Troy Wiggins of Book Riot created a reading list titled, “The Effects of Racism.” Making the list is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Margo Jefferson’s Negroland, and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. Click the link above to view to rest of the list!

Poet Nikki Giovanni opened up about her close friendship with singer Nina Simone. Read more at Nicki Giovanni: Nina Simone Would Have Joined 'Black Lives Matter' Movement. Giovanni said Simone, a civil rights activist during her lifetime, would have readily joined the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement.

Thousands of miles away from earth, in space. How Star Trek continues to embrace diversity 50 years later.

Jacqueline Woodson, winner of the National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, spoke with The Root about why she became a writer, and her move from writing children’s to adult literature. Read more at Young-Adult Author Jacqueline Woodson on Writing Stories That Appeal to All Ages. 

This past week, The Project on the History of Black Writing and the KU Department of English has hosted 15 scholars from Beijing Foreign Studies University for a ten day summer institute. The scholars, who come from a variety of disciplines in the university, came to learn about the US education system, race relations, politics, and American life overall. Each day of the institute is filled with sessions where speakers educate the visiting scholars on different facets of education. A few of these talks have included “Whiteness, the Middle Class, and the U.S.” by professor David Roediger, “Representations of Race and Ethincity in Disney Films” by professor Gizelle Anatol, and “Ethics and Transcultural Reading: Two Perspectives on Geling Yan’s The Flowers of War” by professor Jerry W. Ward, Jr.