Embedded Files
Francine Cardman Library Digitial Catalog .docxDr. Francine Cardman's Library is located on the 3rd floor of Simboli Hall, Room 332
Dr. Francine Cardman's Library is located on the 3rd floor of Simboli Hall, Room 332
Encounter Blog
Encounter Blog
Vision, Service, Prophet, Togetherness: A Reflection on Rev. Dr. King | Dr. Jamie Waters, Associate Professor of Old Testament
On Monday, January 16, Jaime Waters, STM associate professor of Old Testament, was the speaker at St. Katharine Drexel Parish's 37th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast. She shares her remarks in this blog post.
After Whiteness: Reflecting with Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings | Dr. Jennifer Bader, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs
Jen Bader reflects on the takeaways from Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings' discussion with the STM community.
Race, Reparations, and the Catholic Church | Caz Novak, M.A./M.S.W. '21
After reflecting upon the murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, and others, Caz Novak's M.A. Thesis examines the Catholic Church's response to the Black Lives Matter Movement and what more can be done to address systemic injustice, oppression, and anti-Blackness.
Celebrating Heritages and Identities through Lo Cotidiano | César "CJ" Baldelomar, Doctoral Candidate (Theology and Education) & Brenda Noriega, Doctoral Student (Theology and Education)
Hispanic American Heritage Month kicks off on September 15th (also the day of independence for all Central American nations except Panama and Belize) and concludes on October 15th.
Boston College Libraries Resources
Boston College Libraries Resources
Theology, Racism, and Justice Collection
Boston College Libraries curated a collection of resources and scholarship available within the library. These works surround topics of theology, race, racism, and justice and highlight works from Black theologians and leaders. While this is by no means an exhaustive list of titles on theology, race, racism, and justice, we hope to highlight some noteworthy items available in the BC Libraries’ collections and especially works by black theologians and leaders.
African & African Diaspora Studies Research Guide
This research guide brings together the major print and electronic resources for research in the history and culture of the nations and peoples of Africa and of other countries and regions associated with the African Diaspora with particular emphasis on African Americans.
Hispanic Ministry at Boston College General Research Guide
The Latino/a population in the United States has increased dramatically over the past forty years, making Latino/as the largest ethnic group in the country (roughly 15% of the total population). About 70% of all Latino/as are Catholic. Such growth has enormous implications for the Church. Latino/as already represent more than 40% of Catholics in the U.S., and it is estimated that, within 30 years, at least 65% to 70% of Catholics in the U.S. will be of Hispanic origin. In response, the School of Theology and Ministry (STM), is ready to prepare academically, professionally, and spiritually those ministers and educators who already are or will be working with Hispanic communities in pastoral settings.
Hispanic Ministry Research Guide
This guide was developed as a resource for those studying in the programs in Hispanic Theology and Ministry at the School of Theology and Ministry and also to highlight some open-access resources to support various continuing education programs that the school offers.
Latinx Theology Research Guide
This guide was developed as a resource for those studying Latinx theology at the School of Theology and Ministry and also to highlight some open access resources to support various continuing education programs that the school offers.
The Asian Studies Program is an interdisciplinary program that draws upon resources from several departments including History, Political Science, Theology, Philosophy, Fine Arts, and Slavic & Eastern Languages to provide students with an introduction to this vast and complex region. The purpose of this guide is to acquaint students with print and electronic resources available at Boston College.
Social Work: Diversity: General Resources
A general resource guide that approaches diversity, equity, and inclusion from a social worker's perspective. Resources include evidence-based practice on adapting interventions to cultural contexts, practical guides for navigating racism, privilege, stress, trauma, and healing, LGBTQ-related resources, Black American resources, resources for persons with disabilities, Latinx resources, and Asian American resources.
Books
Books
Black Liberation Theology / Black Theology
Black Liberation Theology / Black Theology
Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being | M. Shawn Copeland
With rare insight and conviction, Copeland demonstrates how Black women's experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological theorems and pious platitudes and reveal them as a kind of mental colonization that still operates powerfully in our economic and political configurations today. Further, Copeland argues, race, embodiment, and relations of power not only reframe theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, and Christ as well.
