The Urgency of Intersectionality Now more than ever, it's important to look boldly at the reality of race and gender bias -- and understand how the two can combine to create even more harm. Kimberlé Crenshaw uses the term "intersectionality" to describe this phenomenon; as she says, if you're standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you're likely to get hit by both. In this moving TEDtalk, she calls on us to bear witness to this reality and speak up for victims of prejudice.

What Beyonce Taught Me About Race In this powerful TEDx Talk, diversity advocate and Beyoncé super fan, Brittany Barron translates Beyoncé's music as a road map about race relations in the United States; demonstrating that being "colorblind" is not the goal, but diminishing our nation's "expertise" in racism is.

The Danger of a Single Story Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding in this TEDtalk.

Can Art Amend History? Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live Tedtalk workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a replica of a 17th-century Frans Hals painting, obscuring parts of the composition and bringing its hidden story into view. There's a narrative coded in art like this, Kaphar says. What happens when we shift our focus and confront unspoken truths?

I Am Not Your Negro Directed By: Raoul Peck I Am Not Your Negro Official Trailer 1 (2016) - James Baldwin Documentary Writer James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America with his unfinished novel, Remember This House.

Nina Simone - What Happened To Miss Simone? She was one of the most extraordinary artists of the twentieth century, an icon of American music. Nina Simone was a consummate musical storyteller, a griot as she would come to learn, who used her remarkable talent to create a legacy of liberation, empowerment, passion, and love through a magnificent body of works.

Billie Holiday "Strange Fruit"  Billie Holiday first rose to prominence in the 1930’s with a unique style that reinvented the conventions of modern singing and performance.

Are We Actually Citizens Here Historian Annette Gordon-Reed and painter Titus Kaphar lead us in an exploration of that as a public adventure in this conversation at the Citizen University annual conference. 

New book explores history of voter suppression in America Carol Anderson asserts that many of the efforts employed to impede black voters in the Jim Crow South are still being used successfully today.

Recommended Reading for : Creating American Racism

Almaguer, Tomas. Racial Fault Lines: The Historic Origins of White Supremacy in California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts, 1845.

Gordon, Linda. The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition. New York: Liveright, 2017.

Lipsitz, George. How Racism Takes Place.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2011.

Lytle Hernandez Kelly. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Morgan, Jennifer. Laboring Women, Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery.  Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press. 2004.

Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law, A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.  New York:  Liverwright Publishing. 2017.

How to Be an AntiRacist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is regarded as one of the nation’s foremost scholars on racism and anti-racism. Kendi is the author of a number of books and recently announced that he is leaving American University to join the faculty at Boston University. In this book, Kendi shares elements of his own personal story with racism and addresses what it means for people to transition from being racist to anti-racist. In exploring these notions, he offers compelling ideas about concrete actions that must be taken to create a society that does not profit and benefit by exploiting Black peoples and communities. He draws in powerful metaphors about the similarities between cancer and the mistreatment of Black people in American society. The book can be found here.

Black Minds Matter: Realizing the Brilliance, Dignity, and Morality of Black Males in Education by Dr. J. Luke Wood
In the wake of the shooting death of Alfred Olango, an unarmed Black man in San Diego, Dr. J. Luke Wood and numerous colleagues offered a widely attended free online course called “Black Minds Matter.” The course focused on the relationship between the policing of Black lives and the schooling of Black minds, addressing topics such as the school to prison pipeline, over-placement in special education, and disproportionate suspensions and expulsions. Following the course Wood, who is a Distinguished Professor at San Diego State University, released a book encapsulating thoughts and themes from his lectures and personal stories about his own challenges as a Black male. The book offers a framework for educators who want to enhance their ability to serve Black boys and men in education. The book can be found here.

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
This book is a memoir written by Patrisse Khan-Cullors who is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of the young, unarmed Trayvon Martin, Khan-Cullors with her colleagues Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi began a social media movement using the hastag #BlackLivesMatter. This movement has continued to expand following the continuous and expanding social unrest in the wake of high profile killings of Black people such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and numerous others. Her book, When They Call You a Terrorist discusses the challenges facing the Black community and the activism that led to the Black Lives Movement. She also documents the personal pain and challenges associated with the media portraying her and her colleagues as terrorists for their advocacy against police brutality and murders of Black people. The book can be found here.

No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear About Black People by Dr. Ivory A. Toldson. 
Many Black people have heard statements asserting that “there are more Black men in prison than college,” “Black students don’t read,” and “Black children fail because single mothers raise them.” In an artfully expressed manner, the book No BS explores common misconceptions, stereotypes, and myths used to put down Black people and dispels them using data. Authored by renowned professor and public intellectual Dr. Ivory A. Toldson, the book dispels common assumptions and provides a more nuanced understanding of the Black experience and appreciation for the power of Black peoples. This is among my most favorite books and should be “required” reading for every White ally in the nation. The book can be found here.

The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
In a popular and powerfully crafted book, Union Theological Seminary professor Michelle Alexander discusses the impact of the criminal justice system on the Black community. In this book she provides detailed insights into how government policies led to the high rate of involvement of Black people, particularly Black men, in the criminal justice system. The book provides an understanding of disparities at every segment of the justice system, from juries, to laws, to political movements (namely the war on drugs) designed to target Black communities. The book can be found here.

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