Social Justice

With accessible, concise explanations of the features and causes of climate change as well as pieces urging an intersectional approach to environmental justice, this book is the handbook for the emerging youth climate movement. Using a feminist, indigenous, antiracist, internationalist lens, the book paints a picture of a world in climate crisis and presents bold, courageous ideas for how to save it. Featuring introductions from leading climate activists, No Planet B is essential listening for everyone fighting for a Green New Deal and more.

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Donna Drucker traces the history of modern contraception, outlining the development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the opening of Dr. Jacobs' clinic to the present.

Americans are taught that justice means fairness. They expect it from our legal system. “Equal Justice Under Law” is prominently inscribed on the Supreme Court. Yet, law and justice in America are not necessarily the same thing. And they are certainly not applied in equal ways.

In Frontline Bodies, Nicolas Martin-Breteau argues that sports are not—and have never been—purely about entertainment for Black Americans. Instead, beginning in the 1890s during Reconstruction, Black Americans proactively used athletics as a tactic to fight racial oppression. Martin-Breteau considers the work of Edwin B. Henderson, a prominent Black physical educator, civil rights activist, and historian of Black sports.

Racial Emotion at Work is an invitation to understand our own emotions and associated behaviors around race—and much more. With this surprising and timely book, Tristin K. Green takes us beyond diversity trainings and other individualized solutions to discrimination and inequality in employment, calling for sweeping changes in how the law and work organizations treat and shape racial emotions.

We’re told Justice should be blind. We’ve been taught that “The Truth will set you free.” But is that the world in which we find ourselves? Cancel culture, biased narratives, mainstream media, and giant corporations; these are the mindsets and special interests that have ferociously aligned to silence and punish the common citizen. Historically, the Justice System has been the entity to stand in the gap to ensure citizens aren’t overpowered. But is that still the case?

A powerful account of violence against Black women and girls in the United States and their fight for liberation, America, Goddam explores the combined force of anti-Blackness, misogyny, patriarchy, and capitalism in the lives of Black women and girls in the United States today. Through personal accounts and hard-hitting analysis, Black feminist historian Treva B. Lindsey starkly assesses the forms and legacies of violence against Black women and girls, as well as their demands for justice for themselves and their communities.

In Communicate for Change, journalist and communication consultant Genelle Aldred offers suggestions and guidance to help us be better listeners, readers, watchers, and talkers. With insight drawn from years of experience, she breaks down the barriers to effective conversation so we can communicate in a more nuanced, thoughtful way and understand our part in bringing about a more just society. Thought-provoking and stimulating, it lays out how we can take that next step from learning and talking about anti-racism and unconscious bias to putting it into practice.

After the death of her son, Eric Garner, at the hands of New York City police officers on Staten Island went viral, Gwen Carr's life changed forever. The illegal choke hold that took Garner's life has been seared into the public consciousness forever as the large Black man struggled to breathe while a White policeman held him down on a hot concrete sidewalk. His death set the tone for a new normal where young Black men and women now automatically document police interactions with their cell phones for fear of brutality and even death.

Mass incarceration has become a lucrative industry, and the criminal justice system is plagued with bias and unjust practices. And the church has unwittingly contributed to these problems. Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity's role in its evolution and expansion. He assesses our nation's ethic of meritocratic justice in light of Scripture and exposes the theologies that embolden mass incarceration.

More than 50 years ago, an assassin's bullet robbed us of one of the most eloquent voices for 20th-century human rights and justice. Drawing on a new generation of scholarship about the civil rights era, To the Promised Land goes beyond the iconic view of King as an advocate of racial harmony to explore his profound commitment to the poor and working class, and his call for "nonviolent resistance" to all forms of oppression, including economic injustice.

Baby X is a shocking and unforgettable story of how some of the UK's most disadvantaged children escaped their tormentors - and explains why some cases, similar to that of Baby P's, ended in tragedy. When super-tough cop Sergeant Harry Keeble announced he was joining Hackney's ailing Child Protection Team in 2000, his colleagues were astounded. Known as the 'Cardigan Squad', its officers were seen as glorified social workers dealing with domestics. The reality was very different.

In Breaking In, veteran journalist Joan Biskupic tells the story of how two forces providentially merged - the large ambitions of a talented Puerto Rican girl raised in the projects in the Bronx and the increasing political presence of Hispanics, from California to Texas, from Florida to the Northeast - resulting in a historical appointment. And this is not just a tale about breaking barriers as a Puerto Rican. It's about breaking barriers as a justice.

Justice is supposed to be blind, especially to race and politics. Yet as Department of Justice (DOJ) whistleblower J. Christian Adams divulges in his shocking exposé, Injustice, justice under the Obama administration is anything but blind. Here, Adams reveals the never-before-published truth about the corrupt, racist, and politicized inner workings of the Obama Justice Department, as well as the untold story of the DOJ’s corrupt handling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.

The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people.

Equality is easy to grasp in theory but often hard to achieve in reality. In this accessible and wide-ranging work, American University law professor Robert L. Tsai offers a stirring account of how legal ideas that aren't necessarily about equality at all - ensuring fair play, behaving reasonably, avoiding cruelty, and protecting free speech - have often been used to overcome resistance to justice and remain vital today.

In Health Justice Now, Timothy Faust explains what single payer is, why we don't yet have it, and how it can be won. He identifies the actors that have misled us for profit and political gain, dispels the myth that healthcare needs to be personally expensive, shows how we can smoothly transition to a new model, and reveals the slate of humane and progressive reforms that we can only achieve with single payer as the springboard.

America's criminal justice system is among the deadliest and most racist in the world and it disproportionally targets Black Americans, who are also disproportionately poor, hungry, houseless, jobless, sick, and poorly educated. By every metric of misery, this nation does not act like Black Lives Matter. In order to break out of the trap of racialized mass incarceration and relentless racial oppression, we, as a society, need to rethink our basic assumptions about blame and punishment.

The world is not as God intends it to be. God's heart is to make things right, and for the world to be just. But complex problems warrant more sustained attention than quick posts on social media. How can we actually make a difference? Activist Mae Elise Cannon takes us beyond the hashtags to serious engagement with real issues. God calls the church to respond substantively to the needs of the poor, the realities of racial inequity, and the mistreatment of women and the marginalized.

On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Crime of Aggression is Noah Weisbord's riveting insider's account of the high-stakes legal fight to enact this historic legislation and hold politicians accountable for the wars they start. Weisbord, a key drafter of the law for the International Criminal Court, takes listeners behind the scenes of one of the most consequential legal dramas in modern international diplomacy.