Resources

Anti-racism Education

This list of anti-racism resources is for educators, families, and lovers of public education who are interested in learning about race and racism. This document contains resources collected, vetted, and curated by educators and union members. This is a growing list, we plan to add to this resource as time goes on. If you would like to add to this list, please email Vice President, Christina Spears (vicepres@wakencae.org).

We invite you to read this response from Wake NCAE Board of Directors following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd → Wake NCAE Statement

Books for Adults (Nonfiction and Biography)

• Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom Young Children at School (Carla Shalaby) - Explores the everyday lives of four young “troublemakers,” challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children.

• Why Are All the Black Kids in the Cafeteria Sitting Together (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.

• White Fragility (Robin Diangelo) - In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

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

• This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work (Tiffany Jewel) - Gain a deeper understanding of your anti-racist self as you progress through 20 chapters that spark introspection, reveal the origins of racism that we are still experiencing and give you the courage and power to undo it.

• How to be an AntiRacist (Ibram X. Kendi) - Takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

• Stamped From the Beginning (Ibram X. Kendi) - In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history.

• The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) - The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.

• The Dreamkeepers (Gloria Ladson-Billings) - A book for teachers to understand the multiple and complex ways in which they contribute to the achievement of African American students.

• Me and White Supremacy (Layla F Saad) - This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

• For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...And the Rest of Y’all, Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Christopher Emdin) - Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the “Seven C’s” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.

• Lies My Teacher Told Me (James Loewen) - An analysis of how high school courses in American history and, more particularly, the textbooks used in teaching them are a disservice to students and the nation the texts and courses seek to protect.

• An African American and Latinx History of the US (Paul Ortiz) - Spanning more than two hundred years, a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it.

• We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom (Bettina L. Love) - Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements.

• Culturally responsive Teaching and the Brain (Zaretta Hammond) - Draws on cutting edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain compatible culturally responsive instruction.

• Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide to Achieving Equity in Schools (Glenn E. Singleton) - Explains the need for candid, courageous conversations about race so that educators may understand why student disengagement and achievement inequality persists and learn how they can develop a curriculum that promotes true educational equity and excellence.

• Pushout (Monique W. Morris) - Chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish.

• Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children (Lisa Delpit) - Presents a striking picture of the elements of contemporary public education that conspire against the prospects for poor children of color, creating a persistent gap in achievement during the school years that has eluded several decades of reform.

• Promoting Racial Literacy In Schools (Howard Stevenson) - Based on extensive research, this provocative volume explores how schools are places where racial conflicts often remain hidden at the expense of a healthy school climate and the well-being of students of color.

• Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America (Elliot Jaspin) - “Leave now, or die!” Those words-or ones just as ominous-have echoed through the past hundred years of American history, heralding a very unnatural disaster-a wave of racial cleansing that wiped out or drove away black populations from counties across the nation.

• Don't Look Away: Embracing ANTI-BIAS Classrooms (Iheoma U. Iruka) - Leads early childhood professionals to explore and address issues of bias, equity, low expectations, and family engagement to ensure culturally responsive experiences.

• White Rage (Carole Anderson) - From the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America.

• How we Fight White Supremacy (Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin) - This celebration of Black resistance, from protests to art to sermons to joy, offers a blueprint for the fight for freedom and justice -- and ideas for how each of us can contribute.

• Color of Law (Richard Rothstein) - This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide.

• Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching (Alana Murray, Deborah Menkart) - An incredible, informative, collection of essays, articles, analysis, interviews, primary documents and interactive & interdisciplinary teaching aids on civil rights, movement building, and what it means for all of the inhabitants of the planet.

• From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime (Elizabeth Hinton) - In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the “land of the free” become the home of the world’s largest prison system?

• The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys (Ali Michael, Eddie Moore, Marguerite Penick-Parks) - Schools that routinely fail Black boys are not extraordinary. In fact, they are all too ordinary. If we are to succeed in positively shifting outcomes for Black boys and young men, we must first change the way school is "done."

• Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji) - The authors reveal hidden biases based on their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that has revolutionized the way scientists learn about the human mind and that gives us a glimpse into what lies within the metaphoric blindspot.

• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz) - The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples.

• Mindful of Race (Ruth King) - Drawing on her expertise as a meditation teacher and diversity consultant, King helps readers of all backgrounds examine with fresh eyes the complexity of racial identity and the dynamics of oppression.

• The Freedom Summer Murders (Don Mitchell) - On June 21, 1964, three young men were killed by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to help black Americans vote as part of the 1964 Freedom Summer registration effort in Mississippi.

• Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) - Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system.

• Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon) - Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi

• The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin) - In 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation, gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today.

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelo) - Captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right.

• Born out of Struggle (David Omotoso Stovall) - Demonstrates how critical race theory can be useful in real-world situations.