Responding to COVID-19

Historic Preservation

Racial and Social Equity Resources List

As part of our efforts to make room for the voices that have previously been excluded from the national narrative and fight the prejudice and intolerance that cuts across our towns and cities, we have amalgamated a list of resources for reference. These resources span a variety of media including books, articles, websites, podcasts, and films and are categorized for easier discovery. When possible, we have provided links for purchase of these books from local Philadelphia, black-owned bookshops and encourage you to support these local businesses, especially as many begin to reopen their brick and mortar locations. We recognize that this is a quite substantial catalog and may be overwhelming at first, so we suggest that you begin by choosing a category of interest and working from there.

We realize that this is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you do not see a resource in our lists that you have found helpful, we urge you to let us know through this form and we will make an effort to add it shortly.

Table of Contents:

Resource Guides and Tools

Books

Articles, Chapters of Books, Reports, and Blogs

Podcasts

Film

Philadelphia Black Led / Centered Organizations

National Organizations

 

Resource Guides and Tools

Preservation, Architecture, Planning, and Design

100+ Anti-Racist Resources for Architects and Designers by SPACE INDUSTRIES and ELL - "The list is designed to help the AEC community take a pro-active stance in seeking racial justice and equity throughout the industry." Direct link to the resource list here.

SPACE/RACE Reading List by SPACE INDUSTRIES - "This reading list was collectively produced by a group of architectural historians, art historians, architects, and urbanists in reaction to the August 2017 events in Charlottesville. We have assembled a series of readings on how race and racism are constructed with spatial means, and on how in turn space can be shaped by racism. The list is meant primarily as a teaching resource and is open for viewing and sharing."

Race, Architecture, and Social Equity by Daniel Barber - A multi-media collection addressing Anti-Racism + Advertising/Design and Black Lives Matter resources.

Race/Architecture/Decolonization Design Resources by The Architecture Lobby Toronto

All Monuments Must Fall: A Syllabus - "This is a crowd-sourced assemblage of materials relating to Confederate and other racist monuments to white supremacy; the history and theory of these monuments and monuments in general; and monument struggles worldwide. It was inspired by the resistance to fascism demonstrated at Charlottesville, Va. and Durham, NC in August 2017."

Decolonizing Design Reader by RamonTejada, open to contributions of others as well 

The Planner's Beginner Guide to the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Danielle Dirksen, Black + Urban (June 6, 2020)

BlackSpace Manifesto by BlackSpace - "Acknowledging our triumphs, oppressions, aspirations, and challenges, we've created this manifesto to guide our growth as a group and our interactiosn with one another, partner, and communities."

General

EJI Lynching In America Interactive Resource by the Equal Justice Initiative - An interactive experience based off of the EJI's findings in their report Lynching in American: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror

Penn Slavery Project by the University of Pennsylvania - "Around the country, universities are exploring their historical connections with the institution of slavery. The University of Pennsylvania has recently joined the national conversation. Since 2017, undergraduate students have conducted archival research, examined the history of the University of Pennsylvania, and formed the Penn & Slavery Project. The project has discovered numerous ways in which the university relied on and contributed to the institution of slavery in North America and in the Caribbean. The research has uncovered hidden chapters in Penn’s history by identifying slave-holding 18th Century trustees and faculty members, fundraising efforts that deliberately sought donations from enslavers, traces of the institution of slavery on Penn's first and current campus, and the role Penn’s medical school played in developing scientific racism, certifying doctors trained in “plantation medicine” to keep enslaved people, and the institution of slavery, alive. In an exciting new development, the Penn & Slavery Project has begun collaborating with design students to develop a new Augmented Reality Mobile App to feature student research!"

Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus by Catherine Halley for JSTOR Daily - "The following articles, published over the course of JSTOR Daily’s five years try to provide such context. As always, the underlying scholarship is free for all readers. We have now updated this story with tagging for easier navigation to related content, will be continually updating this page with more stories, and are working to acquire a bibliographic reading list about institutionalized racism in the near future."

Anti-Racist Resources by Anna Stamborski, M. Div Candidate (2022), Nikki Zimmermann, M. Div candidate (2021), Bailie Gregory, M. Div, M.S. Ed. - "This is a working document for scaffolding anti-racism resources. The goal is to facilitate growth for white folks to become allies, and eventually accomplices for anti-racist work. These resources have been ordered in an attempt to make them more accessible. We will continue to add resources."

Anti-Racist Resource Guide by Victoria Alexander, MEd - "This document was created to be used as a resource for anyone looking to broaden their understanding of anti-racism and get involved to combat racism,  specifically as it relates to anti-Blackness and police violence. Within this guide, please find a variety of resources to explore practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity, white supremacy, police violence, and injustice."

Anti-Racism Resources by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein (May 2020)

Anti-Racism Resource Guide by Tasha K. - "This anti-racist resource guide was crafted amidst the anger of the latest black body turned hashtag #AhmaudArbery. It is consistently being updated to address the current climate of our country and the personal growth needed to sustain this life-long journey. Please note that this document was and will continue to be a group effort."

Anti-Racist Checklist for Whites, Robin DiAngelo, adapted from Dr. John Raible’s (2009) checklist for antiracist white allies, 2013.

"Racism Defined", ​Dismantling Racism Works (dRworks) - web-based workbook

Project Implicit - a non-profit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition - thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control. The goal of the organization is to educate the public about hidden biases and to provide a “virtual laboratory” for collecting data on the Internet.

Tips for Creating Effective White Caucus Groups developed by Craig Elliott PhD

"75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice" by Corinne Shutack, Medium (Aug 13, 2017)

Responding to Microaggressions and Bias, Diane J. Goodman, Ed.D.

Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send, adapted from Sue, Derald Wing, Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation, Wiley & Sons, 2010.

Eight Lessons for Talking About Race, Racism, and Racial Justice, The Opportunity Agenda (published 2017, updated June 2020)

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Books

So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life."

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson (Uncle Bobbie's) - "From the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America."

Preservation, Architecture, Planning, and Design

Black Landscapes Matter edited by Walter Hood and Grace Mitchell Tada, University of Virginia Press (forthcoming - November 2020) - "The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation’s landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape."

Black Towns, Black Futures: The Enduring Allure of a Black Place in the American West by Karla Slocum (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Some know Oklahoma's Black towns as historic communities that thrived during the Jim Crow era--this is only part of the story. In this book, Karla Slocum shows that the appeal of these towns is more than their past. Drawing on interviews and observations of town life spanning several years, Slocum reveals that people from diverse backgrounds are still attracted to the communities because of the towns' remarkable history as well as their racial identity and rurality. But that attraction cuts both ways. Tourists visit to see living examples of Black success in America, while informal predatory lenders flock to exploit the rural Black economies. In Black towns, there are developers, return migrants, rodeo spectators, and gentrifiers, too. Giving us a complex window into Black town and rural life, Slocum ultimately makes the case that these communities are places for affirming, building, and dreaming of Black community success even as they contend with the sometimes marginality of Black and rural America."

The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music by Craig L Wilkins (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Architecture is often thought to be a diary of a society, filled with symbolic representations of specific cultural moments. However, as Craig L. Wilkins observes, that diary includes far too few narratives of the diverse cultures in U.S. society. Wilkins states that the discipline of architecture has a resistance to African Americans at every level, from the startlingly small number of architecture students to the paltry number of registered architects in the United States today."

Place, Race, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation by Ned Kaufman (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In Place, Race, and Story, author Ned Kaufman has collected his own essays dedicated to the proposition of giving the next generation of preservationists not only a foundational knowledge of the field of study, but more ideas on where they can take it. Through both big-picture essays considering preservation across time, and descriptions of work on specific sites, the essays in this collection trace the themes of place, race, and story in ways that raise questions, stimulate discussion, and offer a different perspective on these common ideas."

There Goes the ‘Hood” by Lance Freeman (Uncle Bobbie's) - "There Goes the 'Hood analyzes the experience of gentrification for residents of two predominantly black New York City neighbourhoods. It thereby adds an important yet often overlooked perspective to debates on gentrification - the residents of formerly disinvested neighbourhoods themselves. Their perspectives suggest that neither gentrification is neither entirely threatening or redemptive for urban neighbourhoods. Rather, it can both offer a better life and threaten long-established communities. While residents appreciate the opportunities, they resent that it often takes full-scale gentrification to make their neighbourhoods nice. The concluding chapters of the book suggest ways for limiting the negative aspects of gentrification and new ways of thinking about gentrification and the inner city."

Fair and Healthy Land Use: Environmental Justice and Planning by Craig Anthony Arnold, 2007 (American Planning Association) - "Lawsuits challenging the disproportionate effects of government decisions on low-income and minority communities are on the rise. Studies show that low-income families and racial minorities are more likely to suffer from health issues related to pollution. Grassroots environmental justice groups are increasingly fighting the siting of Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs) in low-income and minority communities...This report from APA's Planning Advisory Service explains how the principles of environmental justice can be incorporated into land-use planning processes."

Structural Inequality: Black Architects in the United States by Victoria Kaplan (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Architecture is a challenging profession. The education is rigorous and the licensing process lengthy; the industry is volatile and compensation lags behind other professions. All architects make a huge investment to be able to practice, but additional obstacles are placed in the way of women and people of color. Structural Inequality relates this disparity through the stories of twenty black architects from around the United States and examines the sociological context of architectural practice. Through these experiences, research, and observation, Victoria Kaplan explores the role systemic racism plays in an occupation commonly referred to as the 'white gentlemen's profession.' Given the shifting demographics of the United States, Kaplan demonstrates that it is incumbent on the profession to act now to create a multicultural field of practitioners who mirror the changing client base. Structural Inequality provides the context to inform and facilitate the necessary conversation on increasing diversity in architecture."

The Crisis of the African-American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power by Melvin Mitchell (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In this long overdue book, aimed at Black America and her allies, Melvin Mitchell poses the question "why haven't black architects developed a Black Architecture that complements modernist black culture that is rooted in world-class blues, jazz, hip-hop music, and other black aesthetic forms?" His provocative thesis, inspired by Harold Cruse's landmark book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, exposes the roots of an eighty-year-old estrangement between black architects and Black America."

Urban Planning and the African-American Community: In the Shadows edited by June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Clarifying the historical connections between the African-American population in the United States and the urban planning profession, this book suggests means by which cooperation and justice may be increased. Chapters examine: the racial origins of zoning in US cities; how Eurocentric family models have shaped planning processes of cities such as Los Angeles; and diversifying planning education in order to advance the profession. There is also a chapter of excerpts from court cases and government reports that have shaped or reflected the racial aspects of urban planning."

Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit by June Manning Thomas (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In the decades following World War II, professional city planners in Detroit made a concerted effort to halt the city's physical and economic decline. Their successes included an award-winning master plan, a number of laudable redevelopment projects, and exemplary planning leadership in the city and the nation. Yet despite their efforts, Detroit was rapidly transforming into a notorious symbol of urban decay. In Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit, June Manning Thomas takes a look at what went wrong, demonstrating how and why government programs were ineffective and even destructive to community needs."

Planning Atlanta edited by Harley F. Etienne and Barbara Faga (Uncle Bobbie's) - "More than any other major U.S. city, Atlanta regularly reinvents itself. From the Civil War's devastation to the 1996 Olympic boom to the current housing crisis, the city's history is a cycle of rise and fall, ruin and resurgence. In Planning Atlanta, two dozen planning practitioners and thought leaders bring the story to life. Together they trace the development of projects like Freedom Parkway and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. They examine the impacts of race relations on planning and policy. They explore Atlanta's role as a 19th-century rail hub--and as the home of the world's busiest airport. They probe the city's economic and environmental growing pains. And they look toward new plans that will shape Atlanta's next incarnation."

The Black Metropolis in the 21st Century: Race, Power, and the Politics of Place edited by Robert Bullard (Uncle Bobbie's) - "This book brings together key essays that seek to make visible and expand our understanding of the role of government (policies, programs, and investments) in shaping cities and metropolitan regions; the costs and consequences of uneven urban and regional growth patterns; suburban sprawl and public health, transportation, and economic development; and the enduring connection of place, space, and race in the era of increased globalization."

Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity edited by Robert Bullard (Uncle Bobbie's) - "The contributors to Growing Smarter--urban planners, sociologists, economists, educators, lawyers, health professionals, and environmentalists--all place equity at the center of their analyses of "place, space, and race." They consider such topics as the social and environmental effects of sprawl, the relationship between sprawl and concentrated poverty, and community-based regionalism that can link cities and suburbs. They examine specific cases that illustrate opportunities for integrating environmental justice concerns into smart growth efforts, including the dynamics of sprawl in a South Carolina county, the debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and transportation-related pollution in Northern Manhattan. 

Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Ground-breaking when first published in 1945, Black Metropolis remains a landmark study of race and urban life. Few studies since have been able to match its scope and magnitude, offering one of the most comprehensive looks at black life in America. Based on research conducted by Works Progress Administration field workers, it is a sweeping historical and sociological account of the people of Chicago's South Side from the 1840s through the 1930s. Its findings offer a comprehensive analysis of black migration, settlement, community structure, and black-white race relations in the first half of the twentieth century. It offers a dizzying and dynamic world filled with captivating people and startling revelations."

The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space by Don Mitchell (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Blending historical and geographical analysis, this book examines the vital relationship between struggles over public space and movements for social justice in the United States. Presented are a series of linked cases that explore the judicial response to public demonstrations by early twentieth-century workers, and comparable legal issues surrounding anti-abortion protests today; the Free Speech Movement and the history of People's Park in Berkeley; and the plight of homeless people facing new laws against their presence in urban streets. The central focus is how political dissent gains meaning and momentum--and is regulated and policed--in the real, physical spaces of the city."

The Philadelphia Negro by W.E.B. Dubois (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In 1897 the promising young sociologist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was given a temporary post as Assistant in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in order to conduct a systematic investigation of social conditions in the seventh ward of Philadelphia. The product of those studies was the first great empirical book on the Negro in American society...In his introduction, Elijah Anderson examines how the neighborhood studied by Du Bois has changed over the years and compares the status of blacks today with their status when the book was initially published."

Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America by Marcus Anthony Hunter (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Taking W.E.B. DuBois's The Philadelphia Negro as its departure point, Marcus Hunter has written a wonderful book that builds on the insights of DuBois by exploring the political, social, and economic evolution of Philadelphia's Seventh Ward since DuBois's canonical study of the neighborhood. Especially attentive to the agency of black Philadelphians, Hunter demonstrates throughout the book that black residents of Philadelphia were active participants and leaders in the evolution of their neighborhood and their political power."

The Just City Essays: 26 Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusivity and Opportunity by Next City (Next City) - "An international response to the persistence of injustice in the world’s cities. As troubling headlines from Ferguson, Missouri, to Johannesburg and myriad other cities make clear, dramatic inequalities in income, housing and safety demand a continued search for ideas and solutions. In this ebook, architects, artists, community activists, ecologists, mayors, philanthropists and social scientists from 22 cities offer 26 visions for change."

Preservation and Social Inclusion edited by Erica Avrami (Uncle Bobbie's) - "The preservation enterprise helps fashion the physical contours of memory in public space, and thus has the power to curate a multidimensional and inclusive representation of societal values and narratives. Increasingly, the field of preservation is being challenged to consider questions of social inclusion, of how multiple publics are--or are not--represented in heritage decision-making, geographies, and governance structures. Community engagement is increasingly being integrated into project-based preservation practice, but the policy toolbox has been slower to evolve. Recognizing how preservation and other land use decisions can both empower and marginalize publics compels greater reflection on preservation's past and future and collective action beyond the project level. This requires professionals and institutions to consider systemic policy change with integrity, sensitivity, and intentionality."

Preservation and Place: Historic Preservation by and of Lgbtq Communities in the United States edited by Katherine Crawford-Lackey and Megan E. Springate (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Significant historic and archaeological sites affiliated with two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history in the United States are examined in this unique volume. The importance of the preservation process in documenting and interpreting the lives and experiences of queer Americans is emphasized. The book features chapters on archaeology and interpretation, as well as several case studies focusing on queer preservation projects. The accessible text and associated activities create an interactive and collaborative process that encourages readers to apply the material in a hands-on setting."

Cultural Heritage and Human Rights edited by Helaine Silverman and D Fairchild Ruggles (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Is there a universal right to the free expression and preservation of cultural heritage, and if so, where is that right articulated and how can it be protected? No corner of today's world has escaped the effects of globalization - for better or worse. This volume addresses a deeply political aspect of heritage preservation and management as it relates to human rights."

Uses of Heritage by Laurajane Smith (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Examining international case studies including USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Laurajane Smith identifies and explores the use of heritage throughout the world. Challenging the idea that heritage value is self-evident, and that things must be preserved because they have an inherent importance, Smith forcefully demonstrates that heritage value is not inherent in physical objects or places, but rather that these objects and places are used to give tangibility to the values that underpin different communities and to assert and affirm these values."

Decolonizing Conservation: Caring for Maori Meeting Houses Outside New Zealand by Dean Sully - "This book argues for an important shift in cultural heritage conservation, away from a focus on maintaining the physical fabric of material culture toward the impact that conservation work has on people’s lives. In doing so, it challenges the commodification of sacred objects and places by western conservation thought and attempts to decolonize conservation practice. To do so, the authors examine conservation activities at Maori marae—meeting houses—located in the US, Germany, and England and contrasts them with changes in marae conservation in New Zealand. A key case study is the Hinemihi meeting house, transported to England in the 1890s where it was treated as a curiosity by visitors to Clandon Park for over a century, and more recently as a focal point of cultural activity for UK Maori communities. Recent efforts to include various Maori stakeholder communities in the care of this sacred structure is a key example of community based conservation that can be replicated in heritage practice around the world."

Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict by J. E. Tunbridge, G. J. Ashworth - "A lucid philosophical, theoretical, and practical guide to the creation of an authentic and realistic interpretation of heritage. Demonstrates how sensitivity and ethical approaches can be developed to present the actual history of concentration camps, atrocities, disease, death, and oppression without alienating the observer. Contains planning goals and advice to produce a thoughtful and sympathetic response and lasting understanding of the fate and consequences of real peoples and historic events."

Monuments

What Can and Can't Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South by Dell Upton (Uncle Bobbie's) - "An original study of monuments to the civil rights movement and African American history that have been erected in the U.S. South over the past three decades, this powerful work explores how commemorative structures have been used to assert the presence of black Americans in contemporary Southern society. The author cogently argues that these public memorials, ranging from the famous to the obscure, have emerged from, and speak directly to, the region's complex racial politics since monument builders have had to contend with widely varied interpretations of the African American past as well as a continuing presence of white supremacist attitudes and monuments."

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia edited by Paul M Farber and Ken Lum (Uncle Bobbie's) - "What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia? That was the question posed by the curators, artists, scholars, and students who comprise the Philadelphia-based public art and history studio Monument Lab. And in 2017, along with Mural Arts Philadelphia, they produced and organized a groundbreaking, city-wide exhibition of temporary, site-specific works that engaged directly with the community. The installations, by a cohort of diverse artists considering issues of identity, appeared in iconic public squares and neighborhood parks with research and learning labs and prototype monuments. Monument Lab is a fabulous compendium of the exhibition and a critical reflection of the proceedings, including contributions from interlocutors and collaborators. The exhibition and this handbook were designed to generate new ways of thinking about monuments and public art as well as to find new, critical perspectives to reflect on the monuments we have inherited and to imagine those we have yet to build. Monument Lab energizes acivic dialogue about place and history as forces for a deeper questioning of what it means to be Philadelphian in a time of renewal and continuing struggle."

Remembering Emmett Till by Dave Tell (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Take a drive through the Mississippi Delta today and you'll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most chilling are those devoted to the murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a beacon in the fight for racial equality. The ways this event is remembered have been fraught from the beginning, revealing currents of controversy, patronage, and racism lurking just behind the placid facades of historical markers. In Remembering Emmett Till, Dave Tell gives us five accounts of the commemoration of this infamous crime. In a development no one could have foreseen, Till's murder--one of the darkest moments in the region's history--has become an economic driver for the Delta. Historical tourism has transformed seemingly innocuous places like bridges, boat landings, gas stations, and riverbeds into sites of racial politics, reminders of the still-unsettled question of how best to remember the victim of this heinous crime. Tell builds an insightful and persuasive case for how these memorials have altered the Delta's physical and cultural landscape, drawing potent connections between the dawn of the civil rights era and our own moment of renewed fire for racial justice."

Segregation, Housing, Discrimination, and Redlining

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation--that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation--the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments--that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day."

Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It by Mindy Thompson Fullilove (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Like a sequel to the prescient warnings of urbanist Jane Jacobs, Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove reveals the disturbing effects of decades of insensitive urban renewal projects on communities of color. For those whose homes and neighborhoods were bulldozed, the urban modernization projects that swept America starting in 1949 were nothing short of an assault. Vibrant city blocks, places rich in culture, were torn apart by freeways and other invasive development, devastating the lives of poor residents. Fullilove passionately describes the profound traumatic stress the "root shock" that results when a neighborhood is demolished. She estimates that federal and state urban renewal programs, spearheaded by business and real estate interests, destroyed 1,600 African American districts in cities across the United States. But urban renewal didn't just disrupt black communities: it ruined their economic health and social cohesion, stripping displaced residents of their sense of place as well. It also left big gashes in the centers of cities that are only now slowly being repaired. Focusing on the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Central Ward in Newark, and the small Virginia city of Roanoke, Dr. Fullilove argues powerfully against policies of displacement. Understanding the damage caused by root shock is crucial to coping with its human toll and helping cities become whole."

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners. The federal government guaranteed urban mortgages in an attempt to overcome resistance to lending to Black buyers - as if unprofitability, rather than racism, was the cause of housing segregation. Bankers, investors, and real estate agents took advantage of the perverse incentives, targeting the Black women most likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure, multiplying their profits. As a result, by the end of the 1970s, the nation's first programs to encourage Black homeownership ended with tens of thousands of foreclosures in Black communities across the country. The push to uplift Black homeownership had descended into a goldmine for realtors and mortgage lenders, and a ready-made cudgel for the champions of deregulation to wield against government intervention of any kind."

White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin Kruse (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In White Flight, Harvard professor of history Kevin Kruse looks at the transition of Atlanta during and following the civil rights era — shifting from a site of rare racial harmony to one which whites rapidly fled. Reassessing the assumptions around this "white flight" to suburbs, Kruse digs deep into the meaning of white resistance, demonstrating that it's one aspect of a conservatism that transformed during struggles over segregation and gave birth to causes like tuition vouchers and privatization of public services."

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads... Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible."

Race, Poverty, and American Cities by John Charles Boger, 1993 (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Precise connections between race, poverty, and the condition of America's cities are drawn in this collection of seventeen essays. Policymakers and scholars from a variety of disciplines analyze the plight of the urban poor since the riots of the 1960s and the resulting 1968 Kerner Commission Report on the status of African Americans. In essays addressing health care, education, welfare, and housing policies, the contributors reassess the findings of the report in light of developments over the last thirty years, including the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Some argue that the long-standing obstacles faced by the urban poor cannot be removed without revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods; others emphasize strategies to break down racial and economic isolation and promote residential desegregation throughout metropolitan areas."

Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World edited by Julian Agyeman, Robert D. Bullard and Bob Evans, 2003 (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. Just Sustainabilities argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses many aspects of the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice more generally."

