Anti-Racist Resources - CCHR

Anti-Racist Resources - CCHR
Human Rights
311
Search all NYC.gov websites
Combating Discrimination Since 1955
Text-Size
Inside CCHR
Restorative Justice
Our Commitment to Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice in Our Work
Restorative Justice and Discrimination
Anti-Racist Resources
Share
The New York City Commission on Human Rights’ Antiracist Resource Guide
The Commission is committed to fighting all manifestations of racism and discrimination. This work bridges culture, policy, research, law enforcement and community engagement – all necessary for transformative change.
Challenging the structures that foment racism around and within us is a lifelong journey. The New York City Commission on Human Rights has curated a set of antiracism resources to foster critical engagement and dialogue regarding historical and contemporary manifestations of bias, racism, and discrimination.
This set of resources is a start but is certainly not consummate. It includes books, articles, videos, documentaries, podcasts and links to organizations. For those resources that do not have links, many of them can be found by searching online.
Antiracism work cannot be done passively; these resources provide a foundation to understand and engage with the role of race and identity in the United States, and to take action towards dismantling white supremacy.
We hope these resources inspire you.
(For our younger readers, please also visit
Stories For All: A Human Rights Reading List
).
Select resources that investigate structural and institutional racism, white supremacy culture, and personal bias.  The focus is on resources that address the U.S. context, though these issues manifest globally.
History
Criminal Justice / Legal System
Economics & Finance
Education
Climate & Environment
Housing & Home Ownership
Immigration
Gender & Sexuality
Labor and Employment
Personal Narratives
Science & Medicine
Social and Political Analysis
Voting
Guides to Practice
Documentaries/Films/Podcasts
Where to Buy Literature and Watch Documentaries
History
Books:
A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America: A History of Multicultural America
by Ronald Takaki
A People’s History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
A People's History of American Empire
by Howard Zinn
American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
by David Stannard
American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear
by Khaled Beydoun
An African American and Latinx History of the United States
by Paul Ortiz
Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955
by Carol Anderson
Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928
by Clive Webb and William D. Carrigan
Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
by Jessica McDiarmid
Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
by James Q. Whitman
Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment
by Gary Y. Okihiro and Linda Gordon
Lies My Teacher Told Me
by James W. Loewen
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
by Eduardo Galeano
Stamped from the Beginning
by Ibram X. Kendi
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minorities
by Madeline Y. Hsu
The Making of Asian America: A History
by Erika Lee
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
by Andrés Reséndez
The Warmth of Other Suns
by Isabel Wilkerson
The Young Lords: A Radical History
by Professor Johanna Fernandez
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold Story Of Anti-Asian Racism In The United States
by Lon Kurashige
We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future
by Deepa Iyer
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
by Carol Anderson
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources:
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism, journal article by Mahmood Mamdani
How Racism Was First Officially Codified in 15th-Century Spain
by Jeffrey Gorsky
Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
, report by
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)
(Trigger Warning: this resource depicts images of anti-Black violence).
Nazi Racism
, a resource by Holocaust Encyclopedia
Reconstruction in America: Racial Violence after the Civil War
, report by
EJI
(Trigger Warning: this resource depicts images of anti-Black violence).
Segregation in America
, report by
EJI
(Trigger Warning: this resource depicts images of anti-Black violence).
Slavery in America: The Montgomery Slave Trade
, report by
EJI
The 1619 Project
, historical resource on
New York Times
The Havana Afrocubano Movement and the Harlem Renaissance: The Role of the Intellectual in the Formation of Racial and National Identity
, journal article by Ricardo Rene Laremont and Lisa Yun
The Story of Islamophobia, journal article by Junaid Rana
Tracing the Roots of Discrimination
by Pamela J. Johnson
What is Owed
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Criminal Justice / Legal System
Books:
Are
Prisons Obsolete?
