The following are a selection of resources that members of the Dismantling Racism Team recommend as a starting point for those interested in understanding and responding to racism, white supremacy, and racial inequities today. We hope they will open the door to or further support you in your journey towards active anti-racism and transformative change.
Open Wide Our Hearts: An Enduring Call to Love (2018)
Reconciled through Christ: On Reconciliation and Greater Collaboration between Hispanic American Catholics and African American Catholics (2013)
We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight: The Church’s Response to Racism in the Years Following Brothers and Sisters to Us (October 2004)
Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself: U.S. Catholic Bishops Speak Against Racism (2001)
Brothers and Sisters to Us: Pastoral Letter on Racism (1979)
On Racial Harmony A Statement by the Administrative Board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (August 23, 1963)
Selected Quotes from Discrimination and Christian Conscience, a statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops (November 14, 1958)
Organizations Doing Anti-Racism Work Nationally
National Urban League: The National Urban League works to provide economic empowerment, educational opportunities, and the guarantee of civil rights for the underserved in America.
Southern Poverty Law Center: Fight Hate, Teach Tolerance, Seek Justice, Civil Rights Memorial
Equal Justice Initiative: The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting fundamental human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
Black Lives Matter: The Black Lives Matter Global Network is a chapter-based, member-led organization; wanting to build local power, demanding the intervention in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
NAACP: The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.
Organizations Doing Anti-Racism Work Locally (many national organizations have local chapters as well)
Greater Cincinnati Foundation Greater Cincinnati Foundation believes the greatest change happens when people come together—in partnership, collaboration, and generosity. Their role is to align the right players and coordinate their efforts and contributions to make the biggest impact.
- Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) is committed to conversations about racial equity that build connections and move us forward with enhanced insights and shared purpose.
- https://www.gcfdn.org/Investing-in-Our-Community/All-In-Cincinnati
IJPC (Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center)
- https://ijpccincinnati.org/
- https://ijpccincinnati.org/race-and-racism-cincinnati/
- IJPC works to end the death penalty in Ohio, provides education about human trafficking, advocates for immigrants’ rights, and works toward peace and nonviolence. Explore Race and Racism in Cincinnati through history, law, and resilient communities of color in a new toolkit.
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
- https://www.freedomcenter.org/
- The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a museum of conscience, an education center, a convener of dialogue, and a beacon of light for inclusive freedom around the globe.
- https://www.ywcacincinnati.org/what-we-do/racial-justice/
- Advocacy, Economic Empowerment and Advancement, Racial Justice and Inclusion, Recognition and Leadership, Safety, Youth Services
AMOS Project/Amos Organizing Collaborative
- https://theamosproject.org/
- The AMOS Project/Amos Organizing Collaborative is a network of congregations organizing and mobilizing with the most vulnerable in our city.
(Film Links are for Trailers)
13th (2016) – available on Netflix
I Am Not Your Negro (2016) – available for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Selma (2014) – available for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Reconstruction: America after the Civil War (2019) with Henry Louis Gates – series available on PBS
More than a Word (2017) – available on the film’s website
The Lincoln School Story: A Battle for School Integration in Ohio (2017) – available on the film’s website
And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK (2016), with Henry Louis Gates – series available on PBS
White Like Me with Tim Wise (2013) – available on Kanopy for free through the public library
Slavery by Another Name (2012) – available on PBS and Apple T.V.