Uncommon Faithfulness | M. Shawn Copeland
These essays describe the experience of black Catholics since their arrival in North America in the 16th century until the present day. They highlight the difficulties black Catholics faced in their attempts to join churches and religious communities, their participation in the civil rights struggle, and the challenges they face today.
Racial Justice and the Catholic Church | Bryan N. Massingale
Here, a leading Black Catholic moral theologian addresses the thorny issue of racial justice past and present. Massingale writes from an abiding conviction that the Catholic faith and the Black experience make essential contributions to the continuing struggle against racial injustice that is the work of all people.
A Black Theology of Liberation | James H. Cone
With the publication of his two early works, Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), James Cone emerged as one of the most creative and provocative theological voices in North America. His books offered a searing indictment of white theology and society and introduced a radical presentation of the Christian message of our time. Combining the visions of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Cone radically reappraised Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed black community in North America. Fifty years later, his work retains its original power.
The Cross and the Lynching Tree | James Cone
The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk.
God of the Oppressed | James Cone
A landmark in the development of Black Theology and the first effort to present a systematic theology drawing fully on the resources of African-American religion and culture.
The Spirituals and the Blues | James Cone
Cone explores two classic aspects of African-American culture - the spirituals and the blues - and tells the captivating story of how slaves and the children of slaves used this music to affirm their essential humanity in the face of oppression.
Black Theology and Black Power | James Cone
The classic work of Black Theology—still relevant and challenging after 50 years—with a new introduction by Cornel West First published in 1969, Black Theology and Black Power provided the first systematic presentation of Black Theology, while also introducing the voice of an African American theologian who would shake the foundations of American theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid out the foundation for an interpretation of Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed that retains its urgency and challenge today.
Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody | James Cone
James H. Cone was widely recognized as the founder of Black Liberation Theology—a synthesis of the Gospel message embodied by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the spirit of Black pride embodied by Malcolm X. Prompted by the Detroit riots and the death of King, Cone, a young theology professor, was impelled to write his first book, Black Theology and Black Power, followed by A Black Theology of Liberation. With these works, he established himself as one of the most prophetic and challenging voices of our time.
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God | Kelly Brown Douglas
The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God.
Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter | Kelly Brown Douglas
How do we really know that God cares when Black people are still getting killed? How long do we have to wait for the justice of God? I get it, that Christ is Black, but that doesn’t seem to be helping us right now. These questions from her son prompted theologian Kelly Brown Douglas to undertake this soul-searching reflection.
Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective | Kelly Brown Douglas
This book tackles the "taboo" subject of sexuality that has long been avoided by the Black church and community. Douglas argues that this view of Black sexuality has interfered with constructive responses to the AIDS crisis and teenage pregnancies, fostered intolerance of sexual diversity, frustrated healthy male/female relationships, and rendered Black and womanist theologians silent on sexual issues.
The Black Christ | Kelly Brown Douglas
In this classic work, first published in 1994, Kelly Brown Douglas offers a compelling portrait of who Jesus is for the Black community. Beginning with the early testimonies of the enslaved, through the writings and thoughts of religious and literary figures, voices from the Civil Rights and Black Power era, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, up through the contemporary work of Black and Womanist theologians, Douglas presents a living tradition that speaks powerfully to the message of our day: Black Lives Matter.
Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk | Delores S. Williams
This landmark work first published 20 years ago helped establish the field of African-American womanist theology. It is widely regarded as a classic text in the field. Drawing on the biblical figure of Hagar mother of Ishmael, cast into the desert by Abraham and Sarah, but protected by God Williams finds a prototype for the struggle of African-American women.
Jesus and the Disinherited | Howard Thurman
Famously known as the text that Martin Luther King Jr. sought inspiration from in the days leading up to the Montgomery bus boycott, Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited helped shape the civil rights movement and changed our nation’s history forever. In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised.
The Christian Imagination | Willie James Jennings
Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity’s highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies. A probing study of the cultural fragmentation—social, spatial, and racial—that took root in the Western mind, this book shows how Christianity has consistently forged Christian nations rather than encouraging genuine communion between disparate groups and individuals.
