Intelexual Media Book Club #5 (Patreon)

For the month of February we're back to non-fiction. While plenty of media outlets will focus on black achievements and firsts for Black History Month, we'll be keeping it real about black living in America's past (while focusing on contemporary impact). 

Option #1: At The Dark End of The Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A new History of The Civil Rights Movement to the Rise of Black Power

Synopsis: Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery’s city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really lay beneath the 1955 boycott is far different from anything previously written. In this groundbreaking and important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a twenty-four-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer--Rosa Parks--to Abbeville. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that exposed a ritualized history of sexual assault against black women and added fire to the growing call for change. 

Pros: It's a page-turner. But also, I have relevant content that goes along with this book that will be released in February, including an episode of Lets Talk About Sex History. Plus, this book will add some much needed dimension to the civil rights movement, which is often sanitized in history lessons of stories like these.

Cons: It can be triggering for some readers. 

Average Read Time: 5 Hours (284 Pages)

First Published: 2010

Average Pricing: $15 on Amazon, $15 on Thriftbooks, 

Option #2: The Color of Law (Richard Rothstein)

Synopsis: Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.

Pros: It's highly necessary information that will change the way you see modern housing, poverty, racism, and politics.

Cons: More technical read, less of a page-turner

Average Read Time: 5 Hours (217 Pages)

First Published: 2016

Average Pricing:$12 on Amazon, $16 on Thriftbooks, Free Audiobook with $8/month Scrib'd Subscription

Book Club Tip: if you love reading, Scrib'd is an amazing online resource that grants you unlimited access to books, magazines, newspapers, and audiobooks. If you click this link, you'll receive two free months of Scrib'd! 

After mulling over the pros and cons, be sure to cast your vote by February 3rd! If you're a $5+ patron and you'd like to be entered to win a copy of the selected book, simply leave a comment saying, "I Voted!"