Making Black Lives Matter: Confronting Anti-Black Racism

At the heart of racist attitudes and behaviors is anti-Black racism, which simply put, is the disregard and disdain of Black life. Anti-Black racism negatively impacts every aspect of the lives of Black people.

Edited by renowned scholar and psychologist Kevin Cokley, Making Black Lives Matter: Confronting Anti-Black Racism explores the history and contemporary circumstances of anti-Black racism, offers powerful personal anecdotes, and provides recommendations and solutions to challenging anti-Black racism in its various expressions.

The book features chapters written by scholars, practitioners, activists, and students. The chapters reflect diverse perspectives from the Black community and writing styles that range from scholarly text supported by cited research to personal narratives that highlight the lived experiences of the contributors. The book focuses on the ways that anti-Black racism manifests and has been confronted across various domains of Black life using research, activism, social media, and therapy.

In the words of Cokley: It is my hope that the book will provide a blueprint for readers that will empower them to actively confront anti-Blackness wherever it exists, because this is the only way we will progress toward making Black lives matter.

Making Black Lives Matter is a book that is meant to be shared! The goal for Cognella for publishing this book is to amplify the voices of those who need to be heard and to provide readers free access to critical scholarship on topics that affect our everyday lives. We’re proud to provide free digital copies of the book to anyone who wants to read it. So, we encourage you to spread the word and share the book with everyone you know.