baseball. I’ve never experienced a spring without it. The pitcher’s delivery, the swing, the defense, the cheers, the high-fives. The absolute necessity of teamwork. The clear lines between fair and foul. The belief that anything is possible, and the knowledge that ballplayers of every race will do things that take your breath away.

In his later years, my grandfather never stopped talking about baseball. In fact, shortly before he died – melanoma got him in the end – he asked me about the following year’s Yankees team, and whether I thought they’d win it all (they didn’t). Some of his favorite players were African-American by then, as was his visiting nurse, and some of his neighbors, and some of his fellow Alcoholics Anonymous members. My grandfather had taken some clear steps forward for a man of his generation.

If he were still here, I know he’d say that this is not the way for us to treat one another. He’d say we’re supposed to improve upon generations, not regress. He’d say that Mr. Henry, Eric Garner, George Floyd, and so many others have every right to the opportunities he had. He’d say these individuals deserve equality at every level – from the right to walk down a street to the right to play ball. That shouldn’t be a question for the world’s biggest experiment in democracy.

And yet it still is.