Anti-Racism and Black Lives Matter Resources
The following is a list of books, films, articles, videos, and other resources that will help to educate all those who want to become a part of the solution to the problem of racism.
Books
The New Jim Crow
by Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
Ebook Borrow: The New Jim Crow
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin
In the Deep South of the 1950’s, a color line was etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.
Policing the Black Man
by Angela Davis
Policing the Black Man explores and critiques the many ways the criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process, from arrest through sentencing.
Rise of the Warrior Cop
by Radley Balko
The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other-an enemy.
Who Do You Serve, Who Do you Protect
by Maya Schenwar
What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness?
Ebook Borrow: Who Do You Serve, Who Do you Protect
They Can’t Kill Us All
by Wesley Lowery
A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it.
White Fragility
by Robin Diangelo
Exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
White Rage
by Carol Anderson
As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as ‘black rage’, historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, ‘white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,’ she wrote, ‘everyone had ignored the kindling.’
Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Rising Out of Hatred
by Eli Saslow
Rising Out of Hatred tells the story of how white-supremacist ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost.
Black Stats
by Monique Morris
Black Stats—a comprehensive guide filled with contemporary facts and figures on African Americans—is an essential reference for anyone attempting to fathom the complex state of our nation.
The Central Park Five
by Sarah Burns
On April 20th, 1989, two passersby discovered the body of the “Central Park jogger” crumpled in a ravine. She’d been raped and severely beaten. Within days five black and Latino teenagers were apprehended, all five confessing to the crime. The staggering torrent of media coverage that ensued, coupled with fierce public outcry, exposed the deep-seated race and class divisions in New York City at the time. The minors were tried and convicted as adults despite no evidence linking them to the victim. Over a decade later, when DNA tests connected serial rapist Matias Reyes to the crime, the government, law enforcement, social institutions and media of New York were exposed as having undermined the individuals they were designed to protect.
White Like Me
by Tim Wise
this deeply personal polemic reveals how racial privilege shapes the daily lives of white Americans in every realm: employment, education, housing, criminal justice, and elsewhere.
Fire Shut Up In My Bones
by Charles Blow
Charles M. Blow’s mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery’s legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to “love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel.” Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his “do-right” mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After—the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America’s most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racism
by Ibram X. Kendi
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
Ebook Borrow: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racism
How to be an AntiRacist
by Ibram X. Kendi
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.
Me and White Supremacy
by Layla Saad
Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. https://www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com/
Articles
There Is No Neutral’: ‘Nice White People’ Can Still Be Racist
Written by: Ari Shapiro
NPR | June 9,2020
For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies
Written by Courtney Ariel
Sojourners | April 16, 2017
May 31, 1921: Tulsa Massacre
TheZinn Education Project
An Essential Anti-Racist Reading List
Written by Hayley Maitland
Vogue | May 31, 2020
COVID-19 and Racial/Ethnic Disparities
Written by Monica Webb Hooper; Anna María Nápoles; Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable
JAMMA Network | May 11, 2020
Breaking the Chain: Healing Racial Trauma in the Body: An Interview with Resmaa Menakem
Written by Kristin Moe
Medium | May 14, 2020
Thinking in a Pandemic
Written by Lorgia Garcia-Pena and Mordecai Lyon
Boston Review | June 2, 2020
75 Things White People Can do For Racial Injustice
Written by Corinne Shutack
Medium | Aug 13, 2017
Your Bookshelf May Be Part Of The Problem
Written by Juan Vidal
NPR | June 6, 2020
Beyond Protests: 5 More Ways To Channel Anger Into Action To Fight Racism
Written by Allison Aubrey
Medium | Aug 13, 2017
White people: this is what you need to do
Written by Olive Pometsey
GQ | June 3, 2020
What I Hear When Someone Says “I Don’t See Color”
Written by Kiara Goodwin
The Everygirl Media Group | June 1, 2020
White Privilege:Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Written by: Peggy McIntosh | Department of Psychology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Anti-Racism Resources For White People
Written by: Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein
May 2020
Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup
Written by: Katrina Michie
Pretty Good | Oct 13
26 Ways to be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets
Issuu | December 17, 2014
Documentaries on Netflix
LA 92
2017 | Rated R | 1hr 54m
Previously unseen footage is shaped into a fresh and timely retelling of the 1992 Rodney King trial — and the verdict that sparked civil unrest.
2016 | Rated TV-MA | 1hr 40m
In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
Video
Black Lives Matter: Anti-Racism Resources Streaming for Free
Written By Christopher Rosen
Vanity Fair | June 3, 2020