Racial Equity Resources

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We are committed to dismantling racism in all forms by promoting awareness of racial and gender inequity, by educating individuals and communities throughout Central Massachusetts.

Now it’s your turn. It’s time to stand up and join us in our mission to dismantle systemic racism and amplify the voices of those who have been silenced.

The first step in allyship is education.

You don’t need to be an expert to start contributing to an antiracist society.

Below is a list of books, movies, podcasts, and more, curated by our Racial and Gender Equity team, to help guide you in your journey and help you build a solid historical foundation of racial injustices plaguing our communities and country.

 

  • A People’s History of the United States 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen 2007
  • History Class and the Fictions About Race in America by Alia Wong
  • An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
  • American Indians: Stereotypes & Realities by Devon A. Mihesuah
  • War Cry on A Prayer Feather: Prose & Poetry of the Ute Indians by Nancy Wood
  • How To Be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahim X. Kendi
  • Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
  • 1619: Jamestown and the Foraging of American Democracy by James Horn
  • White Rage: The Unspoken Truths of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
  • Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America by Joe William Trotter Jr
  • Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Tatum
  • Other Conversations About Race-the revised & updated 20th Anniversary addition by Beverly Tatum
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Oluo
  • Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
  • Me And White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
  • How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon
  • I’m Still Here Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
  • Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America  by Kathleen Belew
  • Looking at U.S. White Working Class Historically by David Gilbert  1991
  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  • The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America by Andres Walker
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  • Americanah by Adichie
  • When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
  • Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis
  •  Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  •  Evicted by Matthew Desmond
  • Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont  Hill
  •  Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney
  • The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
  • Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
  • Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
  • Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
  • Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
  • How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Skloot
  • Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
  • All books written by James Baldwin
  • History Class and the Fictions About Race in America by Alia Wong
  • Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States by Felipe Hernandez Armesto
  • The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures by Marshall C. Eakin
  • Open Viens of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
  • Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Revised Edition by Juan Gonzalez
  • War Against All Puerto Rican: Revolution & Terror in America’s Colony by Nelson Antonio Denis
  • Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire by Sam Erman

  • The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
  • Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
  • Mixed A Colorful Story by Arree Chung
  • A is for activists by Innosanto Nagara
  • Anti racist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi
  • This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons On How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewell
  • The Power Book: What is it, Who has it, and Why? By Claire Saunders, Hazel Songhurst, George Amson-Bradshaw, Minna Salami, and Milk Scarlet
  • We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices edited by Wade Hudson, Cheryl Willis Hudson
  • You Matter by Christian Robinson
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  • Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
  • Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barrier, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
  • Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome
  • Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton
  • Someday is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-ins by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
  • Buddy Mason Speaks Up by Arisa White, and Laura Atkins
  • Malcolm X: A Fire Burning Brightly by Walter Dean Myers
  • Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
  • One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
  • Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman
  • Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge
  • Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery
  • Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961 by Larry Dane Brimner
  • A Kid’s Guide to Latino History by Valerie Petrillo

    • Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions by Robin DiAngelo | READ

    What Anti-Racist Teachers Do Differently Pirette McKamey, The Atlantic | READ

    How Did We Get Here? 163 years of The Atlantic’s writing on race and racism in America by Gillian B. White | READ

    The US is Still Not Ready to Look at the Ugly Racism Against Native Americans by Julian Brave Noisecat  by The Guardian | READ

    Invisibility is the Modern Form of Racism Against Native Americans: I’ve Never Seen Native People in Media at All by Rebecca Nagle | READ

    Native Americans and the Federal Government by Andrew Boxer in History Review | READ

    1619 Project New York Times Magazine | READ

    The New York Times Magazine Reading Guide for The 1619 Project Essays by the Pulitzer Center | READ

  • The United States of Anxiety
  • Code Switch
  • Other: Mixed Race in America
  • The Nod
  • Pod Save the People
  • Parenting Forward podcast episode ‘Five Pandemic Parenting Lessons with Cindy Wang Brandt
  • Fare of the Free Child podcast
  • Integrated Schools podcast episode ‘Raising White Kids with Jennifer Harvey’
  • About Race
  • Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
  • Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
  • Pod For The Cause (from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)

    • Do the Right Thing (1989) | On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone’s hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

     

    Malcolm X (1992) | Biographical epic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam.

