Black History Month Public Health Reading List

Explore books, articles, and videos recommended by Yale School of Public Health faculty, staff, and students.

Books: Nonfiction

Black Women and Public Health: Strategies to Name, Locate, and Change Systems of Power edited by Stephanie Y. Evans, Sarita K. Davis, Leslie R. Hinkson, and Deanna J. Wathington
Body and Soul: The Black Panther and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson
Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Infectious Fear: Politics, Disease, and the Health Effects of Segregation by Samuel K. Roberts
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality by Tanya Katerí Hernández
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
To Make the Wounded Whole: the African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS by Dan Royles
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want by Ruha Benjamin

Alang, S., McAlpine, D., McCreedy, E., & Hardeman, R. (2017). Police Brutality and Black Health: Setting the Agenda for Public Health Scholars. American journal of public health, 107(5), 662–665.
Canada, T., & Carter, C. R. (2021, July 8). The NFL’s Racist ‘Race Norming’ Is an Afterlife of Slavery. Scientific American.
Carter, C.R. (2022), Gaslighting: ALS, anti-Blackness, and medicine. Feminist Anthropology, 3: 235-245.
Opara, I., Lardier, D. T., Jr, Garcia-Reid, P., & Reid, R. J. (2022). Measuring Intrapersonal Psychological Empowerment and Ethnic Identity: Highlighting Strengths of Urban Black Girls. Youth & society, 54(2), 573–592.
Opara, I., Lardier, D. T., Jr, Metzger, I., Herrera, A., Franklin, L., Garcia-Reid, P., & Reid, R. J. (2020). "Bullets Have no Names": A Qualitative Exploration of Community Trauma Among Black and Latinx Youth. Journal of child and family studies, 29(8), 2117–2129.
Oro, P.J.L. (2021). A Love Letter to Indigenous Blackness. NACLA Report on the Americas, 53(3), 248-254.
Smith, C. A., Williams, E. L., Wadud, I. A., & Pirtle, W. N. L. (2021). Cite Black Women: A Critical Praxis (A Statement). Feminist Anthropology, n/a(n/a).
Suh S. (2018). Accounting for abortion: Accomplishing transnational reproductive governance through post-abortion care in Senegal. Global public health, 13(6), 662–679.

13th (documentary on Netflix)
The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor (spoken word poetry available on Youtube)
The Heart Still Hums (documentary short film available on Youtube)