Learning about Racism

This page lists books, videos, documentaries, and other online resources to help us explore the pervasiveness of racism in America and further our understanding.
Note that Nyack Library also has an excellent list of resources on their website. To find them, click here.

Nonfiction books 
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015. Through this letter to his son, Coates speaks with love, sadness, honesty, and deep emotion about what it means to be black in America. Reading his book helps us all to understand the history and the pervasive presence of racism in our country.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, 2020. This book is essential reading for everyone living in this country. This deeply researched and insightful book gives us a new frame for understanding systemic racism.
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, 2019. Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society would look like, and how we can all contribute to building such a society.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, 2014. Goodreads calls this book "an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice."
Parting the Waters: American in the King Years, 1954 – 1963 by Taylor Branch, 1988. This is the first of three volumes exploring, in depth, the history, events and people who defined the civil rights movement. 
Race Matters by Cornel West, 1994. A series of essays on race, class and gender by an important black leader and educator.
These Truths by Jill Lepore, 2019. Starting with 1492, Lepore focuses on the facts of American history, truths that often belie the ideals on which the country was founded.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of American's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010. Goodreads notes that this history "chronicles . . . the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life."

Racism Against Native Americans:
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. Erdrich’s maternal grandfather led the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota. Recommended by Lynwa Kreimann who remembers hearing men in South Dakota in ugly conversations about the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  

Videos
Just Mercy, a 2019 film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is based on the memoir by Bryan Stevenson. The film, staring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, is available for free. For that reason it is listed here with the videos rather than with the documentaries below. 
Let’s Get to the Root of Racial Justice – TED Talk by Megan Ming Francis 
What I am Learning from My White Grandchildren – Truths About Race – TED Talk by Anthony Peterson   
The Dangers of Whitewashing Black History – TED Talk by David Ikard  
Slavery by Another Name – on PBS  
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Online Articles
The 1619 Project by the New York Times. This excellent series began in August 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave ship in Port Comfort, Virginia.
​“Art That Confronts and Challenges Racism: Start Here.”  New York Times writers suggest works that illuminate social injustice and racial inequality. 
“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED).

Documentaries
13th directed by Ava Duvernay’s documentary. 13th explores the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and its impact on our system of justice. Available on Netflix.
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​I Am Not Your Negro, the 2016 James Baldwin documentary directed by Raoul Peck.

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, 2019.
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