“A library at Louisiana State University named after a former school president who advocated for segregation will be renamed, school administrators and black student leaders said. The decision to change the name of Middleton Library at the university in Baton Rouge was announced Wednesday evening, news outlets reported. The change is pending the approval of the LSU Board of Supervisors, which is scheduled to meet June 19.” Keep the ball rolling on all the things that need renaming. “Sales are surging for books like Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be Anti-Racist, Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. That’s in part because these titles often appear on so-called ‘anti-racist reading lists.’ But what is an anti-racist reading list for? We talk with Lauren Michele Jackson, an Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University, and the author of White Negroes, about the limitations of such lists — which she wrote about in an essay called ‘What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List For?’ for Vulture.” Shared an anti-racist reading list? Bought/read a book off the list? Listen here. “Angela Davis is a political activist, scholar, and leader in the civil rights movement—she’s also someone who has written books you should add to your list of essential reads by Black authors. Davis was a communist and a member of the Black Panthers during the 1960s and 1970s, but her name hit headlines after she was implicated in a high profile murder case that led her to go into hiding before ultimately being imprisoned. She was acquitted in 1972, and has since used her advocacy to teach those in the public and the classroom about her fight for global equality for the oppressed. Now a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Davis has penned 9 books, each offering enlightening prose on feminism, racism, prisons, and more.” If you’ve yet to read a book by Angela Davis here you go.
