Race & Justice Resources

Book Recommendations

Faith Based:

• Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism - Drew G. I. Hart
• Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America - Michael Eric Dyson
• The Color of Compromise - Jemar Tisby
• Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation - Latasha Morrison
• The Third Option: Hope for A Racially Divided Nation - Miles McPherson
• Reading While Black - Esau McCauley
• Bread for the Resistance: 40 Devotions for Justice People - Donna Barber

ELCA Resources:

• Government and Civic Engagement in the United States:  Discipleship in a Democracy  June, 2020 

Biographies, Non-fiction, novels, and personal narratives:

• I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown
• The Warmth of Other Sons - Isabel Wilkerson
• The Fire Next time - James Baldwin
• Malcolm X - Alex Haley
• Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Killing Rage Ending Racism - Bell Hooks
• Becoming - Michelle Obama
• An American By Marriage - Tayari Jones
• A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota -
• The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother - James McBride
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Bryan Stevenson
• The Myth Of Race - Robert Sussman
• The Other Wes Moore - Wes Moore 
• The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother - James McBride
• Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
• Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race - Debby Irving
• Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
• My Beloved World – Sonia Sotomayor
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
• The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
• Hidden Figures The American Dream and the Untold Story of The Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win The Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly 
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
• The Short & Tragic Life of Robert Peace – Jeff Hobbs

Topic Specific Books to help understand Racism:

• Evicted - Matthew Desmond
• Nobody - Marc Lamont Hill
• Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W Loewen
• Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Berver Doniel Tatum, PhD
• The Color of Law - Richard Rothstein
• Blackballed - Darryl Pinkney
• Dear Church - Rev Lenny Duncan

If you are just starting to learn about Racial Justice:

• Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
• A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn (There is a "young people's" version for elementary and middle school readers)
• White Fragility - Robin Diangelo
• So you want to talk about race - Ijeoma Oluo
• I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown
• Me and White Supremacy - Layla F Saad
• Stamped - Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
• March: Books One, Two and Three –  John Lewis (Graphic novel series accessible for middle school through adult)  
• Citizen An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine

If you have done some learning about Racial Justice and are ready to dig a bit deeper:

• The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America - Anders Walker
• The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
• The Condemnation of Blackness - Khalil Gibran Muhammad
• Dying of Whiteness - Jonathan Metzl
• A Different Mirror - Ronald Takaki
• How to be an AntiRacist - Ibram X Kendi
• How the South Won the Civil War - Heather Cox Richardson

Immigration Themes: 

• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America - Jessica Goudreau
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide - Jia Lynn Yang 
• The God Who Sees: Immigrants, The Bible and the Journey to Belong - Karen Gonzalez
• The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move - Sonia Shah

Movies 

• Crash
• 13th
• Loving
• Malcolm X
• Selma
• American History X (very graphic film)
• Do the Right Thing
• Gran Torino
• Fruitvale Station
• Hidden Figures 
• When they see us
• Emanuel
• Dakota 38
• The Hate u Give
• Just Mercy
• LA 92
• American son
• The rape of Recy Taylor
• Divided states
• Baltimore rising
• Say her name: the life and death of Sandra Bland
• Mud blood
• Miss Virginia
• Kalief Browder story