Books and Other Media for Healing Racism

Fiction

The Help – Kathryn Stockett
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism – James W. Loewen
The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of American’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
A Time to Kill – John Grisham
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

Non-Fiction

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X
Race Matters – Cornel West
White Like Me – Tim Wise
Between Barack and a Hard Place – Tim Wise
Non-Fiction (cont’d)
Racial Justice in the Catholic Church – Bryan Massingale
Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America – Joseph Barndt
Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence – Laurie Cassidy and Alex Mikulich, eds.

Movies

The Visitor
Crash
The Help
12 Years a Slave
Belle
The Butler
Many Faces in God’s House
McFarland
Fruitvale Station (2013 Docudrama, 81 minutes) Based on a true story
Amazing Grace
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Color Purple
A Time to Kill
A Day Without A Mexican

Videos

The Gatekeeper
Dying to Live
One Border, One Body
The House We Live In – PBS Series
Racism is Real
Year of Encounter with Pope Francis

PICO = People Improving Community through Organizing

Topics/Study Guides: How Economy Excludes People; How Our Immigration System
Excludes People; how Our Criminal Justice system Excludes People; how Our Racism
Excludes People; plus others.

Pastoral Letters

Brothers and Sisters to Us – US Bishops Pastoral Letter on Racism in Our Day 1979
Dwell in My Love: A Pastoral Letter on Racism – Francis Cardinal George OMI 2001
For the Love of One Another: A Special Message on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of Brothers and Sisters to Us – USCCB 1989
In God’s Image: Pastoral Letter on Racism – Most Reverend Harry J Flynn 2003
What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States - 1984

Articles

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack – Peggy Mc Intosh
10 Things Everyone Should Know About Race

Statements

The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society – Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace – 1988
Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity – a Statement of the US Catholic Bishops – 2000
We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight – a Research Report Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Brothers and Sisters to Us - 2004