Our Unprotected Heritage: Whitewashing the Destruction of Our Cultural and Natural Environment by Thomas F King - "Most Americans agree that our heritage—both natural and cultural—should be protected. Then why does development run rampant, aided—rather than limited—by government inaction? Tom King has been a participant in and observer of this system for decades, as a government worker, heritage consultant, and advocate for local communities. In this hard-hitting critique of the heritage-industrial complex, King points the finger at watchdogs who instead serve as advocates, unintelligible (often contradictory) regulations, disinterested government employees and power-seeking agencies, all of whom conspire to keep our heritage unprotected. His solution to this crisis will be uncomfortable to many in power, but may help save more of our cultural and natural treasures."

History

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities."

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles--the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality--were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance."

The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America by Anders Walker (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In this dramatic reexamination of the Jim Crow South, Anders Walker demonstrates that racial segregation fostered not simply terror and violence, but also diversity, one of our most celebrated ideals. He investigates how prominent intellectuals like Robert Penn Warren, James Baldwin, Eudora Welty, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, and Zora Neale Hurston found pluralism in Jim Crow, a legal system that created two worlds, each with its own institutions, traditions, even cultures."

Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities by Craig Steven Wilder (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Many of America's revered colleges and universities--from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC--were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them."

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Revised) by Ronald Takaki (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounted the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States--Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others--groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture."

American Lynching by Ashraf H.A. Rushdy (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Rushdy gives a comprehensive, eloquently interpreted history of lynching as it has evolved and been redefined over the course of three centuries in American history."

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis (Uncle Bobbie's) - "The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light...By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred."

Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them--and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next."

Whose Story Is This?: Old Conflicts, New Chapters by Rebecca Solnit (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Who gets to shape the narrative of our times? The current moment is a battle royale over that foundational power, one in which women, people of color, non-straight people are telling other versions, and white people and men and particularly white men are trying to hang onto the old versions and their own centrality. In Whose Story Is This? Rebecca Solnit appraises what's emerging and why it matters and what the obstacles are."

Preservation in Indigenous Communities
*written by Native authors 

* Battiste, Marie Ann, and James Youngblood Henderson. Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge. Saskatoon: Purich Pub, 2000.
"The authors paint a passionate picture of the devastation these assaults have wrought on Indigenous peoples. They illustrate why current legal regimes are inadequate to protect Indigenous knowledge and put forward ideas for reform. This book looks at the issues from an international perspective and explores developments in various countries including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and also at the work of the United Nations and all relevant international agreements." -UBS Press

Clavir, Miriam. Preserving What Is Valued Museums, Conservation, and First Nations. Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, 2002. 
"Preserving What Is Valued explores the concept of preserving heritage. It presents the conservation profession's code of ethics and discusses four significant contexts embedded in museum conservation practice: science, professionalization, museum practice, and the relationship between museums and First Nations peoples." -UBC Press

* Echo-Hawk, Walter R. In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 2013. Chapter 6: Toward an American Land Ethic.
"Walter Echo-Hawk, legendary civil rights attorney, discusses his latest book In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America & the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, stressing the need for Native nations and peoples to band together to mount a campaign to compel the United States to fully embrace and implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples." - The University of Arizona 

Gulliford, Andrew. Sacred Objects and Sacred Places Preserving Tribal Traditions. Niwot, Colo: University Press of Colorado, 2000.
"Sacred Objects and Sacred Places combines native oral histories, photographs, drawings, and case studies to present current issues of cultural preservations vital to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Complete with commentaries by curators, native peoples, and archaeologists, this book discusses the repatriation of human remains, the curation and exhibition of sacred masks and medicine bundles, and key cultural compromises for preservation successes in protecting sacred places on private, state and federal lands."

Hufford, Mary. Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Chapter 23 Downer, Roberts, Francis, and Kelley – “Traditional History and Alternative Conceptions of the Past.”

Loomis, Ormond. Cultural Conservation: The Protection of Cultural Heritage in the United States: a Study. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1983. 

King, Thomas F. Places That Count: Traditional Cultural Properties in Cultural Resource Management. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2003.

Oliver, Paul. Built to Meet Needs: Cultural Issues in Vernacular Architecture. Amsterdam: Architectural, 2006. 

Parker, Patricia L. Keepers of the Treasures: Protecting Historic Properties and Cultural Traditions on Indian Lands : a Report on Tribal Preservation Funding Needs Submitted to Congress by the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior. [Washington, D.C.?]: The Branch, 1990.  

Stapp, Darby C., and Michael S. Burney. Tribal Cultural Resource Management: The Full Circle to Stewardship. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002. 

Wilson, Chris. The Myth of Santa Fe Creating a Modern Regional Tradition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. 

Biographies, Non-Fiction Novels, and Personal Narratives

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters, " written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism."

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (Uncle Bobbie's) - "With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves."

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. Here, the man who called himself "the angriest Black man in America" relates how his conversion to true Islam helped him confront his rage and recognize the brotherhood of all mankind."

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "A heartfelt meditation on the realities of life in the US as a black man, and a damning appraisal of the systems and beliefs that make that reality a dangerous one. Written as a letter to his son, it sees Coates touch on the lived experiences that formed his ideology, weaving in the reporting and analysis that have made him one of the leading voices on race today."

Killing Rage: Ending Racism by Bell Hooks (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Bell Hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must be achieved hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race. Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays, most of them new works, are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it."

Becoming by Michelle Obama (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms."

Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South by Anne Moody (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Written without a trace of sentimentality or apology, this is an unforgettable personal story -- the truth as a remarkable young woman named Anne Moody lived it. To read her book is to know what it is to have grown up black in Mississippi in the forties an fifties -- and to have survived with pride and courage intact. In this now classic autobiography, she details the sights, smells, and suffering of growing up in a racist society and candidily reveals the soul of a black girl who had the courage to challenge it. The result is a touchstone work: an accurate, authoritative portrait of black family life in the rural South and a moving account of a woman's indomitable heart."

Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property."

The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant--the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah's father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah's birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae's thirteenth and most unruly child."

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Uncle Bobbie's) - "When young public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson opened the Equal Justice Initiative in 1989 — a nonprofit offering legal representation to people who've suffered illegal conviction or excessive punishment — one of his first clients was Walter McMillian, who was sitting on death row for the murder (of a white woman) that he didn't commit. Just Mercy recounts Stevenson's experience working to overturn McMillian's wrongful conviction, and illuminates the institutional racism and corruption that allowed for it."

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Uncle Bobbie's) - "From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals."

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive."

Check Your Privilege: Live into the Work by Myisha T Hill, Brandy Varnado, and Jennifer Kinney (Uncle Bobbie's) - "ive social activists offer a window into their journeys of Living Into the Work. Learning from their relationships with anti-blackness, white supremacy, privilege, and discrimination, we feel empowered to brave the next step on our our Check Your Privilege journeys."

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, these contemporary writers reflect on the past, present, and future of race in America. We've made significant progress in the fifty-odd years since Baldwin's essays were published, but America is a long and painful distance away from a "post-racial society"--a truth we must confront if we are to continue to work towards change."

How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide by Crystal Marie Fleming (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Combining no-holds-barred social critique, humorous personal anecdotes, and analysis of the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on systemic racism, sociologist Crystal M. Fleming provides a fresh, accessible, and irreverent take on everything that's wrong with our "national conversation about race." Drawing upon critical race theory, as well as her own experiences as a queer black millennial college professor and researcher, Fleming unveils how systemic racism exposes us all to racial ignorance--and provides a road map for transforming our knowledge into concrete social change."

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby (Uncle Bobbie's) - "One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement, Ella Baker (1903-1986) was an activist whose remarkable career spanned fifty years and touched thousands of lives. In this deeply researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the twentieth century."

The House That Race Built: Original Essays by Toni Morrison, Angela Y. Davis, Cornel West, and Others on Black Americans and Politics in America edited by Wahneema Lubiano (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In these essays, brought together by the scholar Wahneema Lubiano, some of today's most respected intellectuals share their ideas on race, power, gender, and society.The authors, including Cornel West, Angela Y. Davis, and Toni Morrison, argue that we have reached a crisis of democracy represented by an ominous shift toward a renewed white nationalism in which racism is operating in coded, quasi-respectable new forms."

The Hottest Water in Chicago: Notes of  Native Daughter by Gayle Pemberton (Uncle Bobbie's, audiobook narrated by the author on Audible) - "Gayle Pemberton shares the accumulated revelations of a lifetime of observation in sixteen provocative autobiographical essays, interweaving her own history and that of her family with reflections on American literature, art, music, and film. Building on the tradition of such writers as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, but with a wisdom and sharp wit uniquely her own, Pemberton moves from the integration of a transient hotel in Chicago to a party on that city's Gold Coast; from journeys by train and the memories they provoke to reflections on race aboard ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; from the Mickey Mouse Club to the ghost of Emmett Till; from Harvard to Hollywood."

Black Feminism

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "The Combahee River Collective, a path-breaking group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women's liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection of essays and interviews edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today's struggles."

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In Black Feminist Thought, renowned sociology scholar Collins created an undeniable foundational text in black feminism, as well as a framework for reading and understanding black feminist thinkers before her, including Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde."

Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by Bell Hooks (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Examining the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the black woman's involvement with feminism, hooks attempts to move us beyond racist and sexist assumptions."

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics."

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Cooper, a professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University, draws from her own experience in this hybrid memoir/cultural criticism, rejecting the stereotype of black women's anger as something irrational and easily dismissed, and instead opening up that anger to show its power."

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walker speaks out as a
black woman, writer, mother, and feminist in thirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Among the contents are essays about other writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the 1980s, and a vivid memoir of a scarring childhood injury and her daughter's healing words."

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "15 beautifully written speeches and essays by the black lesbian feminist poet that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about feminism, race, sex, ageism, homophobia, and power. "

The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "'These are poems which blaze and pulse on the page.' Adrienne Rich 'The first declaration of a black, lesbian feminist identity took place in these poems, and set the terms beautifully, forcefully for contemporary multicultural and pluralist debate.'"

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis (Uncle Bobbie's) - "A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. From the widely revered and legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis."

Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. "

Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black by Bell Hooks (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In childhood, bell hooks was taught that "talking back" meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure and daring to disagree and/or have an opinion. In this collection of personal and theoretical essays, hooks reflects on her signature issues of racism and feminism, politics and pedagogy. Among her discoveries is that moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, making new life and new growth possible."

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story by Elaine Brown (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Brown's account of her life at the highest levels of the Black Panther parly's hierarchy. More than a journey through a turbulent time in American history, this is the story of a black woman's battle to define herself."

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery's city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really lay beneath the 1955 boycott is far different from anything previously written."

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux."

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law."

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In essays, poetry, interviews, and criticism, contributors (including Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Aurora Levins Morales) described the ways in which non-white women are oppressed because of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class, spurring the necessary shift in feminism toward intersectionality."

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry (Uncle Bobbie's) - "This groundbreaking book brings to light derogatory stereotypes that shape the experiences of African American women, then assesses the emotional and political costs of the struggle to counteract such negative assumptions."

Black LGBTQ+

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart."

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography by Geraldine Audre Lorde (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "From the author's vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde's work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page."

Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends--some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community."

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "A manifesto from one of America's most influential activists which disrupts political, economic, and social norms by reimagining the Black Radical Tradition.Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Unapologetic challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist."

No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies by E. Patrick Johnson (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Nineteen essays from the next generation of scholars, activists, and community leaders doing work on black gender and sexuality. Building on the foundations laid by the earlier volume, this collection's contributors speak new truths about the black queer experience while exemplifying the codification of black queer studies as a rigorous and important field of study."

Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell (Uncle Bobbie's) - "DeShawn lives a high, creative, and promiscuous life in San Francisco. But when he's called back to his cramped Alabama hometown for his uncle's funeral, he's hit by flashbacks of handsome, doomed neighbors and sweltering Sunday services. Amidst prickly reminders of his childhood, DeShawn ponders family, church, and the men in his life, prompting the question: Who deserves love?"

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Told with grace, humor, and courage, Chin plumbs tender and unsettling memories as she writes about drifting from one home to the next, coming out as a lesbian, finding the man she believes to be her father, and ultimately, discovering her voice."

