Recommended Reading for Black History Month

During the past 30 years, the incarceration rate of women has skyrocketed. And Black women are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate of white women. Similarly, Black girls are more likely to be incarcerated than white girls, and they are more frequently incarcerated for lower-level offenses than anyone else.

This is not a new phenomenon. Black women and girls have long been excessively policed and punished. We must understand and recognize this fact so that we can change these institutions and create systems that support Black women and girls and help them thrive.

This Black History Month, we’re sharing our reading list of books by Black women that highlight—directly and indirectly—the real impact of incarceration on Black women and girls.

NBWJI Recommended Reading List

• "Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation" and “Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment Of Battered Black Women” by Beth E. Richie
  

• “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color” by Andrea J. Ritchie
  

• “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty” and “Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare” by Dorothy Roberts
  

• “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and Life Unbound” by Donna Hylton
  

• “On Intersectionality: Essential Writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw” by Kimberlé Crenshaw
  

• “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools” by Monique W. Morris
  

• “Talk With You Like a Woman” by Cheryl D. Hicks