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rainbowbookworm's review
5.0
This is the kind of book they don't want you to read because Unequal will open your eyes to the origins of many contemporary issues of racial inequality.
mwaltos's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
brendan_e_m's review
4.0
In each chapter, Dyson pairs a brief description of recent injustices with a detailed account of more distant historical injustices, showing that the past is not past. It is easy for me to decry historical decisions as blatantly racist, but Dyson's attention to events of today made me think more clearly about the racist effects of current policies, which are often seen as having two legitimate political positions.
tracithomas's review
3.0
This is a good intro to Black historical figures for young people. It’s a little dry but the stories are ranging and touch on many well known and less known people and their significance. The format lacks imagination and I wonder a bit about audience.
emstewart23's review against another edition
4.0
Great resource for young people; I can definitely see why it won the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction (which is what led me to read it). I listened on audio so maybe something got lost there but there seemed to be a huge lack of cohesion between chapters and people brought up. I would often get confused when it seemed to jump from person to person and through different time periods. Maybe just me. At times a little dry but overall so informative and included lots of history I hope they will teach in schools today as I didn’t learn about many of these topics in school in the 90s/early 00s.
library_kb's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
This is a book that I think is best absorbed in small chunks--it honestly deals with American history and connects it to the present in clear and thorough ways, but because there is a lot of content covered, each chapter is sbest with a little processing time between. I think this could be a fantastic resource for U.S. history classes in middle and high school because each chapter has the context needed to be a stand alone. The way each chapter is structured also does a great job of framing historical events dealing with racism with a central focus on those who resisted and worked against the oppressive systems, which ultimately leaves the reader with hope for the future rather than guilt or hopelessness.