Resource List
Racial and Social Justice as Dharma Practice
July 19, 2024
The resources below were compiled by the multi-sangha `Racial and Social Justice as Dharma Practice Group’. Our group is committed to intimate investigation and conversation to actualize personal and collective freedom for all beings. We cannot do this kind of work alone and it is with the help of such resources and supportive community that the potential for transformation and ending suffering is actualized.
The items below represent material that members have found valuable. While our focus has been on the experience of Black Americans and racism, our interests include the experiences of many socially oppressed groups. Some categories are better represented than others and we welcome suggestions of additional resources. Asterisks indicate “must read or watch” items, with each asterisk indicating someone who valued the item highly. Not everyone agreed on the same items. Similarly, we recognize that there is no one right way or script for study or action. Each person needs to discern and ask: “What are we called to do now, unique to our life circumstances, and moment to moment.”
May these resources support each of us to awaken to our unconscious struggles with “others” in our lives to offer our full aliveness, compassion and wisdom.
Acknowledgement: We thank all members of the RSJD Group, Donald Rothberg, Andy Bein from the Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group, the Racial Literacy Group (co-led by Chris Fortin and Sarah Emerson), and the Valley Streams Zen Sangha White Supremacy, White Privilege and the Dharma Study Group (resources compiled by Doralee Grindler Katonah and Linda Dekker), for sharing their resource lists with us.
Table of contents
1. History of slavery and oppression
Blight, David. 2020. Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom
Browne, Katrina. July 29, 2008. “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North” [Podcast]. National Public Radio.
Cotter, Holland. August 16, 2020. “Turning Grief for a Hidden Past into a Healing Space.” The New York Times.
DeGruy, Joy. 2005. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.
Douglas, Frederick. 1995. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. (autobiography).
****Dover Series. 2002. When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection.
Finley, Alexandra. 2020. An Intimate Economy: Enslaved Women, Work, and America’s Domestic Slave.
Franke, Katherine. 2019. Repair: Redeeming the promise of abolition.
Galland, China, 2008. Love Cemetery, Unburying the Secret History of Slaves.
*Greenidge, Kerri. 2022. The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family.
***Hannah-Jones, Nicole. 2019. The 1619 Project.
Hunter, Tera. 2017. Bound in Wedlock.
Hutchinson, George. 2006. In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line.
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E. 2020. They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South Paperback.
Murray, Pauli. 1956 (orig) and republished in 1999. Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family.
*Seidule, Ty. 2021. Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.
Slater, Dashka. 2017. The 57 Bus: The True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed their Lives.
**Smith, Clint. 2021. How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America. Till, directed by Chinonye Chukwu. 2022. Story of Mamie Till-Bradley, mother Emmett Till.
Turner, Sarah. 2019. Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica.
Twelve Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen. 2013. (film)
*Whitehead, Colson. 2016. The Underground Railroad.
*Yetman, Norman. 2002. When I was a Slave, Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection.
2. On race and racism
Banaji, Mahzarin and Greenwald, Anthony. 2013. Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.
Bell-Scott, Patricia. 2017. The Firebrand and the First Lady (about Pauli Murray)
Berry, Daina Rainey, and Lesley M. Harris. 2018. Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas.
*Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequality. Directed by Shakti Butler. 2013. (Film)
**Cullors, Patrice Khan & Bandele, Asha. 2017. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.
Dyson, Michael Eric. 2021. Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America.
Foster, Thomas. 2019. Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men.
*Hurston, Zora Neal. 2020. Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo.
**Hurston, Zora Neal. 2022. A Short Story – Including A Brief History of the Harlem Renaissance.
Johnson, Fern and Fine, Marlene. 2021. Let’s Talk Race: A Guide for White People.
**Kendi, Ibram. 2016. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
Lancaster, Simeon & Lazaro, Fred de Sam. 27 February 2023. “Alabama artist works to correct historical narrative around beginnings of gynecology.” See PBS News Hour.
*Liebling, Mordechai. 2015. On American Racism.
McGhee, Heather. 2022. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.
Oluo, Ijeoma. 2018. So You Want to Talk About Race. powell, john a. 2015. Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Others to Build an Inclusive Society.
*Race: The Power of an Illusion. Directed by Christine Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, Llewellyn Smith. 2003. See also.
Richardson, Brenda and Brenda Wade. 2014. What Mama Couldn’t Tell Us About Love: Healing the Emotional Legacy of Racism by Celebrating Our Light.
Rothstein, Richard. 2017. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
Slater, Gene. 2021. Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America.
Slater, Dashiki. 2023. Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed. (Young Adult)
*Takaki, Ronald. 2008. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.
West, Cornel. 1993. Race Matters.
***Wilkerson, Isabel. 2020. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
*Yancy, George. 2018. Backlash: What happens when we talk honestly about racism in America.
3. Systemic racism, class and intersectionality
4. On whiteness
5. Buddhism and mindfulness for racial and social justice
6. Antiracist action and engagement
7. Black thought leaders (alphabetical)
8. Other identities (alphabetical)
a. Asian
b. Jewish
c. LGBTQ
d. Latinx
e. Muslim/Palestinian
f. Refugee/migrant
g. Native American
h. Women
9. Fiction
10. Poetry and poets
a. Poems
b. African American poets
11. Film and video
12. Training opportunities
13. Other
a. Other history
b. Memoir and biography
c. Psychology
d. Music
e. Misc.