A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources

Book, movie recommendations, and more

Protests raged across the world last year over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. But tensions over the deaths of other black Americans like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor were mounting just before Floyd’s death.

Additionally, the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately killing black Americans, which researchers attribute to “social conditions, structural racism, and other factors.”

All these stories require not only our attention but a deeper understanding of systemic racism and implicit bias. We have pulled some resources that we believe will be helpful during these frightening and frustrating times. Understanding begins with all of us looking inward, reflecting on our own attitudes, and of course, having difficult conversations with family and friends. Keep scrolling for kid-friendly resources.

WHAT TO READ

Books:

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature by Jacqueline Goldsby
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Biased by Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt
• Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
• Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children In A Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
• Waking Up White by Debby Irving
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady
• Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens The Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell
• They Were Her Property by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by 
  Austin Channing Brown
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
• Uprooting Racism by Paul Kivel
• Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business by Pamela Newkirk
• The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice by Fania Davis
• Black Food Geographies by Ashanté M. Reese
• Race for Profit by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality by Thomas M. Shapiro
• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by
  Mehrsa Baradaran
• Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
• The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward (Martin Luther King Jr. called this “the historical bible of the Civil Rights movement.)
• Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
• Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
• Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
• The Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip
• When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

Articles:

• “The Death of George Floyd, In Context,” by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker
• “Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for the New York Times
• “This Is How Loved Ones Want Us To Remember George Floyd,” by Alisha Ebrahimji for CNN.
• The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning The 1619 Project is as important as ever. Take some time to read (or re-read) the entire thing, particularly this essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones
• “You shouldn’t need a Harvard degree to survive birdwatching while black,” by Samuel Getachew, a 17-year-old and the 2019 Oakland youth poet laureate, for the Washington Post
• “It’s exhausting. How many hashtags will it take for all of America to see Black people as more than their skin color?” by Rita Omokha for Elle
• “The Case for Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic
• “How to Make This Moment the Turning Point for Real Change,” by Barack Obama in Medium
• “Black Male Writers For Our Time,” by Ayana Mathis in New York Times
• “I Was The Mayor Of Minneapolis And I Know Our Cops Have A Problem,” by R.T. Rybak
• “Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge,” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles Times
• “I’m Black. My Mom is White. This Is The Talk We Had To Have About George Floyd’s Killing,” by Kimberly J. Miller for the Huffington Post
• A project from Harvard University about implicit bias
• “The Law Isn’t Neutral,” by Boston University School of Law dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig in Slate
• Mitch Landrieu’s Speech on the Removal of Confederate Monuments in New Orleans

WHAT TO WATCH

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Just Mercy, a film based on civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s work on death row in Alabama
• The 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley
• My hour on the history of Confederate statues in Nat Geo’s America Inside Out
• Becoming, a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Let It Fall, a documentary looking at racial tensions in Los Angeles and the 1992 riots over LAPD officers’ brutal assault on Rodney King
• When They See Us, a Netflix miniseries from Ava DuVernay about the Central Park Five
• 13th, a Netflix documentary exposing racial inequality within the criminal justice system
• I Am Not Your Negro, a documentary envisioning the book James Baldwin was never able to finish
• Selma, a film that chronicles the marches of the Civil Rights Movement
• Whose Streets?, a documentary about the uprising in Ferguson
• Fruitvale Station, a film with Michael B. Jordan about the killing of Oscar Grant
• American Son, a film with Kerry Washington about an estranged interracial couple waiting for their missing son
• The Central Park Five, a documentary from Ken Burns
• A Class Divided, a Frontline documentary

WHAT TO FOLLOW

• Rachel Cargle, a writer and lecturer who explores the intersection between race and womanhood
• Ibram X. Kendi, the author of How To Be An Antiracist and Director of the Antiracism Center
• Nikkolas Smith, the artist behind portraits of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others
• Charlene Carruthers, founder of the Black Youth Project 100
• Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence, and a host of Pod Save The People
• Ally Henny, a Christian commentator on race
• Candace Andrews, a photographer documenting protests

WHAT TO LISTEN TO

• My podcast episode with Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, and Bryan Stevenson about Just Mercy
• Still Processing, a New York Times culture podcast with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morrison
• Seeing White, a Scene on the Radio podcast
• Code Switch, an NPR podcast tackling race from all angles
• Jemele Hill is Unbothered, a podcast with award-winning journalist Jemele Hill
• Hear To Slay, “the black feminist podcast of your dreams,” with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom
• Pod Save The People, organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with analysis from fellow activists Brittany Packnett, Sam Sinyangwe, and writer Dr. Clint Smith III
• The Appeal, a podcast on criminal justice reform hosted by Adam Johnson
• Justice In America, a podcast by Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith on criminal justice reform
• Brené Brown with Ibram X. Kendi, a podcast episode on antiracism
• Come Through, a WNYC podcast with Rebecca Carroll
• The Kinswomen, conversations on race, racism, and allyship between women, hosted by Hannah Pechter and Yseult Polfliet

RESOURCES FOR KIDS AND TEENS

Watch

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Becoming, a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Dear White People, a Netflix series about being black at a predominantly white college
• Hidden Figures, a film about the brilliant African American women of NASA
• Remember the Titans, story of a newly-integrated football team
• These 26 New York Times mini-films for students

Read

• “Talking About Race.” Helpful resources from the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
• Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams
• Dear Martin by Nic Stone
• Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper
• Anything by Angie Thomas.
• The Colors Of Us by Karen Katz
• Skin Again by bell hooks
• Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers
• This Promise of Change by Jo Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy
• IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All by Chelsea Johnson, 
  LaToya Council, Carolyn Choi

Books purchased through our links might earn us a commission.

This list will be regularly updated. If you have recommendations you’d like to share, please send them to info@katiecouric.com.