Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings

Italo Calvino

“What counts is what we are, and the way we deepen our relationship with the world and with others, a relationship that can be one of both love for all that exists and of desire for its transformation.”

Italo Calvino on racial justice – his moving account of the early civil rights movement and his encounter with Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis

Jabari Asim

The touching illustrated story of how civil rights legend John Lewis’s humble childhood incubated his heroic life of leadership:

Nobody Knows My Name

James Baldwin

“We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.”

James Baldwin on how we imprison ourselves, what freedom really means, and how we can attain it:

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Audre Lorde

“That visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.”

The great Audre Lorde on our responsibility, to ourselves and others, to break our silence and the empowering vulnerability of visibility – spectacular read:

A Dialogue

James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni

“If you don’t understand yourself you don’t understand anybody else.”

Nikki Giovanni’s forgotten, brilliant conversation with James Baldwin about the language of love and what it really means to be empowered:

Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts

Chip Kidd

Charles Schulz, civil rights, and the never-before-seen art of Peanuts:

The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1995

Nikki Giovanni

Some people forget that love is tucking you in and kissing you

“Good night”

no matter how young or old you are…

Beloved poet Nikki Giovanni on love, friendship, and loneliness:

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King

“Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.”

MLK on 6 principles of his philosophy of nonviolence and how the ancient Greek notion of “agape” can help us be kinder to one another:

Letter from the Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality… Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Martin Luther King on the 4 steps to successful nonviolent rebellion — so much timeless wisdom for social change and justice today:

Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History

Nine unsung heroes of Black history, in a graphic novel – from Theophilus Thompson, a former slave who taught himself chess and became the first African American chess master, to Marshall “Major” Taylor, America’s first black champion in any sport