by Angela Davis
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
by Andrea Ritchie
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson
Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment
by Angela Davis
The End of Policing
by Alex Vitale
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander
Women, Race and Class
by Angela Davis
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources:
Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior in Communities of Color: The Role of Prosecutors in Juvenile Justice Reform, journal article by Kristin Henning
Police Can Use a Legal Grey Area to Rob Anyone of their Belongings
by Kaveh Waddell
Race to Judgment: Stereotyping Media and Criminal Defendants, journal article by Robert M. Entman and Kimberly A. Gross
The Price of Freedom: Bail & Pretrial Detention of Low Income Non‐Felony Defendants in NYC
, report by Human Rights Watch
The Sexual Politics of Abu Ghraib: Hegemony, Spectacle, and the Global War on Terror, essay by Mary Ann Tétreault
What Abolitionists Do
by Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba, David Stein
Economics & Finance
Books:
Black Wealth / White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality
Thomas Shapiro and Melvin Oliver
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems In Race, Political Economy And Society
by Manning Marable
The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap
by Mehrsa Baradaran
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
by Edward E. Baptist
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
by Daina Ramey Berry
The Sum of Us : What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
by Heather McGhee
Education
Books:
Ghosts In The Schoolyard: Racism And School Closings On Chicago’s South Side
by Eve L. Ewing
Haste to Rise: A Remarkable Experience of Black Education during Jim Crow
by David Pilgrim and Franklin Hughes
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
by Monique W. Morris
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
by bell hooks
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom
by Bettina L. Love
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
by Ira Katznelson
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race
by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources:
Discipline Disparities and Discrimination in Schools
by Nathan Barrett, Andrew McEachin, Jonathan Mills, and Jon Valant
DRESS CODED: Black Girls, Bodies, and Bias in D.C. Schools
, report by
National Women’s Law Center
Harvard once capped the number of Jews. Is it doing the same thing to Asian Americans now?
by Ben Sales
Modern-Day Segregation in Public Schools
by Sonali Kohli and Quartz
Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality
by Keith Meatto
Climate & Environment
Books:
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
by Harriet Washington
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States
by Carl Abraham Zimring
Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility
by Dorceta Taylor
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources:
Aftermath of Katrina: A Time of Environmental Racism
, a story map by Esri
Behind the Garment: Injustices Caused by Fast Fashion to Communities
, by Carol Mu
Intersectional Environmentalism: Why Environmental Justice Is Essential For A Sustainable Future
by Leah Thomas
Trump's EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real
by Vann R. Newkirk II
Water/Color: A Study Of Race And The Water Affordability Crisis In America’s Cities
, report by NAACP LDF
Why Sustainable Fashion Must Converge With Intersectional Environmentalism
, by Suhani Dalal
Housing & Home Ownership
Books:
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
by Matthew Desmond
Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities
by Jessica Trounstine
The Color of Law
by Richard Rothstein
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
Long Island: Divided, a Newsday Investigation
, reported by Ann Choi, Keith Herbert, Olivia Winslow
The Case for Reparations
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Immigration
Books:
Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America
by Philip G. Schrag
No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants
by Alina Das
The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect On America
Edited By Nikesh Shukla And Chimene Suleyman
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
Fatal Neglect: How Ice Ignores Death in Detention
, report by the
ACLU
Southern Hospitality?: Islamophobia and the Politicization of Refugees in South Carolina during the 2016 Election Season, journal article by Caroline Nagel
The State of Black Immigrants
, report by
BAJI
The Stories We Tell about Resettlement: Refugees, Asylum and the #MuslimBan
, article by Nadia El-Shaarawi
Gender & Sexuality
Books:
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
by C. Riley Snorton
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
by Sabrina Strings
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
by Mikki Kendall
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
by Janet Mock
Sister Citizen: Shame Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
by Melissa Harris-Perry
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
by Audre Lorde
Stop Telling Women to Smile: Stories of Street Harassment and How We're Taking Back Our Power