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L Moore (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "From a leading journalist and activist comes a brave, beautifully wrought memoir. When Darnell Moore was fourteen, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire. They cornered him while he was walking home from school, harassed him because they thought he was gay, and poured a jug of gasoline on him. He escaped, but just barely. It wasn't the last time he would face death. Three decades later, Moore is an award-winning writer, a leading Black Lives Matter activist, and an advocate for justice and liberation."

The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie (Uncle Bobbie's) - "At one time a wild young girl and a brilliant artist, Ava Delaney changes dramatically after a violent event that rocks her entire family. Once loved and respected in their community and in their church, they are ostracized by their neighbors, led by their church leader, and a seventeen-year feud between the Delaneys and the church ensues. Ava and her family are displaced from the community even as they continue to live within it, trapped inside their creaky, shadowy old house. When a mysterious woman arrives unexpectedly for a visit, her presence stirs up the past and ghosts and other restless things begin to emerge. And something is reignited in Ava: the indifferent woman she has become begins to give way to the wild girl, and the passionate artist, she used to be. But not without a struggle that threatens her well-being and, ultimately, her life."

All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys."

Black-Centered Fiction

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison's virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing."

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does--or does not--say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life."

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots."

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi's extraordinary novel illuminates slavery's troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed--and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation."

Native Son by Richard Wright (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America."

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

Beloved by Toni Morrison (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's, Hakim's) - "Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved."

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Uncle Bobbie's) - "With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor's beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover's charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna's willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war."

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her--but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he's ever known.So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram's resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures."

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she's constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places...including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, "What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?"--all of the questions today's woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her."

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion--for each other and for their homeland."

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother's side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age--and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned."

Training School for Negro Girls by Camille Acker (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In her debut short story collection, Camille Acker unleashes the irony and tragic comedy of respectability onto a wide-ranging cast of characters, all of whom call Washington, DC, home. A "woke" millennial tries to fight gentrification, only to learn she's part of the problem; a grade school teacher dreams of a better DC, only to take out her frustrations on her students; and a young piano player wins a competition, only to learn the prize is worthless. Ultimately, they are confronted with the fact that respectability does not equal freedom. Instead, they must learn to trust their own conflicted judgment and fight to create their own sense of space and self."

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions.Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith ... and a startling vision of human destiny."

Police Violence and Mass Incarceration

Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In this "thought-provoking and important" (Library Journal) analysis of state-sanctioned violence, Marc Lamont Hill carefully considers a string of high-profile deaths in America--Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and others--and incidents of gross negligence by government, such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. He digs underneath these events to uncover patterns and policies of authority that allow some citizens become disempowered, disenfranchised, poor, uneducated, exploited, vulnerable, and disposable. To help us understand the plight of vulnerable communities, he examines the effects of unfettered capitalism, mass incarceration, and political power while urging us to consider a new world in which everyone has a chance to become somebody."

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation's urban centers.Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness--and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods."

Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea Ritchie (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. By placing the individual stories of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, Andrea Ritchie documents the evolution of movements centered around women's experiences of policing."

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Uncle Bobbie's, Hakim's) - "By targeting black communities through programs like the War on Drugs, stop and frisk, and "broken windows" policing, Alexander argues, the government has enacted a new type of racial control — mass incarceration."

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad (Uncle Bobbie's) - "A brilliant and deeply disturbing biography of the idea of black criminality in the making of modern urban America, The Condemnation of Blackness reveals the influence this pernicious myth, rooted in crime statistics, has had on our society and our sense of self. Black crime statistics have shaped debates about everything from public education to policing to presidential elections, fueling racism and justifying inequality."

Education

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should--and could--be taught to American students. For this new edition, Loewen has added a new preface that shows how inadequate history courses in high school help produce adult Americans who think Donald Trump can solve their problems, and calls out academic historians for abandoning the concept of truth in a misguided effort to be 'objective.'"

Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock (Uncle Bobbie's) - "This book considers in unprecedented detail one of the most confounding questions in American racial practice: when to speak about people in racial terms. Viewing race talk through the lens of a California high school and district, Colormute draws on three years of ethnographic research on everyday race labeling in education. Based on the author's experiences as a teacher as well as an anthropologist, it discusses the role race plays in everyday and policy talk about such familiar topics as discipline, achievement, curriculum reform, and educational inequality."

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious."

Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education by Ali Michael (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Raising Race Questions invites teachers to use inquiry as a way to develop sustained engagement with challenging racial questions and to do so in community so that they learn how common their questions actually are. It lays out both a process for getting to questions that lead to growth and change, as well as a vision for where engagement with race questions might lead. Race questions are not meant to lead us into a quagmire of guilt, discomfort, or isolation. Sustained race inquiry is meant to lead to antiracist classrooms, positive racial identities, and a restoration of the wholeness of spirit and community that racism undermines."

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve L. Ewing (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures--they're an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together... Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools--schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs--as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination."

Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom by Matthew R. Kay (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Inspired by Frederick Douglass's abolitionist call to action, "it is not light that is needed, but fire" Matthew Kay has spent his career learning how to lead students through the most difficult race conversations. Kay not only makes the case that high school classrooms are one of the best places to have those conversations, but he also offers a method for getting them right."

Politics and Economics

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Political scientist and Columbia professor Ira Katznelson's book is a shrewd and revelatory examination of the civil rights programs that came out throughout the 1930s and 1940s, exposing the deep discriminations that allowed the economic gap between blacks and whites to continue to widen after the war."

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López (Uncle Bobbie's) - "In Dog Whistle Politics, Ian Haney López offers a sweeping account of how politicians and plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog whistle appeals generate middle-class enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration, and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and financial markets, and aggressively curtail social services."

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise."

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Darryl Pinckney's meditation on a century and a half of participation by blacks in US electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and social analysis, he investigates the struggle for black voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement to Barack Obama's two presidential campaigns. Drawing on the work of scholars, the memoirs of civil rights workers, and the speeches and writings of black leaders like Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael, Andrew Young and John Lewis, Pinckney traces the disagreements among blacks about the best strategies for achieving equality in American society as well as the ways in which they gradually came to create the Democratic voting bloc that contributed to the election of the first black president."

Medicine and Bioethics

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years... Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of."

Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities."

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts (Uncle Bobbie's) - "This groundbreaking book by the acclaimed Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of biological concept of race--revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases--continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era."

Allyship

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by By Robin DiAngelo (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Antiracist educator DiAngelo explores the defensive and aggressive reactions white people have when they're confronted with the reality of racial inequality and the ways they enable it. DiAngelo breaks down the idea of white fragility, identifying its related emotions (anger, fear, guilt) and its counterproductive behaviors (argumentation, silence), explaining how these behaviors allow for white supremacy, and outlining ways to more earnestly and constructively engage in antiracist work."

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Using stories from his own life, Tim Wise demonstrates the ways in which racism not only burdens people of color, but also benefits, in relative terms, those who are "white like him." He discusses how racial privilege can harm whites in the long run and make progressive social change less likely. He explores the ways in which whites can challenge their unjust privileges, and explains in clear and convincing language why it is in the best interest of whites themselves to do so. Using anecdotes instead of stale statistics, Wise weaves a narrative that is at once readable and yet scholarly, analytical and yet accessible."

Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's acclaimed Racism without Racists documents how, beneath our contemporary conversation about race, there lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for-and ultimately justify-racial inequalities. The fifth edition of this provocative book makes clear that color blind racism is as insidious now as ever. It features new material on our current racial climate, including the Black Lives Matter movement; a significantly revised chapter that examines the Obama presidency, the 2016 election, and Trump's presidency; and a new chapter addressing what readers can do to confront racism-both personally and on a larger structural level."

Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel (Uncle Bobbie's) - "This fourth edition of Uprooting Racism offers a framework around neoliberalism and interpersonal, institutional, and cultural racism, along with stories of resistance and white solidarity. It provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, engaging the reader through questions, exercises, and suggestions for action, and includes a wealth of information about specific cultural groups such as Muslims, people with mixed heritage, Native Americans, Jews, recent immigrants, Asian Americans, and Latino/as."

The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit From Identity Politics by George Lipsitz (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Black studies scholar Lipsitz offers an exhaustive analysis of the many ways in which whiteness is centered and rewarded in housing, education, health care, employment, and culture, as well as an examination of white privilege as it's long been defined and critiqued in radical black culture."

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society."

What Does It Mean to Be White?; Developing White Racial Literacy by Robin Diangelo (Uncle Bobbie's, Harriet's) - "Speaking as a white person to other white people, DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes readers through an analysis of white socialization. Weaving research, analysis, stories, images, and familiar examples, she provides the framework needed to develop white racial literacy. She describes how race shapes the lives of white people, explains what makes racism so hard to see, identifies common white racial patterns, and speaks back to popular narratives that work to deny racism."

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Professor of psychology at Stanford Jennifer Eberhardt exposes the hidden racial biases that directly affect our lives — biases built into, among others, political, educational, medical, justice, and financial systems in the US. It's a scientific, analytical, and personal examination of these widespread prejudices, as well as an empowering and even hopeful guide for ways to help dismantle them."

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases, whether you are using the book on your own, with a book club, or looking to start family activism in your own home."

Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction by Terrance MacMullan (Uncle Bobbie's) - "The concept of racial whiteness has undermined attempts to create a truly democratic society in the United States. By getting to the core of the racism that lives on in unrecognized habits, MacMullan argues clearly and charitably for white folk to recognize the distance between their color-blind ideals and their actual behavior."

Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey (Uncle Bobbie's) - "Living in a racially unjust and deeply segregated nation creates unique conundrums for white children that begin early in life and impact development in powerful ways. Raising White Kids offers age-appropriate insights for teaching children how to address racism when they encounter it and tackles tough questions about how to help white kids be mindful of racial relations while understanding their own identity and the role they can play for justice."

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Articles, Chapters of Books, Reports, and Blogs

The 1619 Project (various essays), The New York Times Magazine - "The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative."

Is Travel Next in the Fight Over Who Profits From Native American Culture? By Karen Schwartz "From motels to spa treatments, the industry has often used Indigenous imagery to gain a sense of authenticity. Amid an ongoing national conversation around race, will that change?" (August 3, 2021) 

"How Did We Get Here? 163 years of The Atlantic’s writing on race and racism in America" (various articles), The Atlantic - A collection of over 75 articles on various topics related to race in American, dating from 1857 - present day.

EJI Reports by the Equal Justice Initiative - Available reports include "Slavery in America: The Montgomery Slave Trade", "Reconstruction in America: Racial Violence after the Civil War", "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror", "Targeting Black Veterans: Lynching in America", "Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy", "Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison", "All Children Are Children: Challenging Abusive Punishment of Juveniles", and "The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override".

“Where do I donate? Why is the uprising violent? Should I go protest?”, Courtney Martin, Medium (June 1, 2020)

“Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?”, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, The Atlantic (May 12, 2020)

“The Intersectionality Wars”, by Jane Coaston, Vox (May 28, 2019)

"Are All White Americans Police Officers?", Andre Henry, Medium (May 7, 2020)

"The Case for Reparations", Ta-nehisi Coates, The Atlantic (June 2014)

"America, The House That Slavery Built", Tasha Williams, Pacific Standard (Updated: June 27, 2018, Original: August 5, 2016)

"Blacks And Jews Entangled", Edward S. Shapiro, My Jewish Learning.

"Civil Rights Protests Have Never Been Popular", Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic (October 3, 2017)

"The Subtle Linguistics of White Supremacy", Yawo Brown, Medium, August 14, 2015)

"Who’s Afraid of Critical Race Theory?", Derrick A. Bell, University of Illinois Law Review, Iss. 4, 1995.

