The Right Mistake by Walter Mosley

Living in South Central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict, still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Now freed after serving twenty-seven years in prison, he is filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets. Along with his gambler friend Billy Psalms, Socrates calls together local people of all races from their different social stations—lawyers, gangsters, preachers, Buddhists, businessmen—to conduct meetings of a Thinkers’ Club, where all can discuss the unanswerable questions in life.

The street philosopher enjoins his friends to explore—even in the knowledge that there’s nothing that they personally can do to change the ways of the world—what might be done anyway, what it would take to change themselves. Infiltrated by undercover cops, and threatened by strain from within, tensions rise as hot-blooded gangsters and respectable deacons fight over issues of personal and social responsibility. But simply by asking questions about racial authenticity, street justice, infidelity, poverty, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference.

Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Joshua and Christophe are twins, raised by a blind grandmother and a large extended family in a rural town on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. They’ve just finished high school and need to find jobs, but in a failing post-Katrina economy, it’s not easy. Joshua gets work on the docks, but Christophe’s not so lucky. Desperate to alleviate the family’s poverty, he starts to sell drugs.

He can hide it from his grandmother but not his twin, and the two grow increasingly estranged. Christophe’s downward spiral is accelerated first by crack, then by the reappearance of the twins’ parents: Cille, who abandoned them, and Sandman, a creepy, predatory addict. Sandman taunts Christophe, eventually provoking a shocking confrontation that will ultimately damn or save both twins

Loving Cee Cee Johnson by Linda Leigh Hargrove

The shame had driven her away, prompted her to change her first name, and adopt a new hometown. Nothing good can come out of Pettigrew, at least that's what Celine "Cee Cee" Johnson, a successful TV reporter and journalist, thinks. Pettigrew loomed over Cee Cee like a huge animal that would not go away, and now she must deal with the past when she returns to her hometown on assignment.

Haunted by the traumatic events of her childhood, Cee Cee's mask begins to crack as she uncovers family secrets and finds out what really happened the night her black Jesues figurine as thrown into the fire. She is challenged as she discovers the truth about her life, and especially by the playwright who wants to tell the world about her past.

Circle of Stone by Verne Jackson

A group of friends fights to overcome severe opposition in this empowering novel, which takes place in Arkansas during the Great Depression. When Ralph, a young black boy from Colored Town, is unfairly accused of murdering two white people, his death by lynching seems inescapable. But when Dave Bailey and the group known as "The Circle" rescue Ralph and his family by giving them the resources to leave town before any arrest or real harm is done, an important shift of power occurs in Colored Town.

Tired of the brutality forced upon them, the men and women of The Circle are committed to unity and overcoming injustice by any means necessary. The success in their endeavors is a moving testament to the power of educated activism and the strength of taking a unified stand.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents' jewelry to pay for passage to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago.

Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors-Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter-who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again.