Below, we’ve compiled additional resources considering racial justice, racism and the impact of racism on lived experiences.

MOVIES/ DOCUMENTARIES:

  • True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality (George Kunhardt) A look at how Alabama attorney Bryan Stevenson struggles to create more fairness in the legal system.
  • Get Out (Jordan Peele) A horror-comedy film that explores modern American racism.
  • 13th (Ava DuVernay) A documentary that explores the intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States. It is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1854, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.
  • When They See Us (Ava DuVernay) A four-episode depiction of what led to the wrongful 1990 conviction (and eventual exoneration in 2002) of a handful of teenage Black boys from Harlem in the violent rape and assault of 28-year-old New York banker.
  • Selma (Ava DuVernay) An historical drama based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches.
  • Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland (David Heilbroner, Kate Davis) An investigation into what happened to activist Sandra Bland, who died in police custody after a routine traffic stop.
  • Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee) Released 30 years ago, the film explores how racial inequality drives conflict in a predominantly African-American community on the hottest day of the summer.
  • LA 92 (Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin) LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage.

POETRY:

ARTICLES:

PODCASTS:

 VIDEO CLIPS:

BOOKS:

  • Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
  • The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist. A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America’s economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves. Winner of the 2015 Avery O. Craven Prize from the Organization of American Historians Winner of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Prize.
  • An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.
  • Green Card Youth Voices: Immigration stories from a Minneapolis High School (Written by 30 Wellstone Int. High School students)
  • While the Locust Slept by Peter Razor.  An Ojibwe man chronicles his survival of abuse and bigotry at a state orphanage in the 1930s and the brutal farm indenture that followed.
  • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Based on a true story, this Pulitzer Prize winning novel tells the story of a reform school in Florida and its impact on the life of an African American teenaged boy.
  • Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, Race for Profit chronicles how the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 failed to stop racist, exploitative mortgage lending practices.
  • A Terrible Thing To Waste: Environmental Racism And Its Assault On The American Mind by Harriet A. Washington. From lead poisoning to toxic waste, Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by environmental hazards.
  • Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks. Algorithms are made by humans, so they are susceptible to human biases. From deciding which neighborhoods get policed to who gets welfare benefits, discrimination has gone digital.
  • Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy by Darryl Pinckney. The author makes the case that black political representation has been chipped away by voter ID laws, gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement.
  • Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López. Politicians have relied on racially coded language to win over white voters and decimate social programs. Dog Whistle Politics makes the case that not only does this strategy endanger people of color, but it also hinders economic mobility for all Americans.
  • Killing the Black Body:  Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts.  By using the history of how American law–beginning with slavery–has treated the issue of the state’s right to interfere with the Black woman’s body, the author makes the case for legal redress of the racist implications of current policy.
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, and other Conversations About Race by Beverly Tatum. Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
  • I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown. I'm Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy and discover how blackness--if we let it--can save us all.
  • Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude Steel. Steele sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these “stereotype threats” and reshaping American identities.
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy — from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans — has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch her hair — and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend? In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; and it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award. Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”
  • How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram Kendi. In his memoir, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science--including the story of his own awakening to antiracism--bringing it all together in a cogent, accessible form. He begins by helping us rethink our most deeply held, if implicit, beliefs and our most intimate personal relationships (including beliefs about race and IQ and interracial social relations) and reexamines the policies and larger social arrangements we support. How To Be An Antiracist promises to become an essential book for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step of contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.