Dear GraceCity Family,
GraceCity, the first ship of enslaved Africans arrived near Port Comfort in the English colony of Virginia in August of 1619. Fluency with the subsequent 400 years through the lens of Black scholars and artists, helps all of us see the world through the eyes and walk the world in the shoes, of our Black sisters and brothers. You can reposition your starting point.
Since my teenage years I have been blessed to read such tomes, memoirs and essays as “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin, and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These classics and many more formed my earliest foundation around race, and I recommend them to you.
Immediately below you’ll find my reading/listening list this past year in Black history and sociology, along with great fiction from several Black authors. I am grateful for the education I’ve found here. Further on you’ll find more extensive curated bibliographies from various friends of GraceCity. Read, listen and watch. All these we offer for your reconciliation education in the years ahead. The list will keep growing.
You can reposition your starting point.
The important thing is to begin.
Pastor Bob
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Non-Fiction (Pastor Bob / 2019-20)
“The NYT 1619 Project” – (collected essays – google it and start here if in doubt)
“How To Be an Antiracist” – Ibram X. Kendi
“Stamped from the Beginning” – Ibram X. Kendi
“Be the Bridge” – Latasha Morrison
“Between the World and Me” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Just Mercy” – Bryan Stevenson
“The Souls of Black Folk” – W.E.B. Du Bois
“Men We Reaped” – Jesmyn Ward
Fiction (Pastor Bob / 2019-20)
“Homegoing” – Yaa Gyasi
“Parable of the Sower” & “Parable of the Talents” – Octavia Butler
“The Bluest Eye” – Toni Morrison
“The Hate U Give” – Angie Thomas
Helpful Videos:
1. Ibram Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an Anti-Racist, May 2020 Ted Talk on anti-racism: https://www.ted.com/talks/ibram_x_kendi_how_to_build_an_antiracist_world
2. Dorothy Roberts, author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty First Century, 2016 Ted Talk on race-based medicine: https://www.ted.com/talks/dorothy_roberts_the_problem_with_race_based_medicine?language=en
3. Khalil Gibram Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, on education and learning from history, 2012 Children’s Defense Fund presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIJL_6QYlvY
4. Khalil Gibram Muhammad on crime, interview: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/6/21280643/police-brutality-violence-protests-racism-khalil-muhammad
5. Sandy Darrity, co-author with Kirsten Mullen of From here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-first Century, 2019 C-Span conversation: https://www.c-span.org/video/?458905-4/washington-journal-william-darity-discusses-reparations-campaign-2020
6. Mindy Fulliove, author of Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do about It, Ted talk – “Four Centuries of the Black Experience in America”: https://www.ted.com/talks/mindy_fullilove_the_ecology_of_inequality
7. Angela Simms, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies, Barnard College at Columbia University, “The Backstory to Racism in America”: 2020 lecture at Renaissance Church, Harlem, NYC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m804DB4aGjM&feature=youtu.be&mc_cid=7946adf82e&mc_eid=2a7b346e85
8. Phil Vischer, Media Innovator, Creator of Veggie Tales, “Race in America”: 2020 Holy Post Vlog.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGUwcs9qJXY
Other curations (from friends and friends of friends of GC)
Books
- The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander
- Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes From a Native Son | James Baldwin
- Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates
- We Were Eight Years in Power | Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Souls of Black Folks | WEB Du Bois
- Hummingbirds in The Trenches | Kondwani Fidel
- How To Be An Antiracist | Ibram X. Kendi
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America | Richard Rothstein
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption | Bryan Stevenson
- The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America | D. Watkins
- A People’s History of the United States | Howard Zinn
Articles
- The 1619 Project
- Dispatches from Freedom Summer: Race Then and Now
- Documenting Hate
- Ibram X. Kendi’s Essays
- I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked.
- Mississippi: A Profile of the Nation’s Most Segregated State; Through Most of the State’s History the White Supremacists Have Been Able to Control Government at the Local and State Levels
- Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis
Scientific Literature
- Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: evidence and interventions | The Lancet
- A vision of social justice as the foundation of public health: commemorating 150 years of the spirit of 1848. | American Journal of Public Health
- Measures of Racism, Sexism, Heterosexism, and Gender Binarism for Health Equity Research: From Structural Injustice to Embodied Harm—An Ecosocial Analysis | Annual Review of Public Health
- The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health | The American Academy of Pediatrics
- Commentary: Is capital the solution or the problem? | International Journal of Epidemiology | International Journal of Epidemiology
- What is a National Health Policy? | International Journal of Health Services
- Racism and Health I: Pathways and Scientific Evidence | American Behavioral Scientist
- Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
LISTEN
- 1619 | Apple Podcasts
- Michelle Alexander: Jim Crow Still Exists In America
- Code Switch | Apple Podcasts
- Historically Black | Apple Podcasts
- In the Dark | Apple Podcasts (Season Two)
WATCH
- 13TH |Netflix
- I Am Not Your Negro | Amazon Video
- Time: The Kalief Browder Story | Netflix
- When They See Us | Netflix
- White Privilege: Racism, White Denial & The Cost of Inequality
FOLLOW
- Devin Allen: Instagram | Twitter
- Rachel Elizabeth Cargle: Instagram | Twitter
- Ta-Nehisi Coates: Instagram
- Kondwani Fidel: Instagram |Twitter
- Ibram X. Kendi: Instagram |Twitter
- DeRay Mckesson: Instagram |Twitter
- Layla F. Saad: Instagram
- Samuel Sinyangwe: Instagram |Twitter
- D. Watkins: Instagram |Twitter
- Hank Willis Thomas: Instagram
- Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Instagram |Twitter
- Because of Them We Can: Instagram
- The Conscious Kid: Instagram | Twitter
- Teach and Transform: Instagram
PUT IT TO ACTION
- Campaign Zero
- Get Involved
- Organizational Change Process
- Undoing Racism: The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond
- Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle: Home (Baltimore)
- Showing Up for Racial Justice
A Conservative View
Non-FictionDiscrimination and Disparities – Thomas Sowell
My Grandfather’s Son – Clarence Thomas
The Content of Our Character – Shelby Steele
Winning the Race – John McWho