Preservation, Architecture, Planning and Design

"Why Do We Save White Monuments and Let Black History Rot?", Starr Herr-Cardillo, Plan Philly (June 1, 2020)

"Robert E. Lee statue and Daughters of Confederacy Building Attacked by Richmond Protesters", Lynda Robinson, The Washington Post (May 31, 2020)

"Damaging Buildings Disproportionately Hurts the People Protesters are Trying to Uplift", Inga Saffron, The Philadelphia Inquirer (June 1, 2020)

"Check Out a Syllabus for an Urban Design Course That Somehow Doesn't Exist Yet", Sameer Rao, COLORLINES (August 6, 2015)

“Black Landscapes Matter”, Kofi Boone, Ground Up Journal, Issue 06: Of Process

“What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design?”, Ahmed Ansari, Eye on Design (June 5, 2019)

“Why Can’t the US Decolonize Its Design Education?”, Margaret Anderson, Eye on Design (January 2, 2017)

"Taking Intersectionality Seriously: Learning from LGBTQ Heritage Initiatives for Historic Preservation", Donna Graves and Gail Dubrow, The Public Historian, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May 2019)

"The Just City Essays: Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusivity and Opportunity", Next City (October 19, 2015) - An except of 6 of the 26 essays included in Next City's The Just City Essays ebook.

"Is the National Register of Historic Places Helping or Hindering Legacy City Preservation?", Michael R. Allen, Preservation Rightsizing Network (November 12, 2014)  

"A Battle Over Historical Significance for the Carlisle Indian School Farmhouse", Rick Kearns, Indian Country Today (September 8, 2012) 

"How US Law is the Cause of Social Jjustice Issues in Historic Preservation Practice", Jeremy Wells, Conserving the Human Environment (May 31, 2020)

"Local Preservation Ordinances: A One Size Fits All Approach to Social Injustice", Jeremy Wells, Conserving the Human Environment (April 25, 2020) 

"Social Justice and Using Heritage Values to Prioritize Climate Change Decisions", Jeremy Wells, Conserving the Human Environment (April 1, 2020)

"A History of Native Americans Protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline", Alexander Sammon, Mother Jones (September 9, 2016)

"How Should Heritage Decisions Be Made?" (report), Martin Bashforth, University of Leeds (2015)

"Tangible Benefits From Intangible Resources: Using Social and Cultural History to Plan Neighborhood Futures", James Michael Buckley and Donna Graves, Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(2), 152–166 (2016) - "Intense development pressures in fast-growing cities threaten to displace many social and ethnic minority populations and the diverse histories they have created. We assess recent efforts of planners and preservationists in San Francisco to develop programs that use history to encourage greater participation of marginalized populations in the local planning process and protect cultural practices that contribute to the city's diversity. We find that these joint efforts to develop broad cultural preservation programs offer the potential to make planning more inclusive of underserved populations and preserve elements of diverse cultural traditions. However, San Francisco's experience demonstrates the challenges these programs present for planning practice because the historic resources of marginalized populations are often more "intangible" than traditional landmarks. The difficulties encountered include adequately identifying such historic sites, creating new tools to protect them, and the openness of planning and preservation professionals to "softer" interpretations of cultural importance."

"From Engagement to Empowerment: How Heritage Professionals Can Incorporate Participatory Methods in Disaster Recovery to Better Serve Socially Vulnerable Groups", Jamesha Gibson, Marccus D. Hendricks, and Jeremy C. Wells, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25(6), 596–610 (2018) - "This article examines how the values, doctrines, and methodologies of orthodox heritage practice are incorporated into legal regulatory systems and thereby concentrate power in the hands of heritage professionals. The values, doctrines, and methodologies of orthodox heritage practice do not consider marginalization, segregation, and exploitation of traditionally disenfranchised groups. Socially vulnerable groups are at a particular disadvantage in post-disaster scenarios and are excluded from the planning and decision-making process for the recovery and preservation of their heritage. Using Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in the United States of America as an example, this article argues that orthodox heritage practice’s neglect of crucial social trends limit citizen empowerment and decision-making abilities for traditionally disenfranchised groups in heritage recovery, management, and planning after disaster. It goes on to propose a sequential mixed-method approach wherein heritage professionals can expand their roles from regulators to facilitators by adopting participatory methods. Though this article examines the issues of vulnerability and exclusion through a U.S. example, the authors hope that this article can open a deeper discussion of these themes in an international context."

"Reinterpreting the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site", Douglas A. Hurt, The Geographical Review, 100(3), 375–393 (2010) - "Geographers have long attempted to interpret sacred and symbolic landscapes as representative of the ideals of individuals, communities, and cultures. This article assesses the changing historical and contemporary interpretations of the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site and gauges the impact of these conflicting viewpoints. The Washita Valley in western Oklahoma was the location of a November 1868 engagement between U.S. military forces commanded by George Custer and the Cheyenne camp of Black Kettle. Since that date, non‐native narratives have dominated Washita interpretation. Today, plans are being developed to emphasize Cheyenne viewpoints of the Washita and to alter the commemorative landscape of the site in order to better present a balanced historical narrative to visitors. Since 1868 three themes have dominated interpretation of the Washita: conflict, indifference, and memorialization."

"Archaeology as State Heritage Crime", Richard M. Hutchings and Marina La Salle, Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress, 13(1), 66-87 (2017). - "North American archaeology is evaluated in light of state and heritage crime theory. When analyzed with preexisting typologies, the practice is shown to meet the threshold for state-sanctioned heritage crime. This study also demonstrates how current models of heritage crime do not adequately account for (1) the pivotal role states and state-sanctioned heritage experts play in committing heritage crime and (2) the implications of heritage crime for living descendant communities, not just physical artifacts and buildings. Typically thought of as crime against the state, seeing a state heritage regime as organized heritage crime opens the door to a host of theoretical and practical possibilities, including legal remedies for affected communities. Despite these opportunities, major impediments to meaningful change exist."

"'What Could Be More Reasonable?' Collaboration in Colonial Contexts", Marina La Salle and Richard M. Hutchings, edited by Angela M. Labrador and Neil Asher Silberman, The Oxford Handbook of Public Heritage Theory and Practice, 223–237 (2018) - "Collaboration is considered a panacea in North American archaeology today—a cure-all that is claimed to have radically transformed the discipline by bringing about equality and decolonization. Such assertions are problematic on many fronts, especially because collaborative archaeology has undergone little critical assessment. Based on our analysis of how the practice is defined, how social power is construed and measured, and how the goal of decolonization is conceptualized, we show collaboration to be a colonial whitewash that appropriates the methods and values of Indigenous archaeology. Rather than transformation and liberation, collaborative archaeology is ultimately rooted in cooptation and dependence. We contend that rather than decolonizing, collaborative archaeology is a steadfastly colonial enterprise."

"Dissonant Memories of Japanese American Incarceration", Koji Lau-Ozawa, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25(7), 656-670 (2018) - "Memories of the Japanese American Incarceration Camps during WWII vary widely across America. For some, memories of the incarceration are a focal point of their identity and a driver of political action. Others who underwent this imprisonment choose not to recall their experiences. Incarceration can haunt their descendants as an ever-present but silenced past. Broadly, the United States’ relationship to this past is fractured. Activists invoke the incarceration as an affront to American values. As recently as 2017, politicians recall it as precedent for immigration bans and proposed legislation for the incarceration of minority groups. For many, it is not remembered at all, left out of the master narrative of American history. In this article, I discuss the dissonant memorialisations associated with seven detention facilities, key components to the infrastructure of mass removal and incarceration. Archaeology must actively engage with such uneven terrains of memory."

"Cultural Preservation Policy and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Reimagining Historic Preservation in Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities", Michelle Magalong and Dawn Mabalon, AAPI Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice, and Community, 14(2), 105–116 (2016) - "Historic and cultural preservation is a significant issue for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) seeking to safeguard important historic places, preserve unique cultural practices, and receive official recognition of civic contributions. However, few sites associated with AAPI history and cultures have been recognized as landmarks. With the fiftieth anniversary of the Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service have embarked on an Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Initiative to explore how the legacy of AAPIs can be recognized, preserved, and interpreted for future generations. To understand what we could be commemorating on the act’s fiftieth anniversary, this essay will offer policy recommendations for preserving, landmarking, and interpreting AAPI historic and cultural sites into 2040 and beyond."

"In the Eyes of the Beholder: Understanding and Resolving Incompatible Ideologies and Languages in US Environmental and Cultural Laws in Relationship to Navajo Sacred Lands", Sharon Milholland, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 34(2), 103–124 (2010)

"Against the Reception of Eurocentric Heritage Theories on Non-Western Cultures: A Case of Pre/Post Colonisation in Nigeria", Obafemi Alaba Olukoya, J. Rodrigues dos Santos (Ed.), In Preserving Transcultural Heritage: Your Way or My Way?, 953–963 (2017) Caleidoscópio.

"Etched in Stone: Historic Preservation Law and Confederate Monuments", Jess R. Phelps and Jessica Owley, Florida Law Review, 71(3), 627–688 (2019)

"'Until the Lord Come Get Me, It Burn Down, Or the Next Storm Blow It Away': The Aesthetics of Freedom in African American Vernacular Homestead Preservation", Andrea Roberts, Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 26(2), 73–97 (2019) - "Peer-reviewed article about grassroots cultural landscape preservation of historic Black settlements' homesteads."

"Producing and Protesting Invisibility in Silver Spring, Maryland", David S Rotenstein, in N. Wuertenberg & W. Horne (Eds.), Demand the Impossible: Essays in History as Activism, 89–111 (2018)

"Accountability or Merely "Good Words"? An Analysis of Tribal Consultation Under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act", Matthew J. Rowe, Judson Byrd Finley, and Elizabeth Baldwin, Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy 8(2) (2018) - "The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) brought issues of environmental justice, energy development, and Native American sovereignty to worldwide attention. Central to this dispute was the definition of “meaningful” consultation within the context of the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and the National Historic Preservation Act (1966). Many cases document the failure of the consultation process during NEPA and NHPA review, but this line of research does little to propose actions to mitigate these failures. This paper compares three projects involving Tribal governments that underwent NEPA and NHPA review and resulted in three different outcomes."

"Constrained by Commonsense: The Authorized Heritage Discourse in Contemporary Debates", L. Smith and E. Waterton, in R. Skeates, C. McDavid, & J. Carman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology, 153–171 (2012)

“'We’re on Fire': Oral History and the Preservation, Commemoration, and Rebirth of Mississippi’s Civil Rights Sites", Jessica Taylor, Oral History Review, 42(2) (2015) - "This article draws on my experience documenting the built landscape of the Mississippi Delta as part of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program’s annual fieldwork trip to Mississippi. Conversations between college students and civil rights activists reveal the heartbreaking fight to preserve and commemorate the movement on the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The struggle over the meaning of the civil rights movement, unfolding as period buildings deteriorate, is an extension of that movement. It calls oral historians, who archive and retell the meaning of these buildings, to the fore."

"The Underground Railroad and the National Register of Historic Places: Historical importance vs. Architectural integrity", Judith Wellman, The Public Historian, 24(1), 11–30 (2002)

"The Plurality of Truth in Culture, Context, and Heritage: A (Mostly) Post-Structuralist Analysis of Urban Conservation Charters", Jeremy C. Wells, City and Time, 3(2), 1–14 (2007) - "This paper analyzes international heritage conservation charters through the poststructuralist lens of relative and perspective-driven “truths,” fragmentation, and dramatic settings. The “SPAB Manifesto,” the Athens Charter, the Venice Charter, the Burra Charter, and the Nara Document on Authenticity are evaluated within the framework of discursive theories established by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Gilles Deleuze in regard to cultural meanings and absolute and relative truths. Preservation doctrine through the Venice Charter engages in a positivist truth based on the substantiation of material fetishes. These early doctrines imbue the materiality of the object with truth as an absolute rather than relative truths existing in the realm of cultural meanings and values. In other words, the object communicates the one, single reality in which it should exist. Beginning with the Burra Charter in 1979, there was an unselfconscious shift toward post-modern relativism. The Nara Document built on the ideas of cultural relativism, expressing a strong desire to respect diversity as embodied in the discursive act of semiotic communication. It eschewed judging the authenticity of heritage as a fixed concept and instead encouraged an evaluative process within the context of individual cultures. The question of future interpretive acts within the dramatic scene of cultural heritage must reconcile the positivist past of preBurra Charter documents with the relativism of later documents. At some point the material fetish of the Venice Charter must give way to the pluralism of truth rooted in cultural and not material contexts."

