Resources for Antiracists
This list is for those who want to better understand the history of race and the impact of racism on our society. It is not meant to be exhaustive. We have included materials for different age groups.- Podcasts and Webinars
- Clint Smith Reflects on This Moment – Ted Radio Hour podcast, June 5, 2020
- Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence with Resmaa Menakem – On Being podcast with Krista Tippett, June 4, 2020
- Equity Summit: Transformation in the New Decade, June 25 and 26 from 9 am – 1 pm (virtual)
- Creating a Culture of Equity by Brenda B. Asare, President and CEO, The Alford Group
- Equity Institute Resource Library
- Anti-racism Resources for White People (also Anti-racism Resources for Social Workers/Therapists)
- YWCA Statement for the Record in support of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 (H.R.7120/ S.3912)
- Code Switch (on NPR)
- A recent episode, A Decade of Watching Black People Die, is particularly relevant right now.
- Listen
- Nonfiction Reads
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi,
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Aleander
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Dr. Beverly Tatum,
Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations About Race in an Era of School Resegregation, by Dr. Beverly Tatum,
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad.
From Slavery To Freedom: A History of African-Americans by John Hope Franklin
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
The Fire Net Time by James Baldwin
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, And A New Era In America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery
Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That The Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People by Ben Crump
The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and William Barber II
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn (There is a young people's version for elementary and middle school readers)
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown
- Impactful fiction from Black authors
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Passing by Nella Larsen
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Known World: A Novel by Edward P Jones
- Parenting and Explaining Race to Kids
These two articles offer useful advice on how to talk to children about anti-Black racism, police violence, and the uprisings:
George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. What do we tell our children? with advice from acclaimed Black psychologist Dr. Beverly Tatum
How do I make sure I'm not raising the net Amy Cooper? – an article by White author Jennifer Harvey on raising white children for racial justice.
For preschool and elementary school-aged kids
Something Happened in Our Town by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins and Ann Hazzard.
Best-selling stories to help younger kids:
The Colors of Us by Karen Katz
Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
The Skin I’m In: A First Look at Racism by Pat Thomas
Sesame Street's We're Different, We're the Same by Bobbi Jane Kates
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard
I Am Enough by Grace Byers
Happy in Our Skin by Fran Manushkin and Lauren Tobia
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
Daddy Why Am I Brown?: A healthy conversation about skin color and family by Bedford F. Palmer
A Terrible Thing Happened by Margaret Holmes
Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi
First Look For Sameness by Kristen Bell
For teens:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work by Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Dear White People by Justin Simien
Books by our honorary degree recipient and award winning author, Jacqueline Woodson,
including The Other Side and Show Way. https://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/category/books-ive-written/
Additional Lists
- Taking Action
75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234Anti-racism resources for white people
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasicResources for White People to learn and talk about race and racism
https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/resources-for-white-people-to-learn-and-talk-about-race-and-racism-5b207fff4fc7Below are organizations you can support in continuing their work:
- Black Lives Matter: Eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
https://blacklivesmatter.com/ - Movement for Black Lives (M4BL): formed in December of 2014, was created as a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy, cultural and political wins, convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a shared movement-wide strategy.
https://m4bl.org/ - Protest bail funds across the country: A collection of community resources for protests around the country.
https://bailfunds.github.io/ - Mutual AID funds for your community: Research what mutual aid is and look for folks to fund in your area. Here’s an example for South King County and Eastside:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/covid19-eastside-survival-fund - Showing up for Racial Justice: SURJ’s role as part of a multi-racial movement is to undermine white support for white supremacy and to help build a racially just society.
https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/ - Assata’s Daughters: (AD) is a Black women-led, young person-directed organization rooted in the Black Radical TraditionAD organizes young Black people in Chicago by providing them with political education, leadership development, mentorship, and revolutionary services.
https://www.assatasdaughters.org/ - Community Justice Exchange: develops, shares, and experiments with tactical interventions, strategic organizing practices, and innovative organizing tools to end all forms of criminalization, incarceration, surveillance, supervision, and detention.
https://www.communityjusticeechange.org/nbfn-directory - The Bail Project™: National Revolving Bail Fund is a critical tool to prevent incarceration and combat racial and economic disparities in the bail system.
https://bailproject.org/ - Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project: a group of transgender, gender variant and intersex people—inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom.
