Research Guides: Black Health Pedagogy &amp; Research Guide: Books

This section features a variety of books on Black Health, as well as other topics in Black Studies. For tips on searching the U of T Libraries Catalogue, please visit the LibrarySearch Research Guide.

Black Health - Selected Reading Lists

African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia by Phoebe Ann Pollitt
Publication Date: 2016-02-16

Focusing on the careers and contributions of dozens of African American and Eastern Band Cherokee registered nurses, this first comprehensive study of minority nurses in Appalachia documents the quality of health care for minorities in the region during the Jim Crow era. Racial segregation in health care and education and state and federal policies affecting health care for Native Americans are examined in depth.
Blacks in Medicine: Clinical, Demographic, and Socioeconomic Correlations by Richard Allen Williams
Publication Date: 2020

“This socially conscious, culturally relevant book explores the little-known history and present climate of Black people in the medical field. It reveals the deficiencies in the American healthcare structure that have contributed to the mismanagement of healthcare in the Black population, and examines cross-currents that intersect with the major events in minority medical history. Illustrated across 10 expertly written chapters, this text features a longitudinal timeline with the presentation of evidence-based information drawn from historical, political, and clinical sources.”
Against the Odds: Blacks in the Profession of Medicine in the United States by Wilbur Watson
Call Number: R695 .W38 1999X

Publication Date: 2017

“This book documents the struggle for equity in health and health care by African American citizens and physicians in Mississippi and the United States. Dr. Richard D. deShazo and the contributors to the volume trace the dark journey from a system of slave hospitals in the state, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era, to the present day. They substantiate that current health disparities in the state are directly linked to America's history of separation, neglect, struggle, and disparities.”
The Racial Divide in American Medicine: Clinical, Demographic, and Socioeconomic Correlations by Richard D. deShazo (Editor)
Call Number: RA563 .M56 R334 2018X

Publication Date: 2018

“This book documents the struggle for equity in health and health care by African American citizens and physicians in Mississippi and the United States. Dr. Richard D. deShazo and the contributors to the volume trace the dark journey from a system of slave hospitals in the state, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era, to the present day. They substantiate that current health disparities in the state are directly linked to America's history of separation, neglect, struggle, and disparities.”

Black and Blue: the origins and consequences of medical racism by John Hoberman
Publication Date: 2012-04-03

A systematic description of how American doctors think about racial differences and how this kind of thinking affects the treatment of their black patients.
Caring for Equality: a history of African American health and healthcare by David McBride; Jacqueline M. Moore (Series edited by); Nina Mjagkij (Series edited by)
Publication Date: 2018-08-24

Chronicles the struggle by African Americans and their white allies to improve poor black health conditions as well as inadequate medical care—caused by slavery, racism, and discrimination—since the arrival of African slaves in America.
Health Care in the Black Community: empowerment, knowledge, skills, and collectivism by Edith M. Freeman; Sadye Logan
Publication Date: 2000-11-27

By basing health care approaches on the community's positive values of holistic healing and mutual assistance, this book suggests practical, effective strategies for promoting physical and emotional wellness.
Inequality and African-American Health: how racial disparities create sickness by Shirley A. Hill
Publication Date: 2016-10-01

Demonstrates how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system.
Medical Apartheid: the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present by Harriet A. Washington
Publication Date: 2007-01-09

A comprehensive history of medical experimentation on Black American from colonial times to the present.
Policing Black Lives: State violence in canada from slavery to the present. by Robyn Maynard
Publication Date: 2017-10-16

Delving behind Canada’s veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, this book traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond.
Sickening: anti-Black racism and health disparities in the United States by Anne Pollock
Publication Date: 2021-08-17

Surveys the diversity of anti-Black racism operating in healthcare, deconstructing the structures that make these events possible, including mass incarceration, police brutality, and the hypervisibility of Black athletes’ bodies, revealing the everyday racialization of health in the U.S.
There's Something in the Water: environmental racism in Indigenous and Black communities by Ingrid R. G. Waldron
Publication Date: 2018-04-02

Examines the legacy of environmental racism and its health impacts in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada, using Nova Scotia as a case study, and the grassroots resistance activities by Indigenous and Black communities against the pollution and poisoning of their communities.
Under the Skin: the hidden toll of racism on American lives and on the health of our nation by Linda Villarosa
Publication Date: 2022-06-14

Highlights the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts.
Reclaiming Our Health: a guide to African American wellness by Michelle A. Gourdine; Catharine L. Love
Publication Date: 2014

