Books like A shining thread of hope by Darlene Clark Hine

Ain't I a Woman examines the intersections of race, gender, and class, exploring the experiences of African American women and the broader struggle for feminist and civil rights.

bell hooks’ essays in Black Looks critique traditional narratives, interrogating how blackness, race, and gender are represented in media and culture, urging readers to rethink spectatorship and the politics of representation.

Gender and Jim Crow examines how race and gender shaped North Carolina politics from the 1890s to 1920, tracing African American women’s political activism and the rise of Southern progressivism.

"In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives us our first full account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community. Between 1880 and 1920, the black church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat. Focusing on the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious movement among black Americans, Higginbotham shows us how women were largely responsible for making the church a force for self-help in the black community. In her account, we see how the efforts of women enabled the church to build schools, provide food and clothing to the poor, and offer a host of social welfare services. And we observe the challenges of black women to patriarchal theology. Class, race, and gender dynamics continually interact in Higginbotham's nuanced history. She depicts the cooperation, tension, and negotiation that characterized the relationship between men and women church leaders as well as the interaction of southern black and northern white women's groups." "Higginbotham's history is at once tough-minded and engaging. It portrays the lives of individuals within this movement as lucidly as it delineates feminist thinking and racial politics. She addresses the role of black Baptist women in contesting racism and sexism through a "politics of respectability" and in demanding civil rights, voting rights, equal employment, and educational opportunities." "Righteous Discontent finally assigns women their rightful place in the story of political and social activism in the black church. It is central to an understanding of African American social and cultural life and a critical chapter in the history of religion in America."--Jacket.

Too Heavy a Load traces a century of African American women’s fight against racism and gender bias, highlighting their vital role in civil rights, women’s rights, and the evolving focus of American racial progress.