Start Your Anti Racist Education Here
The past few years have highlighted the need for anti racist education. There are so many options, it might be difficult to know where to start. Likely, you are here on this website because you want to educate yourself, and possibly find ways to talk with the children in your life – and that’s great! I am so glad you are here!
If you don’t believe that you have any internalized systemic racism in your worldview and thus don’t need this list, may I challenge you to branch out of your typical books and choose one of these? We don’t know what we don’t know until we learn from someone with a different perspective or lived experience. Learning to understand is a beautiful way to love someone.
Anti Racist Definition
To be anti racist is to identify systems and concepts in society that are built on or perpetuate ideas that support or protect white supremacy. An anti racist will mindfully look at their own internalized concepts of superiority or inferiority, and also look at how those beliefs happen in society – and then do the work to dismantle racist systems.
That’s why this website exists. We cannot truly understand our country’s systemic racism without a clear understanding of our country’s history. The books I share have the goal of filling in the missing puzzle pieces of what you might not have learned about history class. There are some ugly parts of history, to be sure – but don’t miss the lessons of ingenuity, perseverance, determination, love, and joy hidden within those pages too.
Whether you are looking for ways to educate the kids in your life or yourself, I have compiled a list of several of the anti racist educators I have turned to to educate myself.
Where To Buy From Independent Bookstores Online
Do you love the convenience of online shopping, but want to support the independent bookstores? The Radical Agenda supports ordering through Bookshop.org! This website not only connects you to just about every book you could want, but you get to choose which independent bookstore you would like to receive the profits! All the pictures are linked to Bookshop for easier shopping.
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Anti Racist Books
Elementary:
Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung
This book is a perfect way to introduce the idea of diversity to very young children. At first the colors live in harmony, until one group starts to think they are “better” than the others.
The resulting lessons about love and humanity (even though they are colors) teaches children that everyone looks a little different, but that we should celebrate those differences instead of creating competition.
The Anti-Racist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi
This book is a bit more specific than Mixed: A Colorful Story. In Antiracist Baby, author Ibram X. Kendi shares with little children the differences that they might notice between them and the people around them. He then reminds children that differences are good, and they are okay. Antiracist babies recognize and respect differences.
I bought this book for my own kids for Easter a few years ago and we still reach for it! Get your own copy of Antiracist Baby here.
Goodnight, Racism by Ibram X. Kendi
Goodnight Racism is a book that helps children dream of a world where systemic racism does not exist – where no children go to bed hungry or unhoused. Where children are free to run around and play together.
This book is beautiful and hopeful, while teaching about how systemic racism causes differences between children that they cannot help.
Middle School
Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Anti-Racism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi
I realize that there are so many books from Ibram X. Kendi on this list, but it’s because he does such a wonderful job of making the information age-appropriate and accessible to all ages.
This is the version of Stamped From The Beginning (see the high school list) for younger children. There are part of history that have been left out of the history books. Kendi makes sure those people who have been erased are highlighted.
Fill in the missing pieces of American history with this book at Bookshop.org.
A Young People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
This book, like Stamped for Kids, explains American history in accessible terms. The best part about Zinn’s books is that he focuses on the other perspectives – those effected by the policies, strategies, and colonization of the people we learn about in history class.
Since there are always at least two sides to every story, make sure you include this book in your child’s library for a different perspective.
Get your copy of A Young People’s History of the United States here.
High School
Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
This book should truly be required reading of anyone in high school. Stamped from the Beginning is the thesis project for Kendi’s PhD in African American studies.
If you have heard of the idea of systemic racism but you are not sure if it’s real or how it came to be, you need to read this book. He goes step-by-step through American history to show how the entire culture is steeped in the idea of white supremacy.
How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
If you have read Stamped From The Beginning and thought, “well, that was awful…now what do we do about it?” that’s where this book comes in. How to be an Antiracist helps create the vision for educating yourself in recognizing systemic racism and how to be an advocate for change.
I listed to this one on an audiobook, and I found it to be especially inspirational to hear the words from the author’s voice.
Use this book to look deeply inside yourself and see what internalized racism you have accepted as normal, so that you can do the work to shift your mindset.
Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin
Ohhhh, this book. This book is beautiful and so timely. Dr Benjamin wrote this book during the pandemic and rise of racial justice awareness in 2020.
This book reads like a memoir, but she also teaches how to take what we have learned to create a more beautiful world for all of us. She shows how small changes in our culture create big shifts, and encourages her readers to dream big and then act on it.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Olou
This is the very first book I read when I wanted to educate myself about racial justice and systemic racism. Ijeoma Oluo pulls zero punches when sharing the experiences of racial discrimination in America.
This is the book for white people who really want to learn about what it’s like to be Black in America. Her words will call you out. It is going to be up to you to decide if you want to learn and understand or if you want to continue being comfortable perpetuating racist ideas (whether or not you think you are or mean to).
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
In your United States history classes, did you learn that the Pilgrims were the first to come to America in 1620? If you did, then I bet it would surprise you to learn that the first recorded ship of enslaved people, captured and brought to be sold, arrived in Virginia to be sold in the colony of Jamestown 1619.
The 1619 Project is a collection of a bunch of essays, each discussing a different aspect of American history that is important to the overall story, but left out.
What I especially love about this is that it is an anthology of so many different stories, rather than put together by one person, but has the common thread of sharing the untold stories of history.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
This book completely blew my mind when I read it (and it’s a long one!). It is an intense review of colonization and the history that has been either erased or just excluded from modern textbooks. But instead of telling the stories of the people in history we recognize, he focuses on telling the stories of the people who were impacted by the people we recognize.
This is a long book and very heavy. The research is outstanding and thorough. I use it as a reference book, and the appendices as resources.
Documentaries
13th
Did you know that one of our Constitutional Amendments still has a sneaky clause to allow for the legal enslavement of other Americans? It does – and this documentary highlights it.
Systemic racism is so sneaky because people are raised in it, and it seems so normal and also justified. But it’s not normal, it’s not justified, and it is wrong.
Content warning: This documentary does show police body camera footage from racial violence. It can definitely be difficult to watch and I cried several times. But if you learn better from television than books, you need to watch this to educate yourself on what is happening with our criminal justice system to subjugate Black Americans.
You can watch 13th on Netflix.