"In Stakeholders We Trust: Changing the Ontological and Epistemological Orientation of Built Heritage Assessment through Participatory Action Research", Jeremy C. Wells, chapter in B. Szmygin (Ed.), How to Assess Built Heritage? Assumptions, Methodologies, Examples of Heritage Assessment Systems, 215–265 (2015) - "In the twenty-first century, the relevance of the positivistic, orthodox heritage paradigm is increasingly being called into question in terms of its ability to provide an appropriate ontological and epistemological foundation for the assessment of built heritage. Heterodox heritage theory, largely represented by heritage studies, now presents the alternative paradigms of constructivism, critical theory, and postcolonial theory that are more suited to understanding the multiple truths and the pluralistic soci-ocultural values of a wider range of stakeholders' values. Heritage is also seen as a tool for social justice and to empower communities. In this environment, existing, orthodox tools to assess the value of built heritage are inadequate. Heterodox theory is largely based on a foundation of the social sciences and Participatory Action Research (PAR) may offer a way to provide a useful tool for practitioners that encompasses both het-erodox theory and the goals of social justice and community empowerment. Ultimately, PAR may offer a theoretical basis under which heritage researchers can provide empirical evidence to the claim that the valuation of historic fabric is a fundamental human value that transcends cultures."

"Latin Americans and Heritage Values in Allentown's 7th Street Corridor", Jeremy C. Wells, Anne Hirsch, Barbara Macholz Grimaldi, Karen Beck Pooley and Erika M. Sutherland, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 33(3), 181–198 (2016) - "There is a lack of research addressing how Latin American cultural groups perceive and value historic environments, which may lead to poor planning decisions in these neighborhoods. This study focuses on how Latin American business and property owners in the historic 7th Street Corridor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, perceive and value their older (pre-World War II) built environment and how decisions are made regarding the environment based on these values. The results indicated that participants clearly valued older buildings for their intrinsic "historic" quality but did not reject modernity, emphasizing the need to accommodate current uses, especially in the building interiors. Participants expressed a preference for buildings with more design complexity and for restoring buildings rather than preserving them in situ. They also shared a variety of positive and negative responses regarding the appropriateness of design modifications representing certain Latin American cultures in the corridor, such as certain colors or the flags of countries. The results of this study may help to influence planning and historic-preservation practice in older Latin American communities by using a values-based approach for interventions in preservation planning."

"Empowering Communities to Identify, Treat, and Protect Their Heritage: A Cultural Landscape Case Study of the Horto d’El Rey, Olinda, Brazil", Jeremy C. Wells, Ariadne Paulo Silva, Laryssa Araújo, Gabriela Azevêdo, Amanda Barros, Maria Eduarda, Eduardo Ferreira, Amanda Guerra, Valéria de Abreu e Lima, Ana Ísis Moura and Gustavo Tenório, chapter in K. Fouseki, T. S. Guttormsen, & G. Swensen (Eds.), Heritage and Sustainable Urban Transformations: Deep Cities, 185–207 (2019)

Philadelphia-focused

"I’m a West Philadelphian. The Looting is Not Our Biggest Problem.", Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, The Philadelphia Inquirer (June 2, 2020)

"Opinion: Philadelphia’s Anti-Racism Riot Was a Cry From a City That’s Had Enough", Ernest Owens, Philadelphia Magazine (May 31, 2020)

"Men Break Out Guns, Bats and Hatchets to “Protect” South Philly’s Christopher Columbus Statue", Victor Fiorillo, Philadelphia Magazine (June 15, 2020)

Black Lives Matter Mural in DC

"BLM DC Response to Bowser Mural", Black Lives Matter DC (2020) 

"The DC Mayor Had 'Black Lives Matter' Painted Onto The Street. A Day Later, Protesters Added 'Defund The Police.'" Kadia Goba, BuzzFeed News (June 6, 2020) 

"D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser: 'Not At All' Reconsidering Police Funding", James Doubek, NPR (June 10, 2020)

"We Need Action to Accompany Art", Brandi T. Summers, The Boston Globe (June 11, 2020)

"The Mimetic Power of D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Mural", Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker (June 9, 2020)

Black Feminism

"The Combahee River Collective Statement" Zillah Eisenstein (1978)

"On Trans Dissemblance: Or, Why Trans Studies Needs Black Feminism", Varun Chaudhry, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 45, No. 3, Spring 2020.

"Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics", Kimberle Crenshaw, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Issue 1, Article 8,1989.

"Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought", Patricia Hill Collins, Social Problems, Vol. 33, No. 6, 1986.

"Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory", Angela P. Harris, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 42, No. 3, 1990.

Police Violence and Mass Incarceration

"Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests", Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker (June 1, 2020)

"How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities, Explained by a Historian", Anna North, Vox (June 6, 2020) - A conversation between Anna North and Khalil Muhammad, a professor of history, race, and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and author of the book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.

"Killing Us Softly: Navigating State and State-Sanctioned Violence Against Black Men’s Humanity", Charles H.F. Davis III and Keon A. McGuire, Medium (December 16, 2019)

Education

"Race without Racism: How Higher Education Researchers Minimize Racist Institutional Norms", Shaun Harper, The Review of Higher Education, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2012.

"On Being Comfortable with Discomfort: Tiffany Jewell Explains What It Means To Be Anti-racist", Vanessa Willoughby, School Library Journal (January 13, 2020)

"White Teachers Need Anti-racist Therapy", Bettina L. Love, Education Week (February 6, 2020)

Law

"Spirit-Murdering the Messenger: The Discourse of Fingerpointing as the Law's Response to Racism", Patricia Williams, University of Miami Law Review, Vol. 42, Iss. 1, 1987.

"A Critique of 'Our Constitution Is Color-Blind'", Neil Gotanda, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 44, No. 11991, 1991.

Public Health

“America’s Racial Contract Is Killing Us”, Adam Serwer, The Atlantic (May 8, 2020)

Immigration

"My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant", Jose Antonio Vargas, The New York Times Magazine (June 22, 2011)

LGBTQ+

"Unerased: Counting Black Trans Lives", Meredith Talusan, Brianna Provenzano, Mathew Rodriguez, Marie Solis and Anna Swartz, Mic (December 8, 2016) - "A team of five reporters built a comprehensive database of transgender Americans who have died by homicide from 2010-2016 and analyzed the reults to determine that the homicide victimization rate for Black trans women was more than seven times higher than the general population."

Allyship

"Racism, Whiteness, and Burnout in Antiracism Movements: How White Racial Justice Activists Elevate Burnout in Racial Justice Activists of Color in the United States", Paul Gorski, Ethnicities, Vol. 19, 2019.

"White People, Please Stop Declaring Yourself Allies", Ernest Owens, Philadelphia Magazine (June 15, 2020)

"Why I Am No Longer Talking To White People About Race", Reni Eddo-Lodge, The Guardian (May 30, 2017)

"White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack", Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women (1989)

"Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed", Ijeoma Oluo, Medium (March 16, 2017)

"White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement", Dr. Robin Diangelo (2015)

"Whiteness as Property", Cheryl Harris, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 106, No. 8, 1993.

"The Year I Gave Up White Comfort: An Ode to my White “Friends” on Being Better to Black Womxn", Rachel Ricketts, Medium (January 15, 2019)

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Podcasts

1619 by The New York Times - "Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. “1619,” a New York Times audio series hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, examines the long shadow of that fateful moment."

About Race by Panoply - "Co-discussants Anna Holmes, Baratunde Thurston, Raquel Cepeda and Tanner Colby host a lively multiracial, interracial conversation about the ways we can’t talk, don’t talk, would rather not talk, but intermittently, fitfully, embarrassingly do talk about culture, identity, politics, power, and privilege in our pre-post-yet-still-very-racial America."

Afropunk Solution Sessions by Afropunk - "There are times when simply calling out a problem is no longer enough — you have to fix it. AFROPUNK SOLUTION SESSIONS brings together the people with the tools, the experience and the resolve to solve the issues facing our community. An event-based platform and content series, SOLUTION SESSIONS engages social activists, experts, and entrepreneurs. By following fearless change agents and bright young artistic minds, we challenge our global audence — in a quest to remake the world as we want it to be. Be smart, be compassionate, be fearless, be ready to go."

Code Switch by NPR - "The fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story."

Come Through with Rebecca Carroll by WNYC Studios - "It’s an election year, and whether people want to admit it or not, race is at the center of every issue -- healthcare, jobs, climate change, the media, and more. Join host Rebecca Carroll for 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal moment for America. She talks to great thinkers, writers, and artists about faith, representation, white fragility, and how it’s all playing out in 2020."

Ear Hustle by Radiotopia - "Ear Hustle brings you the daily realitites of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration."

Intersectionality Matters! by African American Policy Forum - "A podcast hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory."

Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast - "Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast features movement voices, stories, and strategies for racial justice. Co-hosts Chevon and Hiba give their unique takes on race and pop culture, and uplift narratives of hope, struggle, and joy, as we continue to build the momentum needed to advance racial justice in our policies, institutions, and culture. Build on your racial justice lens and get inspired to drive action by learning from organizational leaders and community activists."

The Nod by Gimlet Media - "The Nod tells the stories of Black life that don’t get told anywhere else. Our show ranges from an explanation of purple drink’s association with Black culture to the story of an interracial drag troupe that traveled the nation in the 1940s. We celebrate the genius, the innovation, and the resilience that is so particular to being Black — in America, and around the world."

Our Political Moment by Reclaim Philadelphia - "We at Reclaim Philadelphia cannot be more excited to announce the launch of our NEW podcast Our Political Moment! Listen to stories from Philadelphians impacted by some of the biggest issues facing our city. We will also be interviewing organizers around the city who are fighting for solutions and providing actionable steps for listeners to get involved."

Pod For The Cause from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights - "From the courts to immigration, we’re seeing unprecedented attacks on the values we hold near and dear. At Pod for the Cause, we’re going to tackle these issues and more. Our friends in the movement will be stopping by to have these conversations, and they promise to be real, straightforward and honest. This podcast was created for those of you wanting to effect change, who understand the importance of restoring our democracy and want to engage in deep conversation around the issues."

Pod Save the People by Crooked Media - "On Pod Save the People, organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with fellow activists Brittany Packnett Cunningham and Sam Sinyangwe, and writer Dr. Clint Smith. They offer a unique take on the news, with a special focus on overlooked stories and topics that often impact people of color. There’s also a weekly one-on-one interview with DeRay and special guests, from singer/songwriter John Legend to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The experts, influencers, and diverse local and national leaders who come on the show go deep on social, political, and cultural issues."

Putting Racism on the Table - "In 2016, Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) launched Putting Racism on the Table Podcast Series for philanthropic executives and government officials to learn from experts on the many aspects of racism, including structural racism, white privilege, implicit bias, mass incarceration, and the racial mosaic of this country."

Race Traitor by I Heart Radio - "Even after you’ve intellectually rejected white supremacy, how does it show up in a room?  In a relationship? How do we divert intergenerational white power hoarding that is so normalized it’s nearly invisible? Phoebe’s been white her entire life. But she only realized a few years ago that she inherited a white value system. Through conversations with friends and confrontations with family, she takes inventory of the ways she embodies white supremacy — in order to disrupt it."

Radio Diaries by Radiotopia - "Radio Diaries tells the extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Since 1996, we’ve been giving people tape recorders and working with them to report on their own lives and histories. We’ve collaborated with teenagers and octogenarians, prisoners and prison guards, gospel preachers and bra saleswomen, the famous and the unknown…and along the way we’ve helped pioneer a new form of citizen journalism."

Seeing White by Scene On Radio - "Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story. Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series."

