An AACC-recommended list of books, publications, articles, and films by Black leaders, thinkers, and activists to understand the African American experience and anti-Blackness in America.
By AACC Editors
The first steps in beginning to understand racial inequities often begin with the senses: an image we see; a story we hear; a fellow human being we touch.
If we allow them to, these sensory experiences can become the visceral. And from the visceral, the Holy Spirit can move in our guts and our hearts, compelling us to lament, to pray, and to act to bring God’s love, mercy, and justice to the darkest corners of our societies.
But first, the scales must fall from our eyes. We must see and hear and touch.
We are honored to share the following resources from civil rights organizations, faith groups, and esteemed Black theologians, activists, academics, thinkers, journalists, and writers. These organizations and individuals hold a wide spectrum of political and/or theological views, not all of which align with AACC values. However, we believe each of these offers valuable insights and learnings that we can humbly receive.
We invite you to come and see. Come and hear. Come and be changed.
Books
By Martin Luther King, Jr.
This book lays out King’s thoughts, plans, and dreams for America’s future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering, powerfully asserting that humankind-for the first time-has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.
By Bryan Stevenson
This is a true story based on the life of lawyer Bryan Stevenson. This book tells the story of one of Stevenson’s first cases: the Walter McMillian case. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinkmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Embrace: God's Radical Shalom for a Divided World
By Leroy Barber
Barber advocates that the way to radical shalom on earth is through embracing those who are difficult to embrace.
By Jemar Tisby
Tisby’s book provides a diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests creative ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God’s people.
Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Brokenhearted World
By Osheta Moore
Moore shares what she learned when she challenged herself to study peace in the Bible for forty days. Moore offers bold steps for crossing lines between black and white, suburban and urban, rich and poor.
Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism
By Drew G.I. Hart
Hart places police brutality, mass incarceration, anti-Black stereotypes, poverty, and everyday acts of racism within the larger framework of white supremacy. Leading readers toward Jesus, Hart offers concrete practices for churches that seek solidarity with the oppressed and are committed to racial justice.
By Howard Thurman
Thurman demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised.
Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness
By Robert Hood
Begrimed and Black probes the mythic roots of racial prejudice in Western attitudes toward color. With special attention to the history of ideas, but also to pictorial images and popular movements, Hood documents the inception and growth of the myth of black carnality, with its commingling of disdain and desire, fear and fascination.
By Kelly Brown Douglas
This compelling portrait of who Jesus is for the black community surveys the history of the Black Christ from the early slave testimonies to the writings of prominent religious and literary figures through the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness
By Patricia Raybon
Patricia Raybon invites readers to join her courageous personal journey to stop hating others by first learning to love God and also herself.
Free at Last?: The Gospel in the African-American Experience
By Carl F. Ellis, Jr.
Ellis offers an in-depth assessment of the state of African-American freedom and dignity within American culture today. Updating and expanding his examination (previously published as Beyond Liberation) for a new generation of readers, Ellis stresses how important it is for African-Americans to know who they are and where they have been.
So You Want to Talk About Race
By Ijeoma Oluo
Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, microaggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the N-word.
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
By Austin Channing Brown
This is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that 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.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
By Beverly Daniel Tatum
Tatum argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America.
By Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s first novel asks questions about race, class, and gender and examines our obsession with beauty and conformity.
By Angie Thomas
Through the story of 16-year-old Starr Carter who witnessed her friend’s death at the hands of a police officer, Thomas explores the theme of racism and justice. This novel shows the reality of African-Americans in the United States and the challenges and importance of social justice activism.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. (source:)
A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature
By Jacqueline Goldsby
Jacqueline Goldsby shows that lynching—a highly visible form of social violence that has historically been shrouded in secrecy—was in fact a fundamental part of the national consciousness whose cultural logic played a pivotal role in the making of American modernity.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
By Michelle Alexander
This book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it."
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
By Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers the language and courage that are needed to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society and also offers the tools to address it.
By Claudia Rankine
Rankine’s poetry book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media.
