Anti-Racism Resources

GRACE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Grace Presbyterian Church affirms
the dignity, equality, and value of every person.

The Bible clearly teaches

that all human beings are created in God’s image and deeply loved by God.  Grace Presbyterian Church affirms the dignity, equality, and value of every person.  Grace Presbyterian Church affirms that black lives matter and stands against racism in any and every form it may assume.

Most Americans know very little about our nation’s history of persistent racial injustice or about the everyday experience of people of color in our country. As followers of Jesus Christ, it is important for us to educate ourselves so that we can love our neighbor as ourselves and work for God’s justice in the world today.  Below is a list of resources that various Grace members and staff have found helpful in their own learning and growth.  This list does not constitute official church endorsement of every idea or opinion contained in these materials.

A Starting Point

  • So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo

  • Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

  • Waking up White, Debby Irving

  • Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man | watch

  • How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi

2022 Summer Friends at Grace Presbyterian Church Jenkintown

What To Read: Historical

  • The Slaves Cause: A History of Abolition, Manisha Sinha

  • In the Face of Inequality: How Black Colleges Adapt, Melissa E. Wooten

  • Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, Keisha Blain

  • Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, Kellie Carter Jackson

  • They Were Her Property, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

  • The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America, Khalil Gibran Muhammad

  • Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Policies of Music and Dance in North American Slavery, Katrina Dyonne Thompson

  • They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to WWI, Kidada E. Williams

  • Jim Crow Wisdom Memory and Identity in Black American Since 1940, Jonathan Holloway

  • Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History 1513 – 2008, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

  • Trouble in Mind, Leon F. Litwack

  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Frederick Douglass

  • The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward Baptist

  • Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon

  • Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi

  • A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Ronald T. Takaki

  • A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

  • An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz

  • Lynching in America | link

  • At the Hands of Persons Unknown, Philip Dray

  • Blood Done Sign My Name, Timothy B. Tyson

  • The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America, Anders Walker

  • March Trilogy, (graphic novel) John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown

  • An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

  • Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex and Sikckness in the Middle Passage, Sowande Mustakeem

Talking About Race and White Privilege

  • America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to A New America, Jim Wallis

  • Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, Mahzarin R. Banaji

  • Race Matters, Cornell West

  • Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • White Fragility, Robin D’Angelo

  • Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, Beverly Tatum

  • The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

  • I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown

  • The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

  • Racial Justice Resources | link

Social/Economic Issues

  • The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

  • When They Call You a Terrorist, Patrisse Khan-Cullors

  • The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein

  • Blackballed, Darryl Pinkney

  • The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson

  • If They Come in the Morning…Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Davis

  • New York Times: An Asian-American Author Talks about Racism in the Pandemic | link

We Shall Survive Without a Doubt by Emory Douglas, 1971
We Shall Survive Without a Doubt by Emory Douglas, 1971

Faith & Theology

  • The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone

  • Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman

  • The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, Willie James Jennings

  • The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, Jemar Tisby

  • God’s Long Summer, Charles Marsh

  • Tears We Cannot Stop:  A Sermon to White America, Michael Eric Dyson

  • Bless Me With Anger at White Supremacy | link

Fiction

  • There, There, Tommy Owen

  • Bois Sauvage Trilogy, Jesmyn Ward

  • The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas

  • The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

Deposition by Tyler Ballon, 2018
Deposition by Tyler Ballon, 2018

Suggested Viewing

  • Reconstruction:  America after the Civil War | watch;  Henry Louis Gates, Jr; also watch

  • I am Not Your Negro—James Baldwin and Race in America, Kino Lorber | watch

  • Selma | watch

  • White Like Me, Media Education Foundation | watch

  • When They See Us | Netflix

  • 13th | available for free through Netflix on YouTube

  • We Need to Talk about an Injustice, Bryan Stevenson |  watch

  • Movies Recommended by the Washington Post | watch

  • The Hate U Give

Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’

Suggested Listening

  • The Urgency of Intersectionality, Kimberle Crenshaw | listen

  • How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time, Baratunde Thurston | listen

  • How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Towards Them, Verna Meyers | listen

  • Am I Not Human, Marlon Peterson | listen

  • From Reform to Abolition: The Future of the US Prison System, Emma Harrison |  listen

  • Don’t be a Savior, Be An Ally, Rayna Gordon | listen

  • Antiracism Discipleship Pathway Playlist | listen

  • The Great Unlearn, Rachel Cargle | listen

  • 1619 Project Podcast, New York Times | listen

  • Interviews and Podcasts with Ibram X. Kendi | listen

  • Evolving Faith Podcast, Episode 2, hosted by Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, featuring Austin Channing Brown | listen, find it on Spotify here

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama by Amy Sherald, oil on linen, 2018
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama by Amy Sherald, oil on linen, 2018

For Parents, Kids/Youth

  • Don’t Yuck My Yum: Kids Books That Dismantle Anti-Asian Racism | link

  • Raising an Anti-racist Kid | link

  • How To Talk to Kids about Anti-Racism | link

  • Books to Help Children Understand Anti-Racism and Protest | link

  • Just Mercy (adapted for Young Adults), Bryan Stevenson

  • Stamped from the Beginning: A Remix, Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

  • The Watsons Go to Birmingham, Christopher Paul Curtis

  • Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor

  • Raising White Kids: Bringing up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey | link.