After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging | Willie James Jennings
In this inaugural volume of the Theological Education between the Times series, Willie James Jennings shares the insights gained from his extensive experience in theological education, most notably as the dean of a major university’s divinity school—where he remains one of the only African Americans to have ever served in that role. He reflects on the distortions hidden in plain sight within the world of education but holds onto abundant hope for what theological education can be and how it can position itself at the front of a massive cultural shift away from white, Western cultural hegemony. This must happen through the formation of what Jennings calls erotic souls within ourselves—erotic in the sense that denotes the power and energy of authentic connection with God and our fellow human beings.
God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights | Charles Marsh
In the summer of 1964, the turmoil of the civil rights movement reached its peak in Mississippi, with activists across the political spectrum claiming that God was on their side in the struggle over racial justice. This was the summer when violence against blacks increased at an alarming rate and when the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi resulted in national media attention. Charles Marsh takes us back to this place and time when the lives of activists on all sides of the civil rights issue converged and their images of God clashed.
The Soul of Hip Hop: Rims, Timbs, and a Cultural Theology | Daniel White Hodge
What is Hip-hop? Hip-hop speaks in a voice that is sometimes gruff, sometimes enraged, sometimes despairing, sometimes hopeful. Hip-hop is the voice of forgotten streets laying claim to the high life of rims and timbs and threads and bling. Hip-hop speaks in the muddled language of would-be prophets - mocking the architects of the status quo and stumbling in the dark toward a blurred vision of a world made right. What is hip-hop? It's a cultural movement with a traceable theological center. Daniel White Hodge follows the tracks of hip-hop theology and offers a path from its center to the cross, where Jesus speaks truth.
Leveling the Praying Field: Can the Church We Love, Love Us Back? | Ansel Augustine
In Leveling the Praying Field, Ansel Augustine offers a personal and historical perspective on issues of race and inequality in the church. In particular, he considers the challenges posed by the rise of Millennials and Gen Z, whose members increasingly consider racial equality to be one of the most important issues today. For the church, which has normally been slow to respond to racism, to be a prophetic voice among these and future generations, it must change from doing "ministry as usual” from a Eurocentric perspective. Augustine points toward a way forward, to “level the praying field so that all have an equal opportunity in society, and we can truly be ‘one body of Christ.’”
Becoming an Anti-Racist Church: Journeying toward Wholeness | Joseph Barndt
Martin Luther King's observation that 11 a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week remains all too true. Christians addressing racism in American society must begin with a frank assessment of how race figures in the churches themselves, leading activist Joseph Barndt argues. This practical and important volume extends the insights of Barndt's earlier, more general work to address the race situation in the churches and to equip people there to be agents for change in and beyond their church communities.
The only Catholic bishop who has consistently written on race matters, Bishop Braxton begins this timely book with a probing personal introduction in which he describes his family's history and his experience as an African American that he brought to his ministry as a Catholic priest and bishop. In speeches, homilies, and pastoral letters—in some cases prompted by police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement—he lays out a vision of healing for the church and the nation, informed by a quest for conversion, justice, and reconciliation.
The History of Black Catholics in the United States | Cyprian Davis
This book makes an extremely valuable contribution to our understanding of African-American religious life by presenting the first full-length treatment of the Black Catholic experience. It should be read by all interested in the history and culture of Black Americans.
Hispanic, Latino/a, Latinx Theology
Hispanic, Latino/a, Latinx Theology
En La Lucha / In the Struggle: A Hispanic Women's Liberation Theology | Ada María Isasi-Díaz
Ten years ago En la Lucha offered the first systematic presentation of mujerista theology - the liberating religious reflection of Hispanic women - giving voice to the everyday struggles and insights of Hispanic women and offering a new form of contextual theology. Since that time, Isasi-Daz's work has been widely praised, studied, and emulated in Hispanic and other contextual theologies, and she is widely acknowledged to be mujerista theology's major spokeswoman.
The Galilean Journey | Virgilio Elizondo
Galilean Journey marks the arrival of a new era of Hispanic/Latino theology in the United States, Virgilio Elizondo described the "Galilee principle" that is, "What human beings reject, God chooses as his very own." This principle is well understood by Mexican-Americans, for whom mestizaje--the mingling of ethnicity, race, and culture--is a distinctive feature of their identity. In the person of Jesus, whose marginalized Galilean identity also marked him as a mestizo, the Mexican-American struggle for identity and new life becomes luminous.
