The New York Times. 2001. How Race is Lived in America. New York: Times Books.

• A comprehensive investigation by reporters of The New York Times on how race is lived in the everyday lives of ordinary Americans

Feagin, Joe. 2001. Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge.

Two readable overviews of contemporary black-white relations

Massey, Douglas, & Denton, Nancy. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Argues powerfully that residential segregation is the key to understanding urban black poverty

Morris, Aldon D. 1984. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Free Press.

An indispensable source  on the southern civil rights movement

Wilson, William J. 2010. More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton.

• The latest publication of one of the most important authorities on race in the United States

Wingfield, Adia, & Feagin, Joe. 2013. Yes We Can? White Racial Framing and the Obama Presidency.  2nd Edition New York: Routledge.

• An important analysis of the racial dynamics of Obama’s 2008 election campaign, his presidency, and the 2012 campaign

Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  New York City: The New Press

• Outlines the devastating impact of the “War on Drugs” on the black community.

Stainback, Kevin and Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald.  2012. Documenting Desegregation: Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment Since the Civil Rights Act.  New York City: Russell Sage Foundation.

• A remarkable, sweeping analysis of continuing discrimination in the United States based on the records of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.