by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals
by Saidiya Hartman
You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience
by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown
Labor and Employment
Books:
Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom
by Mireya Loza
For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865
, by Robert H. Zieger
No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor
by Cindy Hahamovitch
The Production of Difference: Race and the Management of Labor in U.S. History
by David R. Roediger
Tomatoland: From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope
by Barry Estabrook
Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America
by Joe William Trotter
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources:
Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work
, report by
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Systematic Inequality and Economic Opportunity
by Danyelle Solomon
Workplace discrimination is illegal. But our data shows it’s still a huge problem
by Maryam Jameel and Joe Yerardi
Environmental Injustice Behind Bars: Toxic Imprisonment in America
, report by
The Global Environmental Justice Project
Personal Narratives
Books:
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black Boy
by Richard Wright
Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing: A Library of America
by Illan Stavans
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
by Gloria Anzualda
Citizen 13660 (Graphic Novel)
by Mine Okubo
Chopper! Chopper!: Poetry from Bordered Lives
by Verónica Reyes
Country Called Amreeka U S History Retold Through Arab American Lives
by Alia Malek
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
by Brittney Cooper
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
by Mira Jacob
Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Heavy: An American Memoir
by Kiese Laymon
How Does It Feel to Be A Problem? Being Young and Arab In America
by Moustafa Bayoumi
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
Latinx Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey by Interview
by Frederick Luis Aldama
Living on the Borderlines
by Melissa Michal
Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds
by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
by Cathy Park Hong
Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity
, edited by Becky Thompson & Sangeeta Tyagi
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
by Thi Bui
They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement
by Wesley Lowery
The Pink Box Poems
by Yesenia Montilla
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
Born Palestinian, Born Black, poem by Suheir Hammad
Combahee River Collective Statement
by
Combahee River Collective
Desirability: Do You Really Love Fat People When You Can’t Even See Us Beyond The Political?
By Da’Shaun Harrison
Listening to Black Women and Girls: Lived Experiences of Adultification Bias
Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequalit
y report by Jamilia J. Blake and Rebecca Epstein
Muslim First, Arab Second, essay by Nadine Naber
Surveillance Effects: South Asian, Arab, and Afghan American Youth in the War on Terror, essay by Sunaina Maira
The White Space
by Elijah Anderson
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
by Peggy McIntosh
You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument
by Caroline Randall Williams
Science & Medicine
Books
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland
by Jonathan Metzl
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century
by Dorothy Roberts
Killing the Black Body: Race Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
by Dorothy E. Roberts
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
by Harriet Washington
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
“Henrietta Lacks”: A Donor's Immortal Legacy
by
NPR
(Author Interview with Rebecca Skloot)
Allegories on race and racism
, TedTalk by Camara Jones
Racism and Health I: Pathways and Scientific Evidence, research article by David R. Williams and Selina A. Mohammed
Science Has a Racism Problem
by
Cell
Social and Political Analysis
Books:
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture
by Angela Davis
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Black Skin, White Masks
by Frantz Fanon
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
Culture of Anti-Racism in Latin America and the Caribbean
by Peter Wade, James Scorer, and Ignacio Aguiló
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
by Angela Davis
Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
by Barbara Ransby
Pedagogy of the oppressed
by Paulo Freire
Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
by Barbara and Karen Fields
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States
by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism
by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
The Fire Next Time
by James Baldwin
The History of White People
by Nell Irvin Painter
The Origin of Others
by Toni Morrison
The Purpose of Power
by Alicia Garza
The Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
by Mariame Kaba
Yellow Peril!: An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear
by John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
Arab and Muslim Communities Need to Talk About Anti-Blackness
by Rowaida Abdelaziz