"According to the federal Office of Minority Health, African Americans 'are affected by serious diseases and health conditions at far greater rates than other Americans'. In fact, African Americans suffer an estimated 85,000 excess deaths every year from diseases we know how to prevent: heart disease, stroke, cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes. [...] Dr. Michelle Gourdine provides African Americans with the knowledge and guidance they need to take charge of their wellbeing."
Health Issues in the Black Community, 2nd ed. by Ronald L. Braithwaite (Editor); Sandra E. Taylor (Editor)
Call Number: RA448.5 .N4 H395 2001X

Publication Date: 2001

"Health Issues in the Black Community illuminates comprehensively the range of health conditions specifically affecting African Americans, and the health disparities both within the black community and between racial and ethnic groups. Each chapter, whether addressing the health of African Americans by age, gender, type of disease, condition or behavior, is well-detailed and tells an important story. Together, they offer practitioners, consumers, scholars, and policymakers a crucial roadmap to address and change the social determinants of health, reduce disparities, and create more equal treatment for all Americans."
Race and Well-Being: the lives, hopes, and activism of African Canadians by Akua Benjamin (Editor); Carl James (Editor); Wanda Thomas Bernard (Editor); David Este (Editor); Bethan Lloyd (Editor); Tana Turner (Editor)
Publication Date: 2010

"Through in-depth qualitative research with African Canadians in three Canadian cities--Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax--this study explores how experiences of racism, when combined with other social and economic factors, affect the health and well-being of this segment of the country`s population. With a special interest in how racial stereotyping impacts black men and boys, the book presents stories of racism and violence and describes how reactions to racism differ across a range of social and economic variables."
Invisible Visits: Black middle-class women in the American healthcare system by Tina K. Sacks
Publication Date: 2019

“Although the United States spends almost one-fifth of all its resources on funding healthcare, the American system is dogged by persistent inequities in the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities and women. Invisible Visits analyzes how Black women navigate the complexities of dealing with doctors in this environment. It challenges the idea that race and gender discrimination, particularly in healthcare settings, is a thing of the past. In telling the stories of Black women who are middle class, Invisible Visits also questions the persistent myth that discrimination only affects racial minorities who are poor. In so doing, Invisible Visits expands our understanding of how Black middle-class women are treated when they go to the doctor and why they continue to face inequities in securing proper medical care.”

COVID-19 and the Present and Future of Black Communities: the Role of Black Physicians, Engineers, and Scientists by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Policy and Global Affairs; Health and Medicine Division; Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine; Cora Bagley Marrett (Editor); Camara P. Jones (Editor); Mark Alexander (Editor); Cato T. Laurencin (Editor)
Publication Date: 2021-07-22

This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of a workshop that focused on the landscape of Covid-19, including how systemic racism contributes to the disproportionate effects related to infection rates and mortality of the virus and other health conditions.
Newborn Screening for Sickle Cell Disease and other Haemoglobinopathies by Raffaella Colombatti, Elena Cela, Stephan Lobitz, Jacques Elion
Publication Date: 2019-12-09

Summarizes the current practice of classical laboratory methods for the detection of Sickle Cell Disease and other hemoglobinopathies.
Racialized Health, COVID-19, and Religious Responses by R. Drew Smith (Editor); Stephanie C. Boddie (Editor); Bertis D. English (Editor)
Publication Date: 2022-03-10

Explores black religious responses to black health concerns amidst persistent race-based health disparities and healthcare inequities.

Birthing Justice: black women, pregnancy, and childbirth by Julia Chinyere Oparah (Editor); Alicia D. Bonaparte (Editor)
Publication Date: 2015-10-02

This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement.
Delivered by Midwives: African American midwifery in the twentieth-century South by Jenny M. Luke
Publication Date: 2018-11-30

This book provides a new perspective on the childbirth experience of African American women and their maternity care providers.
Killing the Black Body: race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty by Dorothy Roberts
Publication Date: 1998-12-29

This book exposes America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies -- from slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens
Publication Date: 2017-11-15

This book moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals.
Reproducing Race: an ethnography of pregnancy as a site of racialization by Khiara Bridges
Publication Date: 2011-03-18

An ethnography of pregnancy and birth at a large New York City public hospital, explores the role of race in the medical setting.
Reproductive Injustice: acism, pregnancy, and premature birth by Dána-Ain Davis
Publication Date: 2019-06-25

The book argues not only that medical racism persists and must be considered when examining adverse outcomes—as well as upsetting experiences for parents—but also that NICUs and life-saving technologies should not be the only strategies for improving the outcomes for black pregnant women and their babies.

