Books For People Who Are New To Protesting
Books are man’s best friend. Despite so many electronic gadgets for leisure, people still find solace in reading books. 2020 hasn’t been an eventful year for many. We have seen death in abundance courtesy of the COVID-19 outrage and have also witnessed a flurry of inspiring activism including, the Black Lives Matter and Farmers protesting in India, to name a few.
A protest is the only weapon where people can raise their voice against something odd or biased.- This is one such thing that will stay long in the future as well. However, many people still don’t know how to protest properly. They just form a queue and do things that the other person does, without having any knowledge of the same. To aid people in protesting, I have compiled 10 of the best books in this post. So without any further ado, let us start with the compilation.
8 Books That Will Help You In Protesting
The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart
Narrated by Alicia Garza, who changed the language and the world seven years back by introducing the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” which became a public glossary.
She is quite familiar with protesting, the civil rights movement, and related terms. The Purpose of Power outlines the personal journey of Garza blended with her organizing work, providing a model of action for future organizers.
March: Book One
The next book in this lot is March: Book One. The impactful, history-making, and inspiring journey of John Lewis (the author) is depicted in this three-book series. The trilogy paints an intimate portrait as history gets retold from Lewis’s memory. For curious people who wish to know about the late congressman’s life deeply should read this graphic novel.
This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century
This book teaches you the art to protesting. What methods favor you and what doesn’t, you can find everything related to protesting in this book.
This Is an Uprising is a book that mocks the process of protesting by walking through different contours that have distinguished a variety of uprisings over the years. All in all, it is almost an encyclopedia of social movements and changes in society.
They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement
Wesley Lowery’s They Can’t Kill Us All is tailor-made for those who protested for the first time with the Black Lives Matter protest. This book serves as a testimonial to the power in the origins.
Wesley, who was a reporter at Washington Post when wrote a book on the Black Lives Matter Protest and Movement, was prone to interviews and wrote They Can’t Kill Us All. The book showcases all the necessary tactics involved in protesting.
Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest
This book is tailor-made for those who are new in protesting but at the same time are a tech-geek. Written by Zeynep Tufekci, the book outline how protest has changed over the period courtesy of the inception of the internet.
The book is slightly more academic than all other books on this list. It focuses on Tufekci’s personal accounts of protests in Turkey and has shown interviews with protestors around the world. The book is captivating in all senses.
Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action
From the author of Ibram X. Kendi’s bestselling How to Be An Antiracist, his Be Antiracist is the perfect follow-up of his bestseller. The book is a guided journal packed with prompts for readers to reflect on their identity and the society that shaped it.
People who haven’t read the first part How To Be An Anroracist, won’t be able to relate closely with this one. Therefore, it is necessary to go through the previous one. Some concepts are directly found in that book, while others require a little previous reading.
Picturing Resistance: Moments and Movements of Social Change from the 1950s to Today
Written by Melanie Light and pictured by Ken Light, Picturing Resistance is worth a book about protesting. Both Melanie and Ken have tried to portray images that have shaped the protesting in the US over the years, especially in the last seven decades.
The book starts with the origins of the Civil Rights Movement moving through the images that are both well-known and seldom seen. The goal of this book is to inspire revolutionary thinkers, dreamers of all stripes, and activists who can come along and ensure these protests don’t get reflected as violence.
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
Sunil Yapa’s Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist is for the fiction lovers that talks about the passion, intensity, and conflict that emerge when we take to the streets.
The entire story is placed on a single afternoon during the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests, giving the readers a taste of the protesting recipe. All in all, I would say that Yapa’s novel is a resonant read.
Suggested: Citizenship Act: More of a Beacon for Protest
Time to wrap up:
Social activists, NGOs, not-for-profit organizations, etc do know how to protest and what essential tools for protesting are required. The books mentioned in this post talk about protesting and social rights in an intriguing manner so that people can understand the importance of all these things.
