Kalima DeSuze’s Black Feminist Reading List Is the Resource We Need Right Now

“I’ve been organizing for the last 15 to 20 years, so I’m accustomed to being out in the streets,” says Kalima DeSuze, who works both as an academic at the Silberman School of Social Work, and as the founder of the Brooklyn intersectional feminist bookshop, Cafe con Libros. “But black feminism has helped to shape me, and quite literally saved my life, so I just wanted to create a space where I’m doing that for others locally.”

Since opening her Crown Heights store and coffee shop in 2017, that’s exactly what DeSuze has done. Where many are looking to educate themselves on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality that have informed the protests taking place over the past week, DeSuze is patiently taking the time to reintroduce readers to the foundational texts that sparked these movements in the first place—even after two decades spent organizing to combat gender-based violence and anti-racism. “When I have an opportunity to choose a book, I often go back to those texts that came out of the 1960s and ’70s,” she explains. “I just feel there’s still so much richness and beauty in those pages.”

Here, find the nine essential books that DeSuze has generously shared with Vogue to chart the historical evolution of black feminist discourse—and where to start first.

For fundraising efforts in keeping with the spirit of DeSuze’s reading list, she has chosen to spotlight the urgent work of the Soul Sisters Leadership Collective and The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. All links will take you to purchase or order directly via the black-owned bookstore founded by DeSuze, Cafe con Libros.

Healing, Self-Care, and Community Care

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks (2000)

“This book really helped me to define love. One of the things hooks says is that love is a verb—the main purpose of us being in each others’ lives when we love one another is to help that person evolve. Part of the movement is about evolution; it’s about calling people in and supporting folx development, their transformations. I always go to this book when I need it—wherever I land is where I land, and I just read that part.”

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (1981)

“It’s filled with stories from different women of color, and I think it’s so important that we have more than intersectional analysis, which can be about multiple identities in one person. The way we need to organize is around people’s stories, and there are so many stories in this book of women from all races, ethnicity, class, and immigration statuses. It’s brought together in a way that says, ‘This is an offering.’ This is not the total story, but this is where you should start. The idea of all these women coming together for this book feels healing for me; the idea of all these stories coexisting in this one book—that process, that journey—it’s beautiful.”

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (1984)

“As an organizer and former educator, I’m always thinking about the pressing needs of our movements. There’s an essay that talks about difference, and how we mustn’t let the fear of difference be the thing that crumbles us. There is so much richness in our differences. Yes, we’re all women and we’re all fighting, but we have very different experiences within this oppressive state. So, let’s not be afraid to sit with that difference and know that we’re still on the same page. In my opinion, Audre Lorde offers us ideas on how to mend, or how to deal with fractures in our movement that need to be healed, so that we can move forward together.”

Organizing

Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman (2002)

“This, to me, is the foundation—full of necessary organizing ideas and strategies all coming directly from women of color. I’m a woman of color, but I’m a woman of color with certain privileges, so I also want to listen. And if you saw my copy of Colonize This!, you would see I have annotations everywhere, because these were young women of color that we could listen to as they worked on the ground. The ways in which they decided to show up and find their own voice, and started writing—to me, that’s truly foundational.”

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene A. Carruthers (2018)

“I am a black feminist, and I will say this. A lot of the books that have come out recently have been about black feminist theory, whereas Charlene is talking about black feminism and movement building. I think every organizer is always thinking: How can I be a better organizer? How can I be more accountable? How can I show up differently? And she offers that in this tiny little book, that is based in our collective history of trauma and oppression, but also in our collective triumph, joy, and love.”

The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs (2011)

“Grace Lee Boggs was a massive organizer in Detroit—Boggs and her husband did amazing work. She was an Asian woman in the Civil Rights movement, which was inherently patriarchal, even if folks don’t want to admit that. Her identity as an Asian womxn organizing in Detroit is deserving of respect on its own. Her way of liberating people was going back to the basic mentality of let’s build relationships, let’s build communities, let’s make them self-sustaining before we go out onto the streets. She did it an old-fashioned way. Come to my house, and let’s talk.”

Race and Racism: Feminist Politics, Definition, and History

Killing Rage: Ending Racism by bell hooks (1995)

“What I love about Killing Rage is that it makes clear what we’re up against, and what that means in a material sense. For some, she’s not the most accessible writer, but she has the best grip on it.”

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness by Michelle Alexander (2010)

“Many people know America as a whole has an incarceration problem. However, I’m confident we don’t even really know the magnitude of it and we don’t know the full history. In my opinion, if we don’t know and understand the roots, we cannot organize. We literally cannot organize. I want to acknowledge that The New Jim Crow is very male-centered. The sister companion to that is the next book.”

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris (2015)

“Monique Morris is talking about the mass incarceration of young black girls via the education system, and these are stories that are hardly ever told. Pushout is a really fundamental book for me and my students, partly because at the back of the book, Morris gives specific strategies on how we can interrupt mass incarceration of young girls through the school system. I used to work with girls who were trafficked—I know in black and brown communities when we see young girls and they act a certain way, we tend to villainize them, or ignore them, or victim blame. And what Monique is saying is: Pay attention to those signs. Give those little girls the benefit of the doubt, and pay attention. Care enough to ask those questions.”