Mirrors of Privilege (2010) – available on the film’s website
Race: The Power of an Illusion (2002) – 3-part documentary from PBS available for purchase on their website
The Color of Fear (1994) – available to purchase on Amazon Prime
Harriet (2019) – available for purchase on YouTube and Prime
Just Mercy (2019) – available for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Marshall (2017) – available for purchase on YouTube and Prime
Hidden Figures (2016) – available on Hulu and for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Loving (2016) – available on Hulu and for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Twelve Years a Slave (2013) – available for purchase on YouTube, Prime, and I-Tunes
Read by parishioners in Book Club
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (adapted for young adults)
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (2010)
- The New Jim Crow Study Guide and Call to Action by Daniel Hunter
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
- The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone (2011)
- Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson (2015)
- The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Moral Justice Movement by Rev. William Barber II (2016)
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson (2017)
- America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis (2016)
- Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by W. Kamau Bell (2017)
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie (2017)
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Olua (2018)
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (2017)
Nonfiction
- Racial Justice and the Catholic Church by Bryan N. Massingale (2010)
- The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone (2011)
- The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Moral Justice Movement by Rev. William Barber II (2016)
- America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis (2016)
- The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself
- by Oldaudah Equiano, edited by Robert J. Allison (1789)
- Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth with Olive Gilbert (1850)
- The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson (1933)
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X with Alex Haley (1965)
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969)
- To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: An Informal Autobiography by Lorraine Hansberry, adapted by Robert Nemiroff (1969)
- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. By Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborne Carson (1986)
- Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (1994)
- Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004)
- The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride (2004)
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama (2006)
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
- Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson (2015)
- Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (2016)
- Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by W. Kamau Bell (2017)
- Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)
- Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas (2018)
- American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Ferrera (2018)
- Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (2018)
- Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington (2006)
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (2010)
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (2017)
- The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne (2018)
- Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2019)
- The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by Eric Foner (2019)
- Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, translated by Charles Lam Markmann (1952)
- Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961)
- Race Matters by Cornel West (1993)
- Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell (1993)
- Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s by Michale Omi & Howard Winant (1994)
- Killing the Black Body by Dorothy E. Roberts (1997)
- Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (First Edition) by Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic (2001)
- Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2003)
- Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White by Frank H. Wu (2003)
- Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa Harris-Perry (2011)
- Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Creates Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorthy E. Roberts (2011)
- Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Barbara and Karen Fields (2012)
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (2016)
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)
- White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise (2004)
- White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson (2016)
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (2018)
- Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzel (2019)
- Hope Sings, So Beautiful: Graced Encounters Across the Color Line by Christopher Pramuk (2013)
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon for White America by Michael Eric Dyson (2017)
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Olua (2018)
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (2018)
- The Innocence Project, to exonerate the wrongly convicted (189 successful DNA-based exonerations), is the subject of a remarkable new video-documentary series. “The Innocence Files” is now available on Netflix. Preview (0:02:14). Racism is a major subtext in this work. “Through the lens of The Evidence, The Witness and The Prosecution, The Innocence Files shine a powerful light on the untold personal stories behind eight cases of wrongful conviction that the nonprofit organization the Innocence Project, and organizations within the Innocence Network, have uncovered and worked tirelessly to overturn….” See also: The Innocence Project Wrongful Conviction Reading Guide. Including the book Blind Injustice by Prosecutor-turned-activist for the innocent and current director of the Ohio Innocence Project, Mark Godsey.
- Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis (2003)
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (2010)
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (adapted for young adults) (2014)
- Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris (2016)
- From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2016)
- Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis (2016)
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie (2017)
- A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes (2017)
- I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi (2017)
- Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal by Alexandra Natapoff (2018)
Fiction
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)
- Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)
- Small Great Things by Jodi Picault (2016)
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017)
Color Blind or Color Brave? (TED Talk) by Mellody Hobson
What It Takes to be Racially Literate (TED Talk) by Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo
The Atlantic Slave Trade: What Too Few Textbooks Told You (TED Talk) by Anthony Hazard
The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman (TED-Ed Lesson) by Janell Hobson
The Symbols of Systemic Racism–And How to Take Away Their Power (TED Talk) by Paul Rucker
How to Raise a Black Son in America (TED Talk) by Clint Smith
Notes of a Native Son: The World according to James Baldwin (TED-Ed Lesson) by Christina Greer
An Artist’s Unflinching Look at Racial Violence (TED Talk) by Sanford Biggers
The Beauty of Human Skin in Every Color (TED Talk) by Angelica Dass
How Racism Makes Us Sick (TED Talk) by David R. Williams
The Trauma of Systematic Racism Is Killing Black Women. A First Step toward Change (TED Talk) by T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison
How We Can Make Racism a Solvable Problem—and Improve Policing (TED Talk) by Phillip Atiba Goff
My Road Trip through the Whitest Towns in America (TED Talk) by Rich Benjamin
The Pride and Power of Representation in Film (TED Talk) by John Chu
Love in Action with John Lewis
How Can I Say This So We Can Stay in This Car Together? with Claudia Rankine
Where Does It Hurt? With Ruby Sales
The World Is Our Field of Practice with angel Kyodo Williams
More Beautiful with Imani Perry
Imagining a New America with Ta-Nahesi Coates
Self-Reflection and Social Evolution with Darnell Moore
Are We Actually Citizens Here? with Annette Gordon-Reed and Titus Kaphar
Community Organizing as a Spiritual Practice with Rami Nashashibi and Lucas Johnson
W.E.B. Du Bois and the American Soul with Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, and Arnold Rampersad
love is a language / Few practice, but all, or near all speak with Tracy K. Smith
The Freedom of Real Apologies with Layli Long Soldier
Let’s Talk about Whiteness with Eula Biss
The Mind is a Difference-Making Machine with Mahzarin Banaji
Open to the Question of Belonging with john a. Powell
The Heart is the Last Frontier with Isabel Wilkerson
Radical Hope is Our Best Weapon with Junot Diaz
The Spiritual Work of Black Lives Matter with Patrice Cullors + Robert Ross
Notice the Rage, Notice the Silence with Resmaa Menakem
We All Must Say ‘Black Lives Matter’ by Jamie Manson from National Catholic Reporter (June 2, 2020)
How Can Catholics Help Lead the Fight against Racism? by Olga Segura from America: The Jesuit Review (May 29, 2020)
Editorial: To Fight Racism, Catholics Must Hunger for Justice Like We Do for the Eucharist from America: The Jesuit Review (June 1, 2020)
The Holy Spirit Is Moving Us to Act against Racism by Fr. James Martin, S.J. from America: The Jesuit Review (June 1, 2020)
‘The Ink Has Run Dry on Writing Statements.’ Black Catholics Call for Action in Wake of George Floyd’s Killing by Michael J. O’Loughlin from America: The Jesuit Review (June 1, 2020)
The Assumptions of White Privilege and What We Can Do About It by Fr. Bryan Massingale from National Catholic Reporter (June 1, 2020)
Catholic Leaders Say Floyd’s Death, Demonstrations a ‘Wake-Up Call’ by Christopher White from Crux (June 1, 2020)
Editorial: What have you done? No Accounting for Deaths of Floyd, Taylor, and Arbery from National Catholic Reporter (May 29, 2020)
After George Floyd’s Suffocation: A Litany for Oxygen from a Black Jesuit by Patrick St-Jean, SJ from The Jesuit Post (May 29, 2020)
The Killing of George Floyd Exposes Blind Spot on Racism, Catholic Advocates Say by Christopher White from Crux (May 28, 2020)
What Black Lives Matter Can Teach Catholics about Racial Justice by Olga Segura from America: The Jesuit Review (February 1, 2019)
America Must Listen to Its Wounds. They Will Tell Us Where to Look for Hope by Rev. William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign from the Guardian (May 30, 2020)
Breonna Taylor Lived and Died in a Part of the U.S. Where Rights Do Not Matter by Joseph S. Flipper from America: The Jesuit Review (June 4, 2020)
An Open Letter to My Fellow White Americans by Matt Malone, SJ from America: The Jesuit Review (June 8, 2020)
An Examen for White Allies by Maddie Murphy from Ignatian Solidarity Network Blog (December 12, 2018)
An Interview with Bryan Massingale by Regina Munch from Commonweal Magazine (June 5, 2020)
When Will the U.S. Bishops Address the Evils of Systemic Racism Head-On by Daniel P. Horan from National Catholic Reporter (June 10, 2020)