Books & Films

Diversity Book Drive: We recognized that our school libraries had an incomplete collection of books featuring characters of color, authors of color, and stories of diversity. In response, we coordinated a Diversity Book Drive for diversity-themed books. After researching 540 award-winning titles, we identified 160 books to enhance the CUSD library collections, and we facilitated the purchase and delivery of the books to each school with the approval of the CUSD trustees.

Elementary books

  • Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman
  • Frog Scientist, The by Pamela S. Turner
  • Grandma’s Gift by Eric Velasquez
  • Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine
  • Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix by Gary Golio
  • Keeping the Night Watch by Hope Anita Smith
  • Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney
  • Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans by Phil Bildner
  • Mary McLeod Bethune by Eloise Greenfield
  • My People by Langston Hughes
  • Never Forgotten by Patricia C. McKissack
  • Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children, The by Davida Adedjouma
  • Roots and Blues: A Celebration by Arnold Adoff
  • Underground by Shane W. Evans
  • Way a Door Closes, The by Hope Anita Smith
  • You Can Be a Friend by Lauren Dungy and Tony Dungy

Middle School books

  • Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
  • Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney
  • Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson
  • Hurry Freedom: African Americans in Gold Rush California by Jerry Stanley
  • Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge
  • Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl by Tonya Bolden
  • Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes
  • Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles R. Smith, Jr.
  • When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan
  • Zora and Me by Victoria Bond

High School Books

  • All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose
  • Forged by Fire by Sharon Draper
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
  • Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery
  • X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

Films

Adults

They’ve Gotta to Have Us (Series: History of Black Cinema)

https://youtu.be/9D5Dhk0LJBQ

The Watchmen (HBO Series)

https://youtu.be/zymgtV99Rko

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

https://youtu.be/X-jxEX1XQpY

Lovecraft Country (HBO Series)

https://youtu.be/eEvK1Zwi9XY

Between the World and Me (HBO Feb 20)

https://youtu.be/6ZbKLlVrrjQ

Sylvie’s Love

https://youtu.be/SbjakuJZgww

I May Destroy You (HBO series)

https://youtu.be/DTjlurdbNnw

Fences

https://youtu.be/TbkUwE_Po-s

Us

https://youtu.be/hNCmb-4oXJA

Blackklansman

https://youtu.be/pFc6I0rgmgY

Just Mercy

https://youtu.be/GVQbeG5yW78

Get out

https://youtu.be/DzfpyUB60YY

Widows

https://youtu.be/wYUFlgR4YwQ

Pose (Series)

https://youtu.be/_t4YuPXdLZw

Sorry to Bother You 

https://youtu.be/8UAYfgd3F0Q

Dope

https://youtu.be/rLNN6Kef3Yk

Uncorked

https://youtu.be/s0sZtjE2MXg

42

https://youtu.be/HALfME0wjeU

Queen Sugar (Series)

https://youtu.be/Py1GVEAVv4E

Small Axe (Series)

https://youtu.be/SjFAEy-0BLk

Woman King, Wakanda Forever

https://youtu.be/3RDaPV_rJ1Y