A Theology of Liberation | Gustavo Gutierrez
"My book is a love letter to God, to the church and to the people to which I belong. Love remains alive, but grows deeper and changes its manner of expression." Gustavo Gutierrez, theologian and Dominican priest, is a native of Peru and was educated in Lima, Chile, and at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He has taught around the world including at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and is currently the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN.
The Struggle is One | Mev Puleo
"If I were to choose a single book by means of which to introduce North Americans to the real meaning of liberation theology, it would be this book." - From the Foreword, Robert McAfee Brown
Asian American Theology
Asian American Theology
From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology | Sang H. Lee
Drawing on decades of teaching and reflection, Princeton theologian Sang Lee probes what it means for Asian Americans to live as followers of Christ in the “liminal space” between Asia and America and at the periphery of American society.
Introducing Asian Feminist Theology | Kwok Pui-lan
Asian women comprise more than a quarter of the world's population, and the forms in which they express feminist theology are many and varied, extending through grassroots movements, theological networks, ecumenical conferences, and journals. Those involved in the process include community organizers, theological students, church leaders, and social activists, among whom even the concept of 'feminism' assumes many definitions and substitutes.
Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology | Kwok Pui-lan
The burgeoning field of postcolonial studies argues that most theology has been formed in dominant cultures, laden intrinsically with imperializing structures. An essential task facing theology is thus to "decolonize" the mind and free Christianity from colonizing bias and structures. Here, in this truly groundbreaking study, highly respected feminist theologian Kwok Pui-lan offers the first full-length theological treatment of what it means to do postcolonial feminist theology.
Christianity with an Asian Face: Asian American Theology in the Making | Peter C. Phan
Drawing on the twin themes of liberation and inculturation, Peter Phan explicates a new theology forged in the cauldron of the encounter between two vastly different cultures, East and West. He devotes particular attention to the meaning of Christ for Asian Americans, and new Christological titles emerge - Jesus as Eldest Son and Ancestor. Phan also explores his personal roots to sketch the contours of Vietnamese-American theology, an expression of faith caught between the Dragon and the Eagle.
Literature | Critical Race Theory | Africana Studies
Literature | Critical Race Theory | Africana Studies
In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Menakem argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans—our police.
The Quaking of America | Resmaa Menakem
In The Quaking of America, therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem takes readers through somatic processes addressing the growing threat of White-Supremacist political violence.
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness | Austin Channing Brow
Austin Channing Brown’s first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, “I had to learn what it means to love blackness,” a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America’s racial divide as a writer, speaker, and expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric—from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations.
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide | Carol Anderson
Carefully linking historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Carol Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage.
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy | Carol Anderson
Carol Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing activism and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.
So You Want to Talk About Race | Ijeoma Oluo
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life.
Glenn Singleton explains the need for candid, courageous conversations about race so that educators may understand why student disengagement and achievement inequality persist and learn how they can develop a curriculum that promotes true educational equity and excellence.
Crystal Fleming provides your essential guide to breaking through the half-truths and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race is represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics.
How to be an Antiracist | Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kenid's understanding of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America - but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
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.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Ibram X. Kendi
Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.
A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Erica Armstong Dunbar tells the powerful narrative of Ona Judge and George and Martha Washington's runaway slave who risked it all to escape the nation's capital and reach freedom.
The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States | Walter Johnson
From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past.
The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story | Nikole Hannah-Jones
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning 1619 Project issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches | W.E.B. Du Bois
The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literary history. To develop this groundbreaking work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African-American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works in the field of sociology.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is "undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S."
The idea of Black criminality was crucial to the making of modern urban America, as were African Americans' own ideas about race and crime. Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of Black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, Khalil Gibran Muhammad - Harvard Kennedy School Professor of History, Race and Public Policy - reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America | Richard Rothstein
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 - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Bode | Ruha Benjamin
Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. Presenting the concept of the “New Jim Code,” she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life.
White Fragility: Why It's so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism | Robin DiAngelo
Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, Robin DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America | Michael Eric Dyson
Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters―each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney―Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life―and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America | Michael Eric Dyson
As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop―a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.