By Ibram X. Kendi
In his memoir, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science—including the story of his own awakening to antiracism—bringing it all together in a cogent, accessible form.
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
By Ta-Nahesi Coates
“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era Black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.”
By Chanequa Walker-Barnes
This book highlights the particular work that White Americans must do to repent of racism and to work toward racial justice and offers a constructive view of reconciliation that prioritizes eliminating racial injustice and healing the damage that it has done to African Americans and other people of color.
Bread For the Resistance: Forty Devotions for Justice People
By Donna Barber
In these daily devotions, Donna Barber offers life-giving words of renewal and hope for those engaged in the resistance to injustice.\
Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope
By Jasmine Holmes
Jasmine Holmes shares a series of powerful letters to her young son. These are about her journey as an African American Christian and what she wants her son to know as he grows and approaches the world as a black man. Holmes deals head-on with issues ranging from discipleship and marriage to biblical justice.
Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores
By Dominique Gilliard
Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity’s role in its evolution and expansion. He then shows how Christians can pursue justice that restores and reconciles, offering creative solutions and highlighting innovative interventions.
Online Resources and Publications
The Front Porch aims to be a place for conversations on biblical faithfulness in African-American churches and beyond.
Thy Black Man is a digital newspaper that addresses the culture and concerns of the black community in various aspects. Their main goal is to always offer news from the black perspective.
Black Perspectives is the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). This blog is deeply committed to producing and disseminating cutting-edge research that is accessible to the public and is oriented towards advancing the lives of people of African descent and humanity.
Empowering Everyday Women (EEW) Online Magazine
EEW sets the standard for reaching African American Christian women and is the place where she clicks first to get the best interviews, advice and resources to stimulate, motivate and inspire her to be all God created her to be.
Urban Faith is an evangelical-minded website of contemporary journalism that’s committed to biblical Christianity, social justice, and an irenic engagement with culture.
The Witness is a black Christian collective that engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspective.
R3 is a progressive Christian blog that examines the intersection of rhetoric race and religion in society
Black African Woman is a healing ministry, and seeks to see the black African woman right in order to offer her the room to become whole in Christ. It desires to provide an open and safe space that allows the everyday BAW to explore her true identity in Christ.
Unfit Christian is the digital voice of Black Millennial Faith & Spirituality. They provide on-trend, faith-driven conversations for today’s society and challenge the ‘status quo’ with tough questions and critical thought.
Articles
Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? by Ibram X. Kendi
The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying by Adam Serwer
The Death of George Floyd, in Context by Jelani Cobb
Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People. by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
You Shouldn’t Need a Harvard Degree to Survive Bird-Watching while Black by Samuel Getachew
George Floyd Could Have Been My Brother by Rita Omokha
This is how loved ones want us to remember George Floyd by Alisha Ibrahimji
How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change by Barack Obama
Redefining Who I Am by Chelle A. Wilson
Films and Documentaries
I Am Not Your Negro is based on James Baldwin's notes on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. to explore and bring a fresh and radical perspective to the current racial narrative in America.
James Baldwin and William F. Buckley 1965 Debate at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"
Hidden Figures tells the story of three female African-American mathematicians who work at NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.
13th is a documentary film that explores the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States.”
Whose Streets? is a 2017 American documentary film about the killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising.
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is a six-part documentary mini-series that chronicles the full sweep of the African-American experience, from the origins of the transatlantic slave trade to the reelection and second inauguration of President Barack Obama.
LA 92 is a documentary film about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Selma is the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic struggle to secure voting rights for all people – a dangerous and terrifying campaign that culminated with the epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and led to President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Let it Fall is the feature documentary that looks at the years and events leading up to the April 1992 riots after the Rodney King verdict.
When They See Us is based on a true story about five teens from Harlem who become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.
What Happened, Miss Simone? is a documentary that chronicles the life of American singer Nina Simone, who became a civil rights activist and moved to Liberia following the turbulence of the 1960s.
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash