If I were white, the first thing I would do is be really quiet. And read a lot. I would read a ton. And I wouldn’t tell anybody I was reading. I wouldn’t go up to my black friends and say “Hey, I read this book Between the World and Me, have you seen this?” I wouldn’t do that. I would just read a ton and I would study and I probably wouldn’t say anything. I probably would spend a lot of time searching.
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Cleveland OH 11/2/2015
Books, Non-fiction
- Alexander, Michelle – The New Jim Crow
- Baldwin, James – The Fire Next Time
- Battalora, Jacqueline – Birth of a White Nation: The Invention of White People and Its Relevance Today
- Coates, Ta-Nehisi – Between the World and Me, The Beautiful Struggle
- Crass, Chris – Towards the “Other America” (free PDF!)
- Iyer, Deepa – We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh Immigrants Shape our Multiracial Future
- Kincaid, Jamaica – A Small Place
- Kivel, Paul – Uprooting Racism
- Muhammad, Khalil Gibran – The Condemnation of Blackness
- Stevenson, Bryan – Just Mercy
- Wallis, Jim – America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America
- Wilkerson, Isabel – The Warmth of Other Suns
- Wise, Tim J. – Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White
- White like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
- Dear White America
Books, Fiction:
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi – Americanah
- Baldwin, James – Another Country
- Butler, Octavia – Kindred
- Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
- Kingsolver, Barbara – The Poisonwood Bible
- Morrison, Toni – Beloved
- The Bluest Eye
- Jazz
- Picoult, Jodi – Small Great Things
- Walker, Margaret – The Color Purple
- Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes were Watching God, Mules and Men
Books, Poetry:
- Rankine, Claudia – Citizen: An American Lyric
Articles/Essays:
- American Anthropological Association – Statement on Race
- Baldwin, James – A Letter to My Nephew
- Braden, Anne – A Letter to White Southern Women
- Catalyst Project – Tools for White Anti-Racist Organizing
- Coates, Ta-Nehisi – The Case for Reparations
- DiAngelo, Robin – White Fragility
- Hutchinson, Lori Lakin – What I Told My White Friend When He Asked For My Black Opinion on White Privilege
- Indigenous Action – Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex
- Okun, Tema – White Supremacy Culture
- McIntosh, Peggy – White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
- Moore, Nathaniel – The School Desegration Crisis of Cleveland, Ohio 1963-64
- Tikkun Daily – 26 Ways to Be In the Struggle: Beyond the Streets
Podcasts:
- Shows
- The Forum With Mansfield Frazier (RSS)
- PostBourgie (RSS)
- Code Switch (RSS)
- Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race (RSS)
*This podcast has been cancelled but archival episodes, notes, & resources are still available.
- Individual Episodes
- This American Life: The Problem We All Live With (Part One)
- This American Life: The Problem We All Live With (Part Two)
- Politically Re-Active: Stop Reaching for Whiteness
Blogs & Columns
- Mansfield Frazier: Cool Cleveland Column
Movies:
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
- Black Power Mixtape
- Do the Right Thing
- Race: The Power of an Illusion (PBS Series)
- Eyes on the Prize
- 13th: From Slave to Criminal in One Amendment
- 12 Years a Slave
SURJ Materials:
- Reading Racism 101
- Presentation White Supremacy Culture
- Organizing Resources from SURJ’s national office