What Truth Sounds Like exists at the tense intersection of the conflict between politics and prophecy – of whether we embrace political resolution or moral redemption to fix our fractured racial landscape. The future of race and democracy hangs in the balance.
Heavy: An American Memoir | Kiese Laymon
Kiese Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed Black son to a complicated and brilliant Black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
We Should All Be Feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In this personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from the much-admired TEDx talk of the same name—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman now—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.
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.
Novels | Short Stories | Poems
The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country | Amanda Gorman
On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe with her call for unity and healing. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this special gift edition, perfect for any reader looking for some inspiration. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this remarkable keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry.
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe 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 namelessly and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison
In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful so that people will look at her so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Song of Solomon | Toni Morrison
Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This novel “transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious” (People).
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present.
Parable of the Sower | Octavia Butler
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 hyper-empathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions.
Parable of the Talents | Octavia Butler
In 2032, Lauren Olamina has survived the destruction of her home and family, and realized her vision of a peaceful community in northern California based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. The fledgling community provides refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to "make America great again." In an increasingly divided and dangerous nation, Lauren's subversive colony--a minority religious faction led by a young black woman--becomes a target for President Jarret's reign of terror and oppression.
The Color Purple | Alice Walker
Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia and their experiences. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience, and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey toward redemption and love.
Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.
The Secret Life of Bees | Sue Monk Kidd
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted Black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
Americanah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
Purple Hibiscus | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe
Okonowo is the greatest warrior alive. His fame has spread like a bushfire in West Africa and he is one of the most powerful men of his clan. But he also has a fiery temper. Determined not to be like his father, he refuses to show weakness to anyone - even if the only way he can master his feelings is with his fists. When outsiders threaten the traditions of his clan, Okonowo takes violent action. Will the great man's dangerous pride eventually destroy him?
The second book in Chinua Achebe's Trilogy follows the famous Things Fall Apart.
No Longer at Ease | Chinua Achebe
A story of a man lost in cultural limbo, and a nation entering a new age of disillusionment, No Longer at Ease is a powerful metaphor for his generation of young Nigerians.
In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
Nobody Knows My Name | James Baldwin
From one of the most brilliant writers and thinkers of the twentieth century comes a collection of "passionate, probing, controversial" essays (The Atlantic) on topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society.
The Fire Next Time | James Baldwin
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.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Alex Haley
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
Freedom is Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement | Angela Davis
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man caught in a downward spiral after killing a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Written with the distinctive rhythm of a modern crime story, this formidable work is both a condemnation of social injustice and an unsparing portrait of the Black experience in America, revealing the tragic effect of poverty, racism, and hopelessness on the human spirit. "I wrote Native Son to show what manner of men and women our 'society of the majority' breeds, and my aim was to depict a character in terms of thw living tissue and texture of daily consciousness," Wright explained.
Wright’s once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him—whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he may his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer.
Black Skin, White Masks | Frantz Fanon
A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.
The Wretched of the Earth | Frantz Fanon
First published in 1961, and reissued in this sixtieth -nniversary edition with a powerful new introduction by Cornel West, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a masterful and timeless interrogation of race, colonialism, psychological trauma, and revolutionary struggle, and a continuing influence on movements from Black Lives Matter to decolonization. A landmark text for revolutionaries and activists, The Wretched of the Earth is an eternal touchstone for civil rights, anti-colonialism, psychiatric studies, and Black consciousness movements around the world.
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? | Michael Sandel
In his acclaimed book―based on his legendary Harvard course―Sandel offers a rare education in thinking through the complicated issues and controversies we face in public life today. It has emerged as a most lucid and engaging guide for those who yearn for a more robust and thoughtful public discourse.
The Hate U Give | Angie Thomas
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.
Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
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. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Justyce is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs without cause. When faced with injustice, Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce and a friend spark the fury of an off-duty cop. Words fly, shots are fired, and the boys get caught in the crosshairs. But in the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.
Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments | D. Watkins
Black Boy Smile lays bare Watkins’s relationship with his father and his brotherhood with the boys around him. He shares candid recollections of early assaults on his body and mind and reveals how he coped using stoic silence disguised as manhood. His harrowing pursuit of redemption, written in his signature street style, pinpoints how generational hardship, left raw and unnurtured, breeds toxic masculinity. Watkins discovers a love for books, is admitted to two graduate programs, meets with his future wife, an attorney—and finds true freedom in fatherhood.
