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

Articles

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

Podcasts

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