Resources

Below are a list of sources that we have compiled and sent to St. Louis and the Diocese of Lake Charles to introduce into the curriculum. While curated with a curriculum in mind, these resources may also be helpful for educational purposes beyond the scope of a classroom.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES & COURSE TEXTS:

Science:

  • “Medical Bondage”: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens

  • “Medical Apartheid”: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

  • Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin

  • “Body and Soul”: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson

  • A Terrible Thing to Waste:; Environmental Racism and Its Assault On the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington 

Literature:

  • The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

  • The Street by Ann Petry

  • Passing by Nella Larsen

  • The Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays by LeRoi Jones

  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

  • The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde 

History:

  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

  • Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

  • The Miner’s Canary by Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres

  • Ain’t I A Woman?: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks

  • A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown

  • Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins

  • Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson

  • The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

  • The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein 

  • Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Ownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  • From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton 

Education:

  • “Multiplication is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children by Lisa Delpit

Sociology:

  • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi 

  • The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale 

  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

  • We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

  • Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy by Darryl Pinckney

  • Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López 

  • Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin 

  • Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois 

  • The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois 

  • Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields 

Memoir:

  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson 

  • The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron

Articles and Essays:

  • “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

  • “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance” by Kiese Laymon 

  • “A Place Where We Are Everything” by Roxane Gay 

  • “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. 

  • “In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation” by Matthew Desmond 

  • “The American Nightmare” by Ibram X. Kendi 

  • “Confederate Statues Were Built To Further A ‘White Supremacist Future’” by Miles Parks 

  • “The Confederate flag symbolizes white supremacy--and it always has” by Libby Nelson

  • “In 1919, the state failed to protect black Americans. A century later, it’s still failing” by Carol Anderson 

  • “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage Over Police Violence?” by Brittney Cooper 

  • “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo

  • “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh 

  • “The Double Standard of the American Riot” by Kellie Carter Jackson 

Movies and Documentaries:

  • When They See Us 

  • 13th 

  • The Innocence Files 

  • I Am Not Your Negro 

  • Slavery by Another Name 

  • 4 Little Girls 

  • Teach Us All 

  • Race: The Power of an Illusion 

Podcasts:

  • Code Switch 

  • The Nod 

  • Still Processing 

  • Pod Save the People with DeRay 

  • 1619 

  • Scene on Radio 

  • Intersectionality Matters! 

  • Throughline 

Disclaimer: This resources list is largely for teaching racial issues in the high school setting. It’s not representative of the African-American canon for literature, art, and scholarship. If SLC asks us for resources outside of this current scope, the SLC Alumni Group will be happy to provide more texts and multimedia for this wider purpose.