A literary classic that remains vital to our understanding of the past, Corregidora is Gayl Jones’s powerful debut novel, examining womanhood, sexuality, and the psychological residue of slavery. Jones masterfully tells the story of Ursa, a Kentucky blues singer, who, in the wake of a tragic loss, confronts her maternal history and the legacy of Corregidora, the Brazilian slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Consumed and haunted by her hatred of the man who irrevocably shaped her life and the lives of her family, Ursa Corregidora must come to terms with a past that is never too distant from the present.
Krik? Krak! | Edwidge Danticat
Examining the lives of ordinary Haitians, particularly those struggling to survive under the brutal Duvalier regime, Danticat illuminates the distance between people's desires and the stifling reality of their lives. A profound mix of Catholicism and voodoo spirituality informs the tales, bestowing a mythic importance on people described in the opening story, "Children of the Sea," as those "in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves." The ceaseless grip of dictatorship often leads men to emotionally abandon their families, like the husband in "A Wall of Fire Rising," who dreams of escaping in a neighbor's hot-air balloon. The women exhibit more resilience, largely because of their insistence on finding meaning and solidarity through storytelling; but Danticat portrays these bonds with an honesty that shows that sisterhood, too, has its power plays. In the book's final piece, "Epilogue: Women Like Us," she writes: "Are there women who both cook and write? Kitchen poets, they call them. They slip phrases into their stew and wrap meaning around their pork before frying it. They make narrative dumplings and stuff their daughter's mouths so they say nothing more."
The Farming of Bones | Edwidge Danticat
It is 1937 and Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers.
Breath, Eyes, Memory | Edwidge Danticat
At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti—to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence. In her stunning literary debut, Danticat evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti—and the enduring strength of Haiti’s women—with vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people’s suffering and courage.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian | Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
With astonishing virtuosity, each chapter of this stunning novel draws on a range of voices to limn its tales. Black humor mingles with magic, injustice bleeds into betrayal, and through it all, bonds of love and family marry the elements into a tightly woven whole that pulses with the drama of life. Erdrich has written a multigenerational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable whirlwind of anger, desire, and the healing power that is love medicine.
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together | Heather McGhee
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
Articles
Articles
6 Guidelines I've Learned for Talking About Race | Sullivan McCormick, S.J.
How do we talk about race in light of George Floyd’s murder and the surge of protests throughout the country? How do we talk about a legacy of racial violence that has recently manifested itself in the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery? How do I approach my family members, friends, peers, colleagues, or co-workers? I write this post in the hope of providing helpful suggestions for white people engaging in conversations with other white people and people of color. I do not claim to be an expert or authority on racial dialogue. I offer these suggestions as a white male who has failed, sinned, and continues to grow in conversations about race I do have and choose not to have.
Authentically Black, and Truly Catholic: A Survey of the Study on Black Catholics | Kevin Winstead
Black Roman Catholics have been a contributing community to American culture as far back as the nation's founding. Despite nearly three million Black Catholics in the United States today, sociological research has given little consideration to this community. This review makes a case for a more sociological focus on Black Catholicism. I review the available sociological research on Black Catholics and include a review of scholarship on Black Catholics from outside the discipline. I argue for the sociological importance of Black Catholicism in the examination of race, religion, and identity formation.
Black Theology and a Legacy of Oppression | M. Shawn Copeland
For white people living in the United States, the entanglement of Christianity with chattel slavery and anti-black racism forms a set of deep and confusing paradoxes. As a nation, we understand ourselves in terms of freedom, but we have been unable to grapple with our depriving blacks of freedom in the name of white prosperity and with our tolerance of legalized racial segregation and discrimination. As a nation, we have been shaped by racism, habituated to its presence, indifferent to its lethal capacity to inflict lingering human damage. Too often, Christians not only failed to defy slavery and condemn tolerance of racism; they supported it and benefited from these evils and ignored the very Gospel they had pledged to preach.