http://www.tgijp.org/ - Moms for housing
https://moms4housing.org/ - Dream defenders: No cages no violence no corporate greed
https://dreamdefenders.org/ - The Association for Black Economic Power
https://abepmpls.org/ - Gays and Lesbians living in a Transgender Society: We approach the health and rights crises faced by transgender sex workers holistically using harm reduction, human rights principles, economic and social justice, along with a commitment to empowerment and pride in finding solutions from our own community.
https://www.glitsinc.org/ - COVID Bailout (NYC):
https://www.covidbailout.org/ - ACLU:
https://action.aclu.org/give/fund-every-fight-ahead - Colorlines news: published by Race Forward, a national organization that advances racial justice
https://www.colorlines.com/ - Black Voters Fund: Our goal is to increase power in our communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny.
https://www.blackvotersmatterfund.org/
More resources can be found at
- Black Lives Matter: Eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
- Existing Compilations of Resources
No matter where you are in your plan to eradicate anti-Black racism, there is work you can learn from. Below are a number of existing compilations of resources on race.
- Resources compiled by Particles for Justice as part of the #Strike4BlackLives
- Anti-racism resources for white people, compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker & Alyssa Klein
- A US/Canadian Race and Racism Reading List, by Prof. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Shareable Anti-Racism Resource Guide
- BlackLight, a compilation about the Black experience in the US, co-curated by Brian Nord, Lauren Biron, Renée Hložek, & Lucianne Walkowicz. New content is added every year during Black History Month.
- Equal Opportunity Astronomy: Articles & Resources by Astrobetter
- A learning list on race in America, by Lauren M. Chambers
- Justice in June
- Teaching Tolerance
- Racial Equity Tools
- https://www.shutdownstem.com/beginners
- Additional Reading Suggestions
- How To Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy And The Racial Divide by Crystal M. Fleming
- A discussion, based on critical race theory, about everything wrong with our current conversations about race.
- Superior: the Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
- Tells the history and present story of scientific racism, and how ideas about race having a biological origin continue to oppress Black people
- Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neill
- A data scientist explains how Big Data--the algorithms and models that, whether we know it or not, make decisions for us--can reinforce discrimination.
- Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble
- Describes how search algorithms can be biased to privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.
- Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. DuBois
- The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America - Anders Walker
- The New Jim Crow - Michelle Aleander
- The Condemnation of Blackness - Khalil Gibran Muhammad
- A Different Mirror - Ronald Takaki
- How the South Won the Civil War - Heather Co Richardson
- Evicted - Matthew Desmond
- Nobody - Marc Lamont Hill
- Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W Loewen
- Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Berver Doniel Tatum, PhD
- The Color of Law - Richard Rothstein
- Blackballed - Darryl Pinkney
- Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W. Loewen
Anti-Racist Lit; Bios, Non-fiction, novels, personal narratives:
- The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson
- The Fire Net time - James Baldwin
- Malcolm X - Ale Haley
- Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Killing Rage Ending Racism - Bell Hooks
- Becoming - Michelle Obama
- An American By Marriage - Tayari Jones
- A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota -
- The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother - James McBride
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Bryan Stevenson
- The Myth Of Race - Robert Sussman
Anti-Racist Lit - Black Feminism:
- How we Get Free - Keeanga-Yamhtta Taylor
- Black Feminists Thought - Patricia Hill Collins
- Ain't I a Woman Black Women and Feminism - Bell Hooks
- Bad Feminist - Roane Gay
- Eloquent Rage - Brittney Cooper
- In Search of Our Mothers Gardens - Alice Walker
- Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde
- Women Race & Class - Angela Y Davis
- Assata: An Autobiography - Assata Shakur
- To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe - Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande
Anti Racist List Black LGBTQ+:
- Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
- Zami - Audre Lorde
- Real Life - Brandon Taylor
- Unapologetic A black, queer, and feminist Mandate for Radical Movements - Charlene A Carruthers
- No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies - E. Patrick Johnson
- Since I Laid My Burden Down - Brontez Purnell
- The Other Side of Paradise - Staceyann Chin
- No Ashes in the Fire - Darnell L. Moore
- The Summer We Got Free - Mia McKenzie
- Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin
- Rising Out of Hatred - Eli Saslow
- Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity - C. Riley Snorton
- How To Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy And The Racial Divide by Crystal M. Fleming
- More Listening Suggestions
- Cite Black Women Collective Podcast
- A bi-weekly podcast, discussing the acknowledgment of Black women’s ideas and intellectual contributions both inside and outside academia.
- The Nod
- Hosts Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings deplore different facets of Black life in the US and abroad. Check out their most recent episode about recent events, We’ve Been Here Before.
- The Stoop
- The Stoop shares stories from across the Black diaspora. Hosts Leila Day and Hana Baba start conversations about what it means to be black and how we talk about blackness.
- Code Switch (on NPR)
- Code-switching is the practice of shifting between languages or forms of depression in different contets. Hosted by journalists of color, Code Switch deplores race and how it impacts every part of society. The most recent episode, A Decade of Watching Black People Die, is particularly relevant right now.
- About Race
- How do we talk (and not talk) about race and everything it entails? The long title of this podcast, which aims to address this question, is Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race.
- Intersectionality Matters!
- Host Kimberlé Crenshaw (a leading scholar of critical race theory) deplores different topics through an intersectional lens. The most recent episodes are part of a series about COVID-19, titled Under the Blacklight.
- Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
- Learn from the people at the frontlines of the racial justice movement--organizational leaders and community activists--with hosts Chevon and Hiba.
- Pod For The Cause
- A podcast by The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights. Do you want to effect change and restore our democracy? Listen on!
- Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
- This weekly podcast, hosted by organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson with one-on-one interviews with special guests, focuses on news, culture, social justice, and politics that impact people of color.
- Seeing White
- What does it mean to be white? What is the meaning of whiteness? John Biewen grapples with these questions.
- Cite Black Women Collective Podcast
- Building Bridges
- What Makes a Good Interaction Between Divided Groups?: Intergroup contact can help bridge divides, under certain conditions.
- What Happens When You Tell Your Story and I Tell Mine?:Sometimes, empathy isn’t enough. New research reveals how taking and giving perspectives can help us to bridge our differences.
- Five Ways to Have Better Conversations Across Difference: It’s not easy, but we can find common ground in difficult conversations.
- Thoughts on Awkward Relationships and Bridging Divides: In a Science of Happinesspodcast, comedian W. Kamau Bell discusses the challenges of finding common ground, even with people in your own family.
- What Will It Take to Bridge Our Differences?:Here are some core insights from the GGSC’s virtual summit on dialogue and understanding across our differences.
- Resources for Parents
- Rubbing Off: Allison Briscoe-Smith explains how kids learn about race—and how their parents can help them make sense of difference.
- How to Talk with Your Kids about Donald Trump: Trump is creating fear and confusion in children, especially kids of color. Here are three suggestions for talking with kids about race and racism in the media.
- How to Read Racist Books to Your Kids: Should parents ignore or excise racist imagery in children’s books? Jeremy Adam Smith offers another way, guided by research.
- How Adults Communicate Bias to Children: A new study suggests preschoolers can catch prejudice from grown-ups through nonverbal behavior—and it hints at solutions.
- Five Ways to Reduce Racial Bias in Your Children: How do we combat racial prejudice? New research reveals how parents influence the formation of bias in children.
- How to Raise Kids Who Are More Tolerant Than You: How can we avoid feeding hate and distrust in our children?
- Helping Kids Process Violence, Trauma, and Race in a World of Nonstop News, from Common Sense: A conversation with Drs. Allison Briscoe-Smith, Jacqueline Dougé, and Nathan Chomilo.
- Resources for Educators
- How to Change the Story about Students of Color: Dena Simmons deplores how educators can inadvertently harm students of color—and what we can do to bring out their best.
- Why Teachers Are More Likely to Punish Black Students: A study shows that teachers of all races are more likely to punish black students. Fortunately, research also points to solutions.
- Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias: We’re all subject to bias. Here are tips to help teachers treat all of their students with dignity and care.
- Five Ways to Foster Interracial Friendship in Schools: New studies point the way toward a more connected and egalitarian society, starting with friendships between kids.
- How to Teach Online So All Students Feel Like They Belong: Educators can foster belonging and inclusion for all students, even online.
- Resources to Support Anti-Racist Learning: Books, articles, practices and more from the GGSC education team.
- How to Be an Anti-Racist Educator, from ASCD: Social and emotional learning practitioner-scholar Dena Simmons recommends five actions for teaching for an anti-racist future.