RESOURCES
As we continue to address systemic racism, white supremacy, and inequality in our neighborhood and nation, we can take steps to learn and listen. This is a list–it is no where near exhaustive–of fiction & non-fiction books, articles, film/TV, and podcasts. Some of these resources are faith-based, many are not.
We encourage you to shop at locally owned bookstores such as: Babycakes Bookstack; Birchbark Books & Native Arts; Boneshaker Books; Moon Palace Books; Next Chapter Booksellers; Red Balloon Bookshop; Storied Owl Books; Subtext Books; Wild Rumpus; or your favorite neighborhood bookstore!
Non-Fiction
- The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
- I am Not Your Negro, James Baldwin
- How Does It Feel to Be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America, Moustafa Bayoumi.
- I’m Still Here, Austin Channing Brown
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- We Were Eight Years in Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- White Fragility, Robin Diangelo
- Dear Church: A Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US, Lenny Duncan
- The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman.
- Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, Karen E. and Barbara J. Fields
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley and Malcolm X
- Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race, Debby Iriving
- How To Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
- Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi
- Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James W. Loewen
- Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
- So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo
- Let Justice Roll Down, John Perkins
- The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein
- Me and White Supremacy, Layla F. Saad
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson
- Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD
- How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer.
- Race Matters, Cornel West
- A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
Fiction
- The Sellout, Paul Beatty
- The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
- Kindred, Octavia Butler
- The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Dare
- Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
- Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
- Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue
- Beloved, Toni Morrison
- The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
Children’s books
- Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice, Marianne Celano, Harietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard; Illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
- Anti-Racist Baby, Ibram X. Kendi and Ashley Lukashevsky
- The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist, Cynthia Levinson and Vanessa Brantley-Newton
- All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman
- The Other Side, Jacqueline Woodson and E. B. Lewis
More recommendations at
Social Justice Books https://socialjusticebooks.org/
Lee and Low Books https://www.leeandlow.com/
Young Adult Books
- This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work, Tiffany Jewell and Aurélia Durand
- Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
- Black Brother, Black Brother, Jewell Parker Rhodes
- The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
On Minnesota
- A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, Edited by Sun Yung Shin
- The Hiawatha, David Treuer
- Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul, Mary Lethert Wingerd.
- The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, Kao Kalia Yang
- Somalis in Minnesota, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf
- “When Minneapolis Segregated,” Greg Miller, CityLab, Jan 8, 2020, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/01/minneapolis-history-housing-discrimination-mapping-prejudice/604105/.
- Mapping Prejudice, on racial housing covenants and segregation in the Twin Cities, https://www.mappingprejudice.org/what-are-covenants/index.html#what
- Redlining in the Twin Cities in 1934: 1960s and Today, Institute of Metropolitan Opportunity, University of Minnesota Law School, https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=8b6ba2620ac5407ea7ecfb4359132ee4
- Rondo Neighborhood & I-94: Overview, Minnesota Historical Society, Gale Family Library, http://libguides.mnhs.org/rondo?fbclid=IwAR1g74sM5A0e3PV_XmEKz6OCef32X4BLYMVODdJIMS6Vy_uYXkm4BIyUZwY
- Matt Reicher, “The Birth of a Metro Highway (Interstate-94),” Streets.mn, 10 Sept 2013, https://streets.mn/2013/09/10/the-birth-of-a-metro-highway-interstate-94/?fbclid=IwAR3jAD8T7dX5xQy5a-YgN1W6ZpyIXBtzuxnDmAMhV4lImpJQPz7gSJFrCD4#lightbox/1/
Articles
- Michelle Alexander, “America, This Is Your Chance,” The New York Times, 8 June 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/opinion/george-floyd-protests-race.html
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” The Atlantic, October 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/
- Angela Denker, “Paternalistic Racism of Nice White People,” A Good Christian Woman, 3 June 2020, https://agoodchristianwoman.blogspot.com/2020/06/paternalistic-racism-of-nice-white.html?spref=fb&m=1&fbclid=IwAR0nUUw_jrRI2M5wIN06zP8IdHeZdRKkWPYooEcQgB8gL63JRze1-r3UnFk
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “How Do We Change America?” The New Yorker, 8 June 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-do-we-change-america?fbclid=IwAR1utSWA7PZEJ0ho6T_nryImzOmtN46__-yZ9–cZ86KfEoCrEyZ0W1kNJM
- Robert Allen Warrior, “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today,” Christianity and Crisis, 1989, https://www.rmselca.org/sites/rmselca.org/files/media/canaanites_cowboys_and_indians.pdf
Film TV, and Video
- Bryan Stevenson, “We Need To Talk About An Injustice,” TED Talks, March 2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice?language=en
- 13th (Netflix)
- Blindspotting (Hulu)
- Dear White People (Netflix)
- Happy Birthday Marsha (Amazon Prime)
- If Beale Street Could Talk (Hulu)
- Just Mercy (YouTube, Amazon Prime)
- Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas (YouTube)
- Selma (Amazon Prime)
- Sorry To Bother You (Hulu)
- Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement (BET)
- The Hate U Give (Hulu)
- When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Hulu)
- When They See Us (Netflix)
For Parents and Educators
- The Anti-Defamation League Books Matter page of children’s literature https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resources-for-educators-parents-families/childrens-literature?page=1
- Embrace Race. Teaching antiracism to children. https://www.embracerace.org/
- Teaching For Change: Building Social Justice Starting in the Classroom. https://www.teachingforchange.org/
- Raising Race-Conscious Children. http://www.raceconscious.org/
- Teaching Tolerance. https://www.tolerance.org/
- Mental Health Issues Facing the Black Community. https://www.sunshinebehavioralhealth.com/mental-health-issues-facing-the-black-community/
Podcasts