Mary Lou Takes Her Jazz Mass to Church | The New York Times
This is a digitized version of a 1975 article from the Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. It speaks about Mary Lou Williams, an African American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer who wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. She also mentored Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie. According to another article entitled, "Mary Lou Williams, Missionary of Jazz," Mary Lou Williams insisted, despite objections, that the African-American expression of jazz was sacred - that it belonged in the Catholic mass. She also seemed to see performance outside of the Church, and music without explicit religious references, as central to her spiritual mission.
Catholic 101: Church Teaching and the Anti-Racism Movement | Chris Kellerman, S.J.
As the movement for racial justice has received greater media attention in the past few months, particularly since the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, MN, some Catholics may be wondering what to think about the anti-racist movement and how it fits into the Church’s mission. Let’s take a look at a few questions that some Catholics may be asking about the anti-racist movement and see where the Church’s teaching provides answers.
Theologians and White Supremacy: An Interview with James H. Cone | America Magazine
Both Catholic and Protestant theologians do theology as if they do not have to engage with the problem of white supremacy and racism. Not all of them ignore it completely, but some write as if slavery, colonialism, and segregation never existed. In fact, white supremacy is more deeply entrenched now than it was in the 1960s and early 1970s because back then, the country acknowledged its racial problems more directly. The civil rights and black power movements forced the nation—through Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and a host of other courageous people—to confront racism as a cancer in the body politic. The churches did too, both Catholic and Protestant. Fighting for racial justice in the 1960s was the churches’ finest hour.
Magazines
Magazines
RECLAIM Magazine: Asian American Christian Thought and Culture
The Asian American Christian Collaborative (AACC) seeks to encourage, equip, and empower Asian American Christians and friends of our community to follow Christ holistically. We are committed to representing the voices, issues, and histories of Asian Americans in the church and society at large. While the Asian American community is extremely diverse and we cannot speak for every individual and perspective, we aim to spotlight and celebrate the Asian American Christian community as inclusively as possible.
The Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love Pastoral Letter Against Racism, 2018 | Abramos nuestros corazones: El incesante llamado al amoarta pastoral contra el racismo, 2018
In God's Image: Pastoral Letter on Racism, 2003 | Most Reverend Harry J. Flynn, Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith, 2001 | The document was developed by the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States, 1984 | On September 9, 1984, the ten Black Bishops of the United States published this document as a witness to the Black community. The Bishops sought to explain that evangelization is both a call and a response, it is not only preaching but witnessing. The first part of the document is about the shared gifts rooted in the African heritage. In part two they discussed the obstacles to evangelization that must be overcome.
Bishops' Statement on Capital Punishment, 1980 - "The legal system and the criminal justice system both work in a society which bears in its psychological, social, and economic patterns the marks of racism. These marks remain long after the demolition of segregation as a legal institution. The end result of all this is a situation in which those condemned to die are nearly always poor and are disproportionately black."
Brothers and Sisters to Us - U.S. Catholic Bishops Pastoral Letter on Racism, 1979 | Selected quotes
25th Anniversary Executive Summary - We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight: The Church's Response to Racism in the Years Following
Reconciled Through Christ | En Español - Published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2013, this publication explores the reconciliation and greater collaboration between Hispanic-American Catholics and African American Catholics.
On Racial Harmony - A Statement by the Administrative Board, National Catholic Welfare Conference (August 23, 1963) that reaffirms the U.S. Catholic bishops' official position against racial discrimination and segregation.
Selected quotes from Discrimination and Christian Conscience, a statement of the U.S. Catholic bishops (Nov. 14, 1958)
Documents and Letters from the Vatican
Documents and Letters from the Vatican
General Audience, June 2020 | Pope Francis General Audience - "My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life. At the same time, we have to recognize that “the violence of recent nights is self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is gained by violence and so much is lost”. Today I join the Church in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and in the entire United States, in praying for the repose of the soul of George Floyd and of all those others who have lost their lives as a result of the sin of racism."
A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, 2019 | Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to the United Arab Emirates
Laudato Si, 2015 | Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home
The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society | Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace: Contribution to World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, 2001, 1988
Octogesima Adveniens | Apostolic Letter of Pope Paul VI to Cardinal Maurice Roy, President of the Council of the Laity and of the Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace on the occasion of the 18th Anniversary of the Encyclical "Rerum Novarum" (1971)
Gaudium et Spes | Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965
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