racial RECONCILIATION resources
RECOMMENDED READING
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (race issues in America through the eyes of a Nigerian)
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (identity, racism and the American dream)
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
Witnessing Whiteness by Shelly Tochluk
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God and The Black Christ, both by Kelly Brown Douglas
White Privilege and Black Rights by Naomi Zack
Dear White Christians: for those still longing for racial reconciliation by Jennifer Harvey
Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
An Ethic of Resistance by Reggie L. Williams
Christology & Whiteness: What would Jesus Do? edited by George Yancy White Women's Christ and Black Women's Jesus by Jacquelyn Grant
Making Whiteness by Grace Hale
Race and Reunion by David Blight
Grace Matters by Chris Rice
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Black Religion and Black Radicalism by Gayraud Wilmore
Yet with a Steady Beat (about blacks and attempts to gain recognition in TEC) by Harold T. Lewis
Challenges on the Emmaus Road: Episcopal Bishops confront Slavery, Civil War and Emancipation by T. Felder Dorn
Black Reconstruction (or anything by) WEB DuBois
Dogged Strength Within the Veil by Josiah Ulysses Young III
Plantations and Death Camps by Beverly E. Mitchell
IDA: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings
Worse than Slavery by David M. Oshinsky
The Shadow of Slavery by Pete R. Daniel
King and Civil Rights series by Taylor Branch.
A Knock at Midnight - sermons of Martin Luther King
What's the What? by Dave Eggers (an autobiography of Achak Deng, a Sudanese immigrant)
The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers (a novel that runs from Marianne Anderson’s concert to the Million Man March)
Color Blind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equality by Tim Wise
THE LUNCH DATE
This Oscar-winning short film (1989) tells the story of a wealthy white woman whose goal is to catch a train. The story is simple and done with very little dialogue. As the woman hurries toward her train, misses her train, and deals with the aftermath, viewers discover much about her character, including her relationship with the many homeless people in the station and with an African-American man who bumps into her and causes her purse to fall to the ground. “The Lunch Date” offers an opportunity to discuss fear of difference, race, social class and status, and the power of unexamined privilege. (Center for Civic Reflection)
More information and sample discussion questions can be found at the Center for Civic Reflection.