Speaking of Racism - "A podcast dedicated to honest discussion on race and racism."

There Goes the Neighborhood by WNYC Studios - "An in-depth look at gentrification and how it’s changing our cities."

The Thread (Season 3 - A History of Nonviolence) by OZY Media - "A podcast that traces the origins of nonviolent resistance as professed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement and how that movement continues to influence nonviolent resistance today.

Uncivil by Gimlet Media - "Uncivil brings you stories that were left out of the official history of the Civil War, ransacks America's past, and takes on the history you grew up with. We bring you untold stories about resistance, covert operations, corruption, mutiny, counterfeiting, antebellum drones, and so much more. And we connect these forgotten struggles to the political battlefield we’re living on right now. The story of the Civil War — the story of slavery, confederate monuments, racism — is the story of America."

The United States of Anxiety by WNYC Studios - "A show about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future."

White Lies by NPR - "In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama. Three men were tried and acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty years later, two journalists from Alabama return to the city where it happened, expose the lies that kept the murder from being solved and uncover a story about guilt and memory that says as much about America today as it does about the past."

The Wilderness by Crooked Media - "Favreau takes listeners to the four most competitive regions on the road to 270 electoral votes and 51 Senate seats, where he conducts focus groups with voters in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin. The series also follows grassroots organizers and candidates in these states who share their winning strategies to reach these voters. Through his own experience as a campaign veteran and speechwriter for Barack Obama, Favreau attempts to unpack the complicated and often surprising reasons voters support a particular candidate, or choose not to participate at all."

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Film

Documentaries

13th, director Ava DuVernay (Netflix) - "In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom."

​Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975, director Göran Olsson (Amazon Prime or Available to rent) - "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement. The filmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews."

I Am Not Your Negro, writer James Baldwin and director Raoul Peck (Available to rent or on Kanopy) - "In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends--Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript. Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and flood of rich archival material. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for."

King In The Wilderness, director Peter Kunhardt (HBO or Kanopy) - "Through personal stories of the people who were around him, this film follows Martin Luther King, Jr. during the last years of his life: from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in 1968."

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, director Stanley Nelson (Amazon Prime or Available to rent) - "This documentary tells the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, one of the 20th century's most alluring and controversial organizations that captivated the world's attention for nearly 50 years."

Whose Streets?, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis (Hulu) - "Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising. When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of St. Louis, Missouri. Grief, long-standing racial tensions and renewed anger bring residents together to hold vigil and protest this latest tragedy. Empowered parents, artists, and teachers from around the country come together as freedom fighters. As the National Guard descends on Ferguson with military grade weaponry, these young community members become the torchbearers of a new resistance. Filmmakers Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis know this story because they are the story. Whose Streets? is a powerful battle cry from a generation fighting, not for their civil rights, but for the right to live."

LA 92, co-directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin (Netflix) - "Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, filmmakers examine that tumultuous period through rarely seen archival footage."

What Happened, Miss Simone?, director Liz Garbus (Netflix) - "A documentary about the life and legend Nina Simone, an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist labeled the "High Priestess of Soul."

Strong Island, director Yance Ford (Netflix) - "The forces of family, grief and racial injustice converge in this Oscar-nominated documentary exploring the murder of filmmaker Yance Ford's brother."

The Loving Story, director Nancy Buirski (Tubi and HBO) - "Meet the Lovings: an interracial couple who had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to be together. Married in 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in the middle of the night for Virginia's crime of mixed marriage. Convicted on felony charges and banished from the state, the couple began a nine-year odyssey to get back to their friends and family."

Teach Us All, director Sonia Lowman (Netflix) - "It's been decades since Brown v. Board of Education, yet American schools remain largely segregated. Some leaders are working to change that."

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, director David France (Netflix) - "As she fights the tide of violence against trans women, activist Victoria Cruz probes the suspicious 1992 death of her friend Marsha P. Johnson."

Becoming, director Nadia Hallgren (Netflix) - "Join former first lady Michelle Obama in an intimate documentary looking at her life, hopes and connection with others as she tours with her book Becoming."

Homecoming: A film by Beyoncé, co-directors Beyoncé and Ed Burke (Netflix) - "This intimate, in-depth look at Beyoncé's celebrated 2018 Coachella performance reveals the emotional road from creative concept to cultural movement."

The Black Godfather, director Reginald Hudlin (Netflix) - "This documentary follows the life of Clarence Avant, the ultimate, uncensored mentor and behind-the-scenes rainmaker in music, film, TV and politics."

Feature Films

American Son, director Kenny Leon (Netflix) - "Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son."

Tangerine, director Sean Baker (Hulu or Available to rent) - "It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity."

Do the Right Thing, director Spike Lee (Available to rent) - "On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence."

Da 5 Bloods, director Spike Lee (Netflix) - "Four African American veterans return to Vietnam decades after the war to find their squad leader's remains — and a stash of buried gold."

Blindspotting, director Carlos López Estrada (HBO, Hulu with Cinemax or available to rent) - "Ex-con Collin is just three days away from the end of his probation--and the chance for a new start for the Oakland native. But an innocent night with his volatile best friend, Miles takes a terrible turn into violence."

Clemency, director Chinonye Chukwu (Available to rent) - "As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill."

Fruitvale Station, director Ryan Coogler (Available to rent) - "The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008."

If Beale Street Could Talk, director Barry Jenkins (Hulu) - "Based on the novel by James Baldwin, "If Beale Street Could Talk" is a soulful drama about a young couple fighting for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream."

Just Mercy, director Destin Daniel Cretton (Available to rent for free in June in the U.S. from Amazon Prime) - "World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner."

See You Yesterday, director Stefon Bristol (Netflix) - "As two teen prodigies try to master the art of time travel, a tragic police shooting sends them on a series of dangerous trips to the past."

Selma, director Ava DuVerna, (Available to rent) - "A chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965."

The Hate U Give, director George Tillman Jr. (Hulu with Cinemax) - "A teen witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend by a trigger-happy cop and must decide whether to testify or not."

Mudbound, director Dee Rees (Netflix) - "Two Mississippi families -- one black, one white -- confront the brutal realities of prejudice, farming and friendship in a divided World War II era."

Sorry to Bother You, director Boots Riley (Hulu) - "In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success, propelling him into a macabre universe."

Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins (Netflix) - "A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood."

Series

Dear White People, creator Justin Simien (Netflix) - "Students of color navigate the daily slights and slippery politics of life at an Ivy League college that's not nearly as "post-racial" as it thinks."

Pose, creators Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy (FX and Netflix) - "Pose is a drama spotlighting the legends, icons and ferocious house mothers of New York’s underground ball culture, a movement that first gained notice in the 1980s. Making television history, Pose features the largest cast of transgender actors in series regular roles."

When They See Us, director Ava DuVernay (Netflix) - "Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story."

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (Amazon Prime) - "This six-hour PBS series explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed — forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds."

Black Stories Presents: Your Attention Please (Hulu) - "Hosted by Craig Robinson, this three-part series explores nine Black voices who are part of the next generation of excellence. Join us as we embark on this visual journey."

Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise (Amazon Prime) - "In his new four-hour series, Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. embarks on a deeply personal journey through the last fifty years of African American history."

Reconstruction: America After the Civil War (PBS) - "The series explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office."

Videos

We Need to Talk About an Injustice, TEDTalk with Bryan Stevenson (23:41) (March 5, 2012) - "human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives."

"Historic Preservation in our Progressive City," from the 2017 Historic Districts Council Conference - Historian Jeffrey A. Kroessler unapologetically characterizing the field as "white and elitist"  (55:00) (2017)

"Curating Freedom: Making Hidden Black Publics Visible with Descendant Communities." - Andrea Roberts, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning (Texas A&M) presenting on "preservation apartheid" (1:08:07) (February 2019)

"La Gloria" -  produced by the Esperanza Center, in which the destruction of Latinx heritage is described as a kind of "cultural genocide" (this is very, very powerful and sobering video) (4:19) (2011)

"Modernization or Historic Preservation? The City of Richmond is Torn" - VOA news (3:07) (2014)

Angela Davis on Abolition, Calls to Defund Police, Toppled Racist Statues & Voting in 2020 Election, Democracy Now! (59:02)(June 12, 2020) - Amy Goodman interviews Angela Davis.

Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers (50:48)

How Did We Get Here? Confronting Race in America, The Atlantic (28:07) (June 16, 2020) - Adam Serwer of The Atlantic interviews Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch to explore this moment in history, and examine how protests can influence policy and create a more equitable America.

Dr. Robin DiAngelo discusses 'White Fragility' (1:23:30)

"How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion", Peggy McIntosh at TEDxTimberlaneSchools (18:26)

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Philadelphia Black Led / Centered Organizations

Connectors

215 People's Alliance - "215 People’s Alliance is a multi-racial collaborative dedicated to fighting for equity and justice in Philadelphia – at the ballot box, and in the streets. We are parents and neighbors, teachers and students, union members and block captains, cab drivers and cashiers working to unite a broad sector of Philadelphians to make meaningful change."

Black and Brown Workers Cooperative - "The Black and Brown Workers Cooperative’s mission is to actively challenge, resist and dismantle systems of oppression that adversely impact the Black and Brown worker. Thus, we push for the social and economic liberation of the Black and Brown worker.​ We the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative (BBWC), a direct action social justice entity, have come together to combat injustices that manifest both in and out of the non-profit organizational structure and in the broader community of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Our mission is to actively challenge, resist and dismantle, those colonialist, white supremacist and oppressive systems that impact our lives as Black and Brown workers. Most importantly, we seek to create our own spaces where Black and Brown labor and community will define the value of their own work while setting roots in communities that establish black and brown owned enterprise and collectively run spaces. Our philosophy is rooted in decolonization practices and organizing methodologies."

Black Lives Matter Philly - "In February of 2015, two of the original Ferguson Freedom Riders, decide to initiate the chapter and file the official paperwork necessary for Philadelphia to have a official chapter. Months later in May, BLM Philly hold the first local chapter meeting at the St. Paul’s Baptist Church. Since then, the chapter has flourished launched a number of initiatives including, letter campaigns, Black Joy and Healing circles, vigils, and forums."

Juntos - "Juntos is a community-led, Latinx immigrant organization in South Philadelphia fighting for our human rights as workers, parents, youth, and immigrants. We believe that every human being has the right to a quality education and the freedom to live with dignity regardless of immigration status. Juntos combines leadership development, community organizing, and focused collaborations with other community-based and advocacy organizations to build the power of our community members so they may be active agents of change and work against their own oppression."

The Movement Alliance Project - "The Movement Alliance Project (formerly Media Mobilizing Project) builds leaders – leaders who use their stories to make our organizing stronger; and who build the movement for human rights and to end poverty. Since its founding in 2005, MMP has used strategic media, arts and communications to intervene in critical human rights struggles from public education to healthcare, media reform and public services."

Reclaim Philadelphia - "Reclaim Philadelphia has been reclaiming and restoring political power back to people since 2016. Reclaim Philadelphia endorses and supports progressive candidates and policies that fight for a vision of putting working people before the profits of corporations and the super rich. The People’s Platform, created in partnership with Neighborhood Networks, is our foundation for transforming the Democratic Party and what is politically possible. We directly connect with our neighbors to unify our communities to end structural racism, classism, sexism and oppression in all its forms. Ultimately, we’re fighting for a world where healthcare, education, live-able environment, housing, safety and justice are human rights - not commodities." Find and join your neighborhood group here.

Public Education Reform

Philadelphia Student Union - "The Philadelphia Student Union exists to build the power of young people to demand a high-quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. We are a youth-centered organization and we make positive changes in the short term by learning how to organize to build power. We also work toward becoming life-long learners and leaders who can bring diverse groups of people together to address the problems that our communities face."

Our City Our Schools - "Our City Our Schools, is a campaign to abolish the state-run School Reform Commission that runs Philadelphia’s schools. We’re calling on our Mayor and Governor to do what is long over due, and bring local control back to Philadelphia’s families. This is a necessary step to create the quality education our children deserve, one where communities have a real say and schools address the whole of children’s needs."

Arts and Culture

AfroFuturist Affair - "The AfroFuturist Affair is a community formed to celebrate, strengthen, and promote Afrofuturistic and Sci-Fi concepts and culture through creative events and creative writing. The organization aims to provide a space not only for further dialogue around Afrofuturistic ideas, but a space for actual, practical implementation of these ideas as they serve social progress and freedom."

Black Quantum Futurism - "Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) is a new approach to living and experiencing reality by way of the manipulation of space-time in order to see into possible futures, and/or collapse space-time into a desired future in order to bring about that future’s reality. This vision and practice derives its facets, tenets, and qualities from quantum physics and Black/African cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space. Under a BQF intersectional time orientation, the past and future are not cut off from the present - both dimensions have influence over the whole of our lives, who we are and who we become at any particular point in space-time. Through various writing, music, film, visual art, and creative research projects, BQF Collective also explores personal, cultural, familial, and communal cycles of experience, and solutions for transforming negative cycles into positive ones using artistic and wholistic methods of healing. Our work focuses on recovery, collection, and preservation of communal memories, histories, and stories."

Historic Sites and Organizations

Dox Thrash House - "This house is located on Cecil B. Moore in Philadelphia and was home to the innovative printmaker Dox Thrash (1893-1965), as well as activist Shaykh Muhammad Ali Hassan (1931-2002). The Dox Thrash House is one of the many historic assets the neighborhood has to offer, but the only locally protected site. It is emblematic of the rich African American arts and cultural activity that flourished along Ridge and then Columbia Ave during the 1920-40’s, and also played a key role during the civil rights era under the ownership of Shaykh Muhammad. Despite this legacy the house has been vacant for over two decades and is in a state of decay. Unfortunately this is indicative of many important Minority and African American historical assets in Philadelphia. The goal of this project is to revive Dox Thrash’s legacy of creative entrepreneurship and activism by promoting equitable development practices at the block level through the reuse of his house and associated sites as a community assets. As preservationists, we see the possibilities and opportunities in investing in what’s already there, and want to encourage this as not only as an approach to development but also to historic preservation." The Dox Thrash House is holding a fundraiser from Juneteenth through July 4th here.

All That Philly Jazz - "All That Philly Jazz is a place-based public history project that is telling the story of Philadelphia jazz from bebop to hip-hop. We have mapped Philly’s lost jazz shrines from A to Z, from the Aqua Lounge to Zanzibar Blue. From Dizzy Gillespie at the Downbeat to The Roots mural on South Street, we are documenting jazz-related cultural assets and historic resources." Hear a recent interview on WHYY with Betty Anderson about the preservation efforts for the John Coltrane House here.

Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) - "Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) is a broad-based organization of African American historians, attorneys, elected officials, religious leaders, media personalities, community activists, and registered voters. ATAC was founded in 2002 to compel the National Park Service (NPS) and Independence National Historical Park (INHP) to finally agree to the creation of a prominent Slavery Memorial to conspicuously permeate the President’s House project."

Bethel Burying Ground Project - A project by Terry Buckalew, M.A. researching the 19th Century African American burial ground in the 400 block of Queen Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was purchased in 1810 by the prominent historical figure, Reverend Richard Allen, and the founding trustees of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. This website was created to address the shortfalls of the historical record about the graveyard and to identify the names and personal information of an estimated 5,000+ men and women still buried there. "These men and women laid to rest in this small cemetery were the pioneers who struggled and fought to successfully establish the first major free Black community in the North."

Eastern State Penitentiary - "Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site interprets the legacy of American criminal justice reform, from the nation’s founding through to the present day, within the long-abandoned cellblocks of the nation’s most historic prison." Exhibits often address the extremely high rate of incarceration in the United States and the demographics of those prisoners in order to stimulate discussion of the crimial justice system.

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National Organizations

The Antiracist Research & Policy Center - "The mission of the BU Center for Antiracist Research is to convene varied researchers and practitioners to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice. We foster exhaustive racial research, research-based policy innovation, data-driven educational and advocacy campaigns, and narrative-change initiatives. We are working toward building an antiracist society that ensures equity and justice for all."

Audre Lorde Project - "The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area. Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, we work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice. Committed to struggling across differences, we seek to responsibly reflect, represent and serve our various communities."

The Bail Project - "We believe that paying bail for someone in need is an act of resistance against a system that criminalizes race and poverty and an act of solidarity with local communities and movements for decarceration. Over the next five years, The Bail Project will open dozens of sites in high-need jurisdictions with the goal of paying bail for tens of thousands of low-income Americans, all while collecting stories and data that prove money bail is not necessary to ensure people return to court."

Black Lives Matter - "#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives."

BlackSpace - "BlackSpace honors the lives of countless victims of this violence, we celebrate Black existence in its current form, we mourn lost Black futures. Our private homes are not safe. Our public spaces are not safe. The “justice” system must change and it does not stop there. No landscape is neutral. Urbanists design and plan the built environments where these tragedies occur. The disciplines impacting our built environments are steeped in racism and anti-Blackness. BlackSpace challenges architects, planners, urban designers, artists, and all curators of built spaces to unlearn traditional values and rethink Manifesto-based practice. We create spaces for Black urbanists to use talent, culture and rituals to design Black futures. We continue to demand a present and future where Black people, spaces, and culture matter and thrive. #blacklivesmatter #blackspace"

Black Trans Femmes in the Arts - "The mission of the BTFA Collective is to connect the community of black trans women and non-binary femmes in the arts & to build power among ourselves."

The Black Trans Travel Fund - "The Black Trans Travel Fund is a mutual-aid based organization committed to uplifting the narratives and supporting the livelihoods of Black trans women. Launched in June of 2019, BTTF was developed for the purpose of providing Black transgender women with the financial resources needed to be able to self-determine and access safer alternatives to travel, where women feel less likely to experience verbal harassment or physical harm."

Black Visions Collective - "As an organization dedicated to Black liberation and to collective liberation, we need a radical and ongoing investment in our own healing. By claiming love for our own bodies, our own psyches, our own experiences, and by building the resources we need to integrate healing justice into all that we do, we are insisting on conditions that can carry us towards the next generation of work, and towards a deeper place of freedom for all of us."

Black Women’s Blueprint - "Black Women’s Blueprint envisions a world where women and girls of African descent are fully empowered and where gender, race and other disparities are erased. We work to place Black women and girls’ lives as well as their particular struggles squarely within the context of the larger racial justice concerns of Black communities and are committed to building movements where gender matters in broader social justice organizing so that all members of our communities gain social, political and economic equity. We engage in progressive research, historical documentation, policy advocacy and organizing steeped in the struggles of Black women within their diverse communities and within dominant culture."

A Blade of Grass - "We provide resources to artists who demonstrate artistic excellence and serve as innovative conduits for social change. We evaluate the quality of work in this evolving field by fostering an inclusive, practical discourse about the aesthetics, function, ethics and meaning of socially engaged art that resonates within and outside the contemporary art dialogue."

​Color Of Change​ - "Color of Change leads campaigns that build real power for Black communities. We challenge injustice, hold corporate and political leaders accountable, commission game-changing research on systems of inequality, and advance solutions for racial justice that can transform our world."

COLORLINES - "Published by Race Forward, a national organization that advances racial justice through research, media and practice, COLORLINES is a daily news site where race matters, featuring award-winning in-depth reporting, news analysis, opinion and curation."

​The Conscious Kid​ - "The Conscious Kid is an education, research and policy organization dedicated to reducing bias and promoting positive identity development in youth. We partner with organizations, children’s museums, schools, and families across the country to promote access to children’s books centering underrepresented and oppressed groups."

Creative Reaction Lab - "Creative Reaction Lab’s mission is to educate, train, and challenge Black and Latinx youth to become leaders designing healthy and racially equitable communities. We’re challenging the belief that only adults with titles (e.g. mayors, CEOs, etc.) have the power and right to challenge racial and health inequities. However, we are conscious that it’s not just the work of the people that have been historically underinvested to dismantle oppressive systems. Therefore, we are rallying an intergenerational movement of Redesigners for Justice."

Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) - "Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. We challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment and we provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people."

Fair Fight - "Founded by Stacey Abrams, promotes fair elections by bringing voter discrimination to light with education programs and election reform advocacy."

Families Belong Together - "The Families Belong Together coalition includes nearly 250 organizations representing Americans from all backgrounds across the country who have joined together to fight family separation and promote dignity, unity, and compassion for all children and families."

Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society - "We approach the health and rights crises faced by transgender sex workers holistically using harm reduction, human rights principles, economic and social justice, along with a commitment to empowerment and pride in finding solutions from our own community."

Higher Heights Leadership Fund - "Higher Heights Leadership Fund's work is to elevate Black women's voices to shape and advance progressive policies and to provide opportunities for these women  to build their leadership skills, through training programs, civic engagement, and networking opportunities."

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) - "The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization, envisions an America where GLBT people are ensured of their basic equal rights, and can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community. HRC has close to 600,000 members—all committed to making this vision of equality a reality. Founded in 1980, HRC effectively lobbies in Congress, provides campaign support to fair-minded candidates, and works to educate the public on a wide array of topics affecting GLBT Americans, including relationship recognition, workplace, family, and health issues. The HRC Foundation engages in research and provides public education and programming."

Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights - "The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. Through advocacy and outreach to targeted constituencies, The Leadership Conference works toward the goal of a more open and just society – an America as good as its ideals. The Leadership Conference is a 501(c)(4) organization that engages in legislative advocacy.  It was founded in 1950 and has coordinated national lobbying efforts on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957."

The Marsha P Johnson Institute - "The (MPJI) protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people. We do this by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting our collective power."

The Movement for Black Lives - "The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) formed in December of 2014, was created as a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy, cultural and political wins, convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a shared movement wide strategy. Under the fundamental idea that we can achieve more together than we can separately."

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 in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons."

NAACP Legal Defense Fund - "While we are living in a moment unlike any we have seen before, LDF will continue to work to protect the most vulnerable in our society. During this public health emergency, the fight to defend our civil and human rights has never been more critical. Donate today to help us win landmark legal battles, protect voters across the nation, and advance the cause of racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society."

National Urban League - "To help African-Americans and others in underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. The League promotes economic empowerment through education and job training, housing and community development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, health, and quality of life.

The Okra Project - "The Okra Project is a collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black Trans people by bringing home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People wherever we can reach them."

Pathways to Equity - "By participating in this program, designers will learn best practices for community engagement and equitable design practice and put those lessons into direct action with the support of a local experienced guide... We recognize that our built environment is inherently inequitable and has unfairly impacted under-resourced communities. We acknowledge our role in the systems that have contributed to this imbalance and hold ourselves accountable. We pledge to reduce the harm of oppressive systems by learning our historical context, and leveraging our skills, power and privilege."

Project Pipeline (an initative of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) - "Our mission is to empower young people to affect change in their community through design. Using the city as the classroom, and connecting young people to real world architects and planners, we foster the next generation of design professionals, civic leaders, and changemakers.  We advocate for increased inclusiveness, diversity, fellowship, equity, and excellence in design."

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) - "SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work toward racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills and political analysis to act for change."

Southern Poverty Law Center - The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."

United Negro College Fund - "UNCF envisions a nation where all Americans have equal access to a college education that prepares them for rich intellectual lives, competitive and fulfilling careers, engaged citizenship and service to our nation."

Woke Vote - "We are on a mission to rid us of mass incarceration, voter suppression, and urban gun violence. Woke Vote is here to challenge politicians that think about neglecting and exploiting our communities. By supporting progressive, righteous leaders and holding them accountable, we are reclaiming power and promoting justice for all."

Young, Black, & Lit. - "Young, Black & Lit sources and distributes new children's books featuring Black main characters to youth at no cost to the youth or their families."

Sunshine Behavioral Health  "Black Health Matters" Mental Health Issues Facing the Black Community

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