Our Communities Our Sexual Health: awareness and prevention for African Americans by Madeline Y. Sutton (Editor); Jo A. Valentine (Editor); William C. Jenkins (Editor)
Publication Date: 2015-09-30

This book provides a comprehensive historical prospective of the disproportionate burden of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among African Americans.

African American Alternative Medicine by Eric J. Bailey
Publication Date: 2002-08-30

This book examines the African American health belief system and the treatment strategies often used and documented, including a cultural-historical view of alternative medicine's use within the African American community and how it was an integral part of African American culture.
African American Slave Medicine by Herbert C. Covey
Publication Date: 2007-02-16

A critical examination of how African-American slaves medical needs were addressed during the years before and surrounding the Civil War.

Teaching & Learning

Ideas in unexpected places : reimagining Black intellectual history by Leslie M. Alexander (Editor); Brandon R. Byrd (Editor)
Publication Date: 2022-04-15

This collection advances innovative scholarly approaches to Black intellectual history by foregrounding the experiences and ideas of people who lacked access to more privileged mechanisms of public discourse and power.
Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian academy : teaching, learning, and researching while Black by Awad Ibrahim (editor); Tamari Kitossa (editor); Malinda S. Smith (editor); Handel K. Wright (editor)
Publication Date: 2022

The essays in this book make visible the submerged stories of Black life in academia in Canada.
Theory of Racelessness by Sheena Michele Mason
Publication Date: 2022-05-28

Presents a skeptical eliminativist philosophy of race and the theory of racelessness, a methodological and pedagogical framework for analyzing "race" and racism. It explores the history of skeptical eliminativism and constructionist eliminativism within the history of African American philosophy and literary studies and its consistent connection with movements for civil rights.
Black Experiences in Higher Education : Faculty, Staff, and Students by Sherella Cupid & Antione D. Tomlin
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2023

Features the narratives of Black faculty, staff, and students and how they navigate their professional experiences, confront the hidden curriculum and work to transform academia. As we think about the context of Black Lives Matter, intersections of race and gender, and what it means to be Black in America, there is a new consciousness and attention to the uniqueness of Black experiences in the world. This book calls attention to how Black folks are navigating their experiences within higher education.

Political & Social Determinants

A Long Reconstruction: racial caste and reconciliation in the Methodist Episcopal Church by Paul William Harris
Publication Date: 2022-04-15

This book details how the Methodist Episcopal Church continued to wrestle with issues of racial inclusion for decades after political support for racial reform had receded.
Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop by Erika D. Gault
Call Number: BR563 .N4 G38 2022

Publication Date: 2022

Provides a timely portrait of young Black Christians and how digital technology is transforming the Black Church. They stand at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement, push the boundaries of the Black Church through online expression of Christian hip hop, and redefine what it means to be young, Black, and Christian in America.

Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites by Nadia E. Brown; Danielle Casarez Lemi
Publication Date: 2021

This book centers Black women’s bodies, specifically their hair texture and skin tone, to argue that phenotypic differences among Black women politicians directly impact how they experience political office and how Black voters evaluate them.
Fearing the Black Body: the racial origins of fat phobia by Sabrina Strings
Call Number: HQ1220 .U5 S77 2019

Publication Date: 2019

"Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals--where fat bodies were once praised--showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of "savagery" and racial inferiority ... An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn't about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice."

Keeping It Unreal: Black queer fantasy and superhero comics by Darieck Scott
Call Number: PN6714 .S384 2022

Publication Date: 2022

Explores how fantasies of Black power and triumph fashion theoretical, political, and aesthetic challenges to—and respite from—white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It examines representations of Blackness in fantasy-infused genres: superhero comic books, erotic comics, fantasy and science-fiction genre literature, as well as contemporary literary “realist” fiction centering fantastic conceits.

Unsettling the Great White North : Black Canadian history by Michele A. Johnson; Funké Aladejebi
Publication Date: 2022

Offers a chronological, regional, and thematic compilation of some of the latest and best scholarship in the field of Black Canadian history.

Black interdictions : Haitian refugees and antiblack racism on the high seas by Philip Kretsedemas
Publication Date: 2022-03-01

This book exposes the antiblack racism that was latent in the US government's Haitian refugee policies of the 1980s and the 1990s, setting the tone for the criminalization of migrants and refugees in the new millennium .
Fugitive Movements by Manisha Sinha; James O'Neil Spady (Editor)
Publication Date: 2022-01-30

Essays that commemorate the 1822 Charleston Antislavery Movement and offer a new interpretation of the 1822 events.
The Long Emancipation by Rinaldo Walcott
Publication Date: 2021-04-30

A mediation on the question of freedom for Black people globally, arguing that wherever Black people have been emancipated from slavery and colonization, a potential freedom became thwarted.

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