Resources for Anti-Racism Work and Racial Equity

Jill RussellSeptember 2, 2020Mission and Social JusticeComments are off for this post

By the Reconciliation Ministry

Striving toward the goal of racial equity and evolution towards anti-racism, we at Hope Church seek education, information, and inspiration by asking “What do you recommend?” Our faith group of readers, learners, and activists turned to the Reconciliation Ministry with the task of curating a list of contemporary books, podcasts, and videos, which quickly generated a lengthy list.

Where does one start to meaningfully organize this list? Conduct an internet search, of course! After just a few minutes, one article repeatedly rose to the top. Reading it, I wondered if this task was all for naught.

Dr. Lauren Michele Jackson teaches in the Departments of English and African American Studies at Northwestern University. Jackson’s article What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List for? was published June 4, 2020, in Vulture, a component of New York Magazine. (NOTE: A version of this article is also available in the June 8, 2020, issue for those who subscribe to the New York Magazine.) References to her work continued to appear in others’ articles and subsequent interviews, such as the NPR podcast The limitations of an anti-racist reading list. Jackson’s piece challenges us to consider what we are doing. I would like to think that we at Hope strive to continue our work, as she states we must “get down to the business of reading.” Thus, we want to generate a list. But Jackson warns not to place all black authors into one category under the anti-racist heading and acknowledges the flaws in organizing a list where “Aside from the contemporary teaching texts, genre appears indiscriminately: essays slide against memoir and folklore, poetry squeezed on either side by sociological tomes.” She asserts we should read Toni Morrison’s work as novels, because she is a great novelist. Read The Warmth of Other Suns for its historical value. Read works on race, power, and capital.

Review the nonfiction and fiction list below of books (memoirs with essays) and explore the additional resources at the bottom to find more. Also included are resources for children’s titles. At the very bottom are some podcasts that have also been highly recommended.

Nonfiction

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
Carol Anderson, White Rage, The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald, Eric Martin, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People
Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?
Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
Austin Channing Brown, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Aaron Dixon, My People are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain
Robin DiAngelo and M.E. Dyson, White Fragility
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States
Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US
Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop
Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race
Jennifer Harvey, Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation
Cathy Parks Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Mira Jacob, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
Tiffany Jewell, This Book Is Anti-Racist
Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be an Antiracist
Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bendele, When They Call You a Terrorist
Ruth King, Mindful of Race
Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement
Ijeoma Olue, So You Want to Talk about Race
Paul Ortiz, An African-American and Latinx History of the United States
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric
Jason Reynolds, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Layla Saad, Me and White Supremacy
Annaka Sikkink, The Education of a Novice Ally: Learning to be a Middle Class Ally in the Work to End Poverty
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Keeanga-Yamahtta Tayor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin
Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns
Damon Young, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker

Fiction

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer
Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Toni Morrison, Beloved and The Bluest Eye
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad
Jacqueline Wood, Brown Girls Dreaming

General Resources

Young Adult and Children’s Reading

Video and Audio

OnBeing Podcast with Robin Diangelo and Resmaa Menakem
Race in America by Phil Vischer (creator of Veggie Tales)
Tim Wise on White Privilege
A 25-minute audio meditation by Lorilyn Wiering, based on the writing of African-American philosopher, theologian, writer, mystic and civil rights leader, Howard Thurman
Recommended podcasts in general: 1619; Go off, Sis; The Nod; Reveal

Jill Russell

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