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If we want no more systemic inequality, institutionalized racism, environmental racism, disenfranchisement, dispossession and racial violence, then we need to know more about the histories, facts and fictions that inform those practices. 

 

We also need to know more about how people of color have shaped the nation, advanced democracy and led movements for positive social, political, cultural and economic change. 

 

Our resources page is by no means an exhaustive list of books, podcasts and other materials that attend to issues related to race and democracy. We hope, though, that the titles here contribute to our collective understanding of our compelling United States history and our contemporary moment. 

We are glad that you are here and that you want to know more. 

 

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Memoirs

Memoirs

Memoirs 

 “I Want to Touch The World”

A moving New York Times podcast that features accounts of George Perry Floyd, Jr. by people who knew him.

 Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir

Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years A Slave, and Four Years in the White House

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

Arnold Krupat (editor), Here First: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers

Kiese Laymon, Heavy: An American Memoir

Kori Miller, My Life in Black and White: A Biracial Woman’s Life on the Line

Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi

Bakari Sellers, My Vanishing Country: A Memoir

 

Racial Justice, Social Justice and Anti-Racism

Racial Justice, Social Justice and Anti-Racism

Racial Justice, Social Justice and Anti-Racism

Rebecca Atkins and Alicia Oglesby, Interrupting Racism: Equity and Social Justice in School Counseling

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Ruha Benjamin, Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

Fania Davis, The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing and US Social Transformation

Roderick Ferguson, We Demand: The University and Social Protests

Dominque DuBois Glliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores

Charlton McIlwain, Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, From the Afronet to Black Lives Matter

Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want To Talk About Race

Monique Morris, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Mica Pollock, Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School

Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-first Century

“Why They’re Protesting”

A New York Times podcast about protests that features commentary from Minneapolis residents

American History

American History

American History 

Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colourblindness

Frank Baumgartner, Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race

Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Gross, A Black Women’s History of the United States

Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Anna-Lisa Cox, The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality

Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States

Nilda Flores-González, Citizens but Not Americans: Race and Belonging Among Latino Millennials

Andrea Flynn, The Hidden Rules of Race: Barriers to an Inclusive Economy

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy and the Rise of Jim Crow

Dina Gilio-Whitaker, As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, From Colonization to Standing Rock

Dominque DuBois Glliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores

Troy Johnson, Joanne Nagel and Duane Champagne, American Indian Activism: Alcatraz to the Longest Walk

Stephanie Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Ibram Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History

Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States

Ersula Ore, Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric and American Identity

Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People

Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Se3gregated America

Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Ray Suarez, Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy that Shaped A Nation

Candace Taylor, Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLIvesMatter to Black Liberation

Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present

Ida B. Wells, The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader

Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

Chris Zepeda-Millán, Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization and Activism

Whiteness: History, Privilege, Fragility and Action

Whiteness: History, Privilege, Fragility and Action

Whiteness: History, Privilege, Fragility and Action

Jenna Arnold, Raising Our Hands: How White Women Can Stop Avoiding Hard Conversations, Start Accepting Responsibility, and Find Our Place on the New Frontlines

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism

Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

Scott Heggs, Hypocrisy in America: The Veil of White Supremacy

Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work For Racial Justice

Elizabeth McRae, Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy

Jonathan Metzl, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland

Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People

Trauma and Recovery

Trauma and Recovery

Trauma and Recovery

Joy Degruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Rhonda Magee and Jon Kabat-Zinn, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming our Communities Through Mindfulness

Claudia Rankine, “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning”

A powerful New York Times podcast and reflection by poet and writer Claudia Rankine on the far-reaching impact of racism 

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and the Body in the Healing of Trauma

Harriet A. Washington, A Terrible Thing To Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind