Racial Justice and Social Equity Resources
There are so many resources available to help you educate yourself on racial justice and social equity issues. We’ve included some below to help you at any stage of your journey. Thanks to Evanston Public Library, Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein, Los Angeles County Library, and the DCHS White Allies for Racial Equity for their reading lists, which have helped us build ours. We know we have not captured everything, and if there is a resource you think we’ve missed, let us know.
The majority of these resources are available at Alexandria Library, often in multiple formats (such as books, audiobooks, e-books, or videos). The links provided below will take you to a listing of all of the formats available in the library. For those resources not available at the library, links are provided to the magazine, podcast, video, or publisher to help you find out more.
Racial Justice and Social Equity Resources
Read
Books, magazine articles, photo essays
Black American History, Memoirs, and Political Thought
- The 1619 Project (The New York Times Magazine)
- An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
- The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry
- The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States by Walter Johnson
- The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic)
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
- The Combahee River Collective Statement
- The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, with a new preface by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
- Don’t Understand the Protests? What You're Seeing is People Pushed to the Edge by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (The Los Angeles Times)
- Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
- Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
- Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Friends Disappear: The Battle for Racial Equity in Evanston by Mary Barr
- From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
- Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The Ghosts of Segregation by Richard Frishman (The New York Times)
- Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
- How Did We Get Here? 163 Years of The Atlantic’s Writing on Race and Racism in America
- How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance by Akiba Solomon
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- I Was Pregnant and in Crisis. All the Doctors and Nurses Saw Was an Incompetent Black Woman by Tressie McMillan Cottom (Time)
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
- Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay Mckesson
- Race Matters by Cornel West
- A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery
- Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow by Leon Litwack
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
- Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves: An Anthology by Glory Edim
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
- “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: and Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Tatum
- The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism (Audre Lorde)
- Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race (Rene Eddo-Lodge)
- The Fire This Time (Jesmyn Ward)
- Why Seeing Yourself Represented on Screen is So Important (Kimberley Lawson)
- The End of Policing (Alex Vitale)
Latino American History, Memoirs, and Political Thought
- An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
- Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City by A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
- Blowout!: Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice by Mario T. García and Sal Castro
- Children of the Land: A Memoir by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
- Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario
- Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by Paola Novaes Ramos
- Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura Gómez
- Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy that Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez
- My Time among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet
- My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race by Ilia Calderón
- The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective by Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer
- Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by Maria Hinojosa
- A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son: Stories by Sergio Troncoso
- Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era by Jorge Ramos
- The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato
Historias, memoria, y pensamientos político latinoamericanos – En Español
- El Precio del Racismo: La Hostilidad Racial y la Fractura del “Sueño Americano” escrito por Eduardo Porter
- Querida América: Notas de un Ciudadano Indocumentado escrito por Jose Antonio Vargas
- Stranger: El Desafío de un Inmigrante Latino en la Era de Trump escrito por Jorge Ramos
- La Travesía de Enrique: La Historia Real de un Niño Decidido a Reunirse con Su Madre escrito por Sonia Nazario
- Una Vez Fui Tú: Mi Vida Entre el Amor y el Odio en los Estados Unidos escrito por Maria Hinojosa
Native American History, Memoirs, and Political Thought
- “All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths about Native Americans by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker
- As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- Crime and Social Justice in Indian Country edited by Marianne O. Nielsen and Karen Jarratt- Snider
- Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr.
- Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
- An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Native Knowledge 360 Framework for Essential Understandings about American Indians by the National Museum of the American Indian Education Office
- The Night Watchman: A Novel by Louise Erdrich
- The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
- Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought by Sandy Grande
- Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Native Activism by Bradley Glenn Shreve
- Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America since 1887 by Daniel Cobb
- Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon through North America’s Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez
- Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon
- There There by Tommy Orange
- This Indian Country: American Indian Activists and the Place They Made by Frederick Hoxie
- The Tribal Moment in American Politics: The Struggle for Native American Sovereignty by Christine K. Gray
- Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction developed by the National Congress of American Indians
Asian American History, Memoirs, and Political Thought
- Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
- Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares by Aarti Namdev Shahani
- The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
- Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
- My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant by Jose Antonio Vargas (The New York Times)
- Not My White Savior: A Memoir in Poems by Julayne Lee
- Southland by Nina Revoyr
- We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape our Multiracial Future by Deepa Iyer
- Your House Will Pay: A Novel by Steph Cha
White Supremacy and Antiracism
- 7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism Is Real by Ben & Jerry’s
- America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee
- American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed our Promise by Eduardo Porter
- An Antiracist Reading List by Ibram X. Kendi (The New York Times)
- Being An Ally by Southerners on New Ground
- Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand against White Nationalism by Terry McAuliffe
- Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer Eberhardt
- Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney-López
- Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan Metzl
- Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy E. Roberts
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- How White People Got Made by Quinn Norton (The Message)
- Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong by James Loewen
- Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
- Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation by Derald Wing Sue
- The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
- One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying our Democracy by Carol Anderson
- The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
- The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, & Engage in Collective Healing by Anneliese A. Singh
- Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, Fifth Edition, by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
- Raising Our Hands by Jenna Arnold
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by X. Kendi
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
- Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, and Identity by Winona Guo
- Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation by John Lewis (The New York Times)
- Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel
- We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America by Jennifer M. Silva
- What Is a Microaggression? 14 Offensive Phrases to Avoid Saying by Marguerite Ward and Rachel Premack (Business Insider)
- When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth- Century America by Ira Katznelson
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson
- White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son: The Remix by Tim J. Wise
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
- White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
- White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun
- Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (The Huffington Post)
- When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels (Rachel Elizabeth Cargle)
Watch
Movies, documentaries, short videos
- 5 Tips For Being An Ally (chescaleigh)
- 13th (Ava DuVernay)
- The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross: An Unprecedented Journey through African American History (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
- Africa’s Great Civilizations (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
- America After Ferguson
- American Son (Kenny Leon)
- And She Could Be Next (Ava DuVernay)
- Black America since MLK: And Still I Rise (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
- Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers
- Black Lives Matter: “How Can We Win?” Monopoly Analogy Explained (featuring Kimberly Jones)
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Stanley Nelson)
- Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 (Goran Hugo Olsson)
- Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada)
- Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu)
- Dear White People (Justin Simien)
- The Disturbing History of the Suburbs (Adam Ruins Everything)
- Dr. Robin DiAngelo Discusses “White Fragility”
- Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America (Gretchen Sorin)
- Explained: Racial Wealth Gap (Netflix)
- Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler)
- George Floyd and the Dominos of Racial Injustice (Trevor Noah)
- The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr.)
- How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them (Verna Myers)
- How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion (Peggy McIntosh)
- I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin documentary by Raoul Peck)
- If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
- The “Indian Problem” (Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian)
- “Intergroup Anxiety”: Can You Try Too Hard to Be Fair? (The Christian Science Monitor)
- Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton)
- King in the Wilderness (Peter Kunhardt)
- Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy that Shaped a Nation (David Belton)
- Let’s Get to the Root of Racial Injustice (Megan Ming Francis)
- Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible (World Trust)
- Native America (Scott Tiffany and Gary Glassman)
- Next Time Someone Says Racism Isn’t Real, Show Them This 3-Minute Video (Vox)
- P.S. I Can’t Breathe: Black Lives Matter (Rochelle ‘Leanne’ White)
- Reconstruction: America after the Civil War (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)
- See You Yesterday (Stefon Bristol)
- Segregated By Design (Silkworm)
- Selma (Ava DuVernay)
- Slavery to Mass Incarceration (the Equal Justice Initiative)
- The Talk: Race in America (Sam Pollard)
- Terror Lynching in America (the Equal Justice Initiative)
- There is No Neutral (Michelle Johnson)
- When They See Us (Ava DuVernay)
- Bloomberg and The Legacy of Stop-and-Frisk (The Daily Show)
- White Privilege (Kyla Lacey)
1965 Special Report: “The New Negro” (Hezakya News)
Listen
Podcast series, individual episodes, and interviews
- 1619 (The New York Times)
- About Race (Panoply)
- Code Switch (NPR)
- Come Through with Rebecca Carroll (WNYC)
- George Floyd’s Death at the Hands of Police Is a Terrible Echo of the Past: Code Switch (NPR)
- A Historic Crossroads for Systemic Racism and Policing in America featuring Khalil Muhammad and Erica Chenoweth (Harvard Kennedy School)
- Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Latino USA
- “Lean into Discomfort” When Talking about Race: Here & Now (WBUR)
- Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
- Nice White Parents (The New York Times)
- Pod For The Cause The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)
- Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
- Seeing White (Scene On Radio)
- Uncivil (Gimlet Media)
- Untying Knots (SoundCloud)
- Civility as a Tool for Keeping People of Color in Their Place: Code Switch (NPR)
- You Cannot Divorce Race From Immigration, Jose Antonio Vargas Says (NPR)
- Whistling Vivaldi (NPR)
- Side Effects of White Women (Small Doses – Amanda Seales)
- Well Meaning White People (Smartest Person in the Room)
- A Decade of Watching Black People Die (Code Switch)
- How to Be an Antiracist with Ibram X. Kendi (Unlocking Us Podcast)
- Kaepernick (Still Processing)
White Lies (NPR)
Learn Online
Organizations to consider following on social media
- Antiracism Center: Twitter
- Audre Lorde Project: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Black Women’s Blueprint: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Color Of Change: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Colorlines: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- The Conscious Kid: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Equal Justice Initiative (EJI): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Families Belong Together: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Justice League NYC: Twitter | Instagram + Gathering For Justice: Twitter | Instagram
- The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- The Movement For Black Lives (M4BL): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- MPowerChange: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Muslim Girl: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- NAACP: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- National Domestic Workers Alliance: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- RAICES: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- SisterSong: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- United We Dream: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
More Resources
More anti-racism resources to check out
- 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice (Corinne Shutack)
- Anti-Racism Project
- Books and People to Follow (Jenna Arnold)
- Project Implicit (Harvard’s implicit bias test)
- Racial Justice Resources (Rachel Ricketts)
- Resources for White People to Learn and Talk About Race and Racism (Fractured Atlas)
- Save the Tears: White Woman’s Guide (Tatiana Mac)
- Showing Up For Racial Justice’s educational toolkits
- The [White] Shift on Instagram
- Zinn Education Project’s teaching materials
- Talking About Race – Whiteness (National Museum of African American History & Culture)
- Implicit Associations Test (Harvard University)
- Building a Multi-Ethnic, Inclusive & Antiracist Organization (Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence)
- Racial Equity Tools