Big Idea Reading List

Start a conversation and create change in your community with a book club. Our resources and ideas are here to support you.

Changing How We Talk About the Civil Rights Movement

by Clarence Lang, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Kansas

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

It's Time to Change How We Talk About Immigrants

by Kandace Creel Falcón, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Minnesota State University Moorhead

• A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernandez
• The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande
• I'm Not Your Perfect American Daughter by Erika Sanchez
• Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

We Need to Elevate Black Women's Stories

by Donna Rae Pearson, Local History Librarian at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

• How to be Less Stupid about Race by Crystal M. Fleming
• Sister Citizen: Shame Stereotypes and Black Women in America by Melissa Harris-Perry
• The Sisters are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America by Tamara Winfrey Harris