Arabs and Muslims in the Media after 9/11: Representational Strategies for a “Postrace” Era, journal article by Evelyn Alsultany
Ethnicity, Color, and Class among Dominicans in the United States and Puerto Rico, journal article by Jorge Duany
Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood
Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequalit
y report by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake & Thalia González
Islamophobia and “Privileging” of Arab American Women, journal article by Nada Elia
Jews Cannot Be Silent in the Face of Anti-Black Racism
by Eliyahu Lann
Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism
by Eric K. Ward
Terrorist Chic, essay by Humera Afridi
The Racial Infrastructure of the Terror-Industrial Complex, essay by Junaid Rana
Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys
Perception Institute
study by Rachel D. Godsil & Alexis McGill Johnson
White Supremacy Culture
by Tema Okun
White Supremacy Shaped American Christianity, Researcher Says
by Carol Kuruvilla
Whiteness as Property
by Cheryl Harris
Voting
Books:
Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy
by Darryl Pinckney
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
by Ari Berman
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
by Carol Anderson
Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America
by Gilda R. Daniels
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
The Ballot or the Bullet
by Malcolm X
Why Virginia’s Restoration of Voting Rights Matter
by
The Atlantic
Guides to Practice
Books:
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too
by Christopher Emdin
Good White Racist: Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
by Kerry Connelly
How to be Anti-Racist
by Ibram X. Kendi
How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
by Crystal Marie Fleming
Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing
by Suzanne Methot
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
by Layla Saad
So You Wanna Talk About Race
by Ijeoma Oluo
This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work
by Tiffany Jewell
The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing
by Anneliese Singh
Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work For Racial Justice
by Paul Kivel
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
by Tim Wise
Articles, Essays, Reports, and Other Online Resources
75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
by Corinne Shutack
Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry
, resource by
Southern Poverty Law Center
What to do if you are witnessing Islamophobic harassment
, illustrated guide by Maeril
Documentaries/Films/Podcasts
13th
by Ava DuVernay
1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim
, short film by artist Anida Yoeu Ali and filmmaker Masahiro Sugano.
2016 NPS Finals - San Diego - "Islamophobia" by Rudy Francisco, Natasha Hooper, and Amen Ra
, a poetry slam performance.
4 Little Girls
by Spike Lee
A Matter of Place
by
The Fair Housing Justice Center
A Stray
by Musa Syeed
Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story
by Bill Kavanaugh
Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement
by Hector Galan
Dark Girls
by Bill Duke
Dolores
by Peter Bratt
Ethnic Notions
by Marlon Riggs
Explained: Racial Wealth Gap
, short web documentary by Vox
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners
by Shola Lynch
Frontera! Revolt and Rebellion on the Río Grande
, short documentary by John Jota Leaños
I Am Not Your Negro
by Raoul Peck
Immigration Nation
by Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz
LA 92
by T. J. Martin, Daniel Lindsay
Los graduados
by Bernardo Ruiz
Moonlight
by Barry Jenkins
Paris is Burning
by Jennie Livingston
Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Reel Bad Arabs
by Jack Shaheen
RiverBlue
by Roger Williams and David McIlvride
(T)error
by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
by Stanley Nelson
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
by Göran Olsson
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
by David France
The New Jim Crow Museum
, video tour of Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University (Trigger Warning: the video depicts images of anti-Black violence).
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
by Chad Freidrichs
True Justice
by Bryan Stevenson
When They See Us
by Ava DuVernay
Podcast
Black Wall Street 1921
hosted by Nia Clark and Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial
Podcast
Code Switch
, hosted by Shereen Marisol Meraji, Gene Demby, and other
NPR
staff
Podcast
Intersectionality Matters
, hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
Podcast
) Justice in America
hosted by Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith III
Podcast
Uncivil
hosted by Jack Hitt and Chenjerai Kumanyika
Podcast
On Asian America: Sex, gender and the 'exotic other'
by Kristin Leong and John O’ Brien
Where to Buy Literature and Watch Documentaries
Support Black-owned and independent bookstores when looking to purchase antiracist literature. You can search for your local brick-and-mortar or web-based stores online. Additionally, many news and media sites have compiled lists of Black-owned bookstores.
While many documentaries are available on popular streaming services, you can also look to the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, and your own educational intuitions to access some material.