To round off Black History Month LSi chose the top five books to highlight the fight against racial discrimination and prejudice.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a searing portrayal of racial prejudice and discrimination in the Deep South, narrated and told through the naïve eyes of a young girl, Scout Finch. This endearing coming-of-age tale addresses the fundamental core message of the struggle for justice, and how the old and evil mindset of the Jim Crow legal system can be overturned.

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman tells the tale of a passionate yet tragic love story enmeshed with racial prejudice and discrimination via the reversal of historical racial superiority in a dual first-person-narrative. Diametrically opposed Sephy and Callum are born into a society enriched with policies similar to that of Jim Crow. Blackman’s ability to write a convincing account of racial segregation and the attempt of the crosses for inclusion, much like the reality of 1950’s and 1960’s America, imparts a sense of realism to her story.

Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy delicately explores everyday racial tensions, which over time, are transformed into a life-long friendship. Set in Atlanta over a twenty-five year period beginning in 1948, spanning the era of the Civil Rights Movement, Uhry depicts an unlikely friendship between main characters Daisy and Hoke much closer than times and circumstances would ever allow them to publicly admit.

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a period novel saddled with the language, perspective and nascent ideologies of its young narrator, Huck. Huck’s interactions with slave Jim, whom he meets on his travels, escaping from the restraints of slavery, represent the key theme that runs throughout the novel; the accomplishment of freedom. When Ernest Hemmingway stated “all modern American literature comes from the book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”, he wasn’t incorrect.

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker, published in 1982, chronicles the story of several black women in rural Georgia during the early twentieth century, who faced a double dose of discrimination in the form of both sexism and racism. The personal letters of Celie, a young girl suffering accustomed abuse by her father, who embarks on a the journey of uplift, exemplify the cyclical nature of discrimination and how oppression can be overcome through unity.

Charlotte Dowd