     

    Crooklyn (1994) | Spike Lee’s vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school teacher, her stubborn jazz musician husband and their five kids living in Brooklyn in 1973.

     

    4 Little Girls (1997) | A documentary of the notorious racial terrorist bombing of an African American church during the Civil Rights Movement.

     

    When the Levees Broke (2006) | An examination of the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

     

    BlacKkKlansman (2018) | African American police officer from Colorado Springs, CO, successfully manages to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan branch with the help of a Jewish surrogate who eventually becomes its leader. Based on actual events.

     

    Gook (2017) | 2 Korean American brothers run a shoe store in LA county. Their friend, black 11 y.o. Kamilla, drops in and helps. This day, the Rodney King verdict ignites the 1992 LA riots.

     

    La Operacion (1982) | Documentary on the mass sterilization of Puerto Rican women during the 1950’s & 1960’s by the USA.

     

    Colonization is Extinction (2019) | Colonization is Extinction a documentary about Puerto Rico and the economic crisis.

     

    The Last Colony (2015) | A close look at Puerto Rico’s unique relationship with the United States.

     

    Millie and the Lords (2015) | Millie and the Lords tells the story of Milagros Baez, a young, working class under-confident Puerto Rican woman whose life is changed for the better when she begins to learn about the Young Lords Party and her rich Puerto Rican history.

     

    Detroit (2017) | Fact-based drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots in which a group of rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather than justice on their minds

     

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) | An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.

     

    Fruitvale Station (2013) | The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008

     

    Free Meek (2019) | A true-crime docuseries about American rapper Meek Mill’s ongoing battle with the U.S. justice system following a disputed conviction in 2007.

     

    The Last Defense (2018) (visit justiceforjuliusjones.com to watch) | Emotional, in-depth examinations of death row cases expose flaws in the US justice system. Season 1 investigates a housewife convicted for stabbing her sons, and an athlete convicted for shooting a father, as attorneys race for new trials.

     

    Clemency (2019) | Years of carrying out death row executions are taking a toll on Warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares for another one, Williams must confront the psychological and emotional demons that her job creates.

     

    Queen and Slim (2019) | A couple’s first date takes an unexpected turn when a police officer pulls them over.

     

     Black Panthers  (2015) | This documentary tells the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, one of the 20th century’s most alluring and controversial organizations that captivated the world’s attention for nearly 50 years.

     

     The Black Power Mixtape  (2011) |  Footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States is edited together by a contemporary Swedish filmmaker.

     

    The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) | Victoria Cruz investigates the mysterious 1992 death of black gay rights activist and Stonewall veteran, Marsha P. Johnson. Using archival interviews with Johnson, and new interviews with Johnson’s family, friends and fellow activists.

     

    Netflix:

    13th (2016) |  Ava DuVernray Explores the racial inequality in the USA prisons filled disproportionally with Black Americans

    When They See Us (2019)  | Ava DuVernray Looks at the racially charged case of the Central Park Five.

    Time: The Kalief Browder Story (2017) | The USA criminal justice system tragically failed 16 year old Kalief Browder

    Dear White People (2015) |  Justin Simien, Campus culture war between blacks & whites at a predominantly white school.

    LA 92 (2017) | The tumultuous time after the acquittal of 4 white police officers brutally beating a black motorist.

      Why Rioting Makes Sense | WATCH

    Coming to Term with Racism’s Inertia  | WATCH

    Telling stories: Allegories of race and racism is foundational | WATCH

    Cliff of Good Health analogy | WATCH

    A Conversation with Native Americans on Race/ Op-Docs  | WATCH

    American Indian Activist Russell Means Testifies at Senate Hearings  | WATCH

    Time To Correct The History Books: Elder Russell Means “Columbus Must Die” Speech | WATCH

    Racial & Gender Equity