Educating and Empowering Yourself with Black Activism

EDUCATING

Videos

• Video about Black Wall Street https://youtu.be/x-ItsPBTFO0
• Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY
• 7 Last Words of the Unarmed (choir piece, *trigger warning*) https://youtu.be/od6DMd3sP4s 
• Wale’s “Sue Me” music video https://youtu.be/BfRqtM9_pc0 
• Systemic Racism Explained https://youtu.be/YrHIQIO_bdQ 
• Two Minute History- Juneteenth https://youtu.be/zNTnyyplRuc 
• Black-ish History of Juneteenth music video https://youtu.be/gtUctFAO8ds 
• The history of the Green Book & Sundown towns https://youtu.be/b33PN2NB2Do 
• School-to-prison-pipeline https://youtu.be/04pcSyzwoTg 

Movies/Documentaries

• 13th on Netflix (prison system and slavery in america)
• The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (documentary about black LGBT activist Marsha P. Johnson)
• The Hate U Give (movie and book by Angie Thomas story about being black in America)
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (movie AND book about lawyer Bryan Stevenson representing Walter McMillian’s murder charge to prove his innocence)
• Selma (Civil Rights and Selma March)
• Freedom Writers Diary (book AND movie about children of color finding their voices in their English class)
• If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (book AND movie about black love in Harlem)
• Fruitvale Station (story of Oscar Grant, a man who was killed on New Years Eve from police brutality)
• The Great Debaters (true story of an HBCU that beat Harvard at a debate competition)
• Do the Right Thing (based on the death of Michael Stewart)
• Malcolm X on Netflix
• The Banker (about 2 of the first Black bankers in the US who fought housing segregation)

Series

• When They See Us on Netflix (central park five)
• Dear White People on Netflix (how it feels to be black among white people in America)
• Unsolved on Netflix (dramatized version of the Murder investigation of Biggie and Tupac)
• Who Killed Malcolm X, a docuseries on Netflix
• Time: The Kalief Browder Story on Netflix (true crime docuseries about the story of a black teenager who was wrongfully imprisoned)
• Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap on Netflix (episode in season 1)
• Black-ish

Books

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett (book about the lives of maids in Jackson, Mississippi)
• Having Our Say by the Delany Sisters (autobiography by Sadie and Bessie Delany telling their experiences in America)
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (understanding systemic racism)
• Evicted by Matthew Desmond (poverty and profit in the american city)
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisis Coates (being black in america)
• The Children by David Halberstam (Nashville sit-ins, Freedom Riders, Diane Nash, John Lewis)
• Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde (essays, speeches, and poems by Audre Lorde)
• Call Them by Their True Names by Rebecca Solnit (essays on racism, misogyny, climate change)
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni-Eddo Lodge
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (book-length poem about race in the US)
• The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter Goodwin Woodson (a thesis book about how black children were being culturally conditioned instead of taught)
• Stand Up Straight And Sing by Jessye Norman (book about a Black opera singer)
• Electric Arches by Evening L. Ewing (a book of black girlhood through poetry and visual art)
• Black Girl Magic by Mahogany L. Browne
• American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures (not just about black people but has written statements from many POC in America)
• They Can’t Kill us All by Wesley Lowery (police brutality)
• How to be an Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram X Kendi
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity In a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
• White Like Me by Tim Wise
• A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of the Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis
• Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum
• We Want to Do More than Survive by Dr. Bettina Love
• Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn Singleton
• Stamped from the Beginning by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• Waking Up White by Debby Irving
• A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross

Articles/Blogs/Podcasts

• “Black Bodies & White Souls” by Mr. Bockenfeld  https://t.co/7X7F47Yx50
• “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisis Coates https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
• Redlining and Segregation https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
• Code Switch by NPR (candid conversations about race)
• Pod Save the People by Deray Mckesson
• 1619 by The New York Times (The 1619 Project, when the first slaves were brought to America)
• The 1619 Project https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
• The science of our societal norms https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-norms-change
• How you can improve race relations https://www.lavc.edu/stars/library/docs/10-Things-You-Can-Do-to-Improve-Race-Relations.aspx
• Seeing White: Scene on America (podcast on race in America)
• The US Press Freedom Tracker https://pressfreedomtracker.us (see how freedom of the press is often limited in America)
• Tignon Laws and the Policing of Black women’s’ hair https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/the-history-of-louisiana-tignon-laws 
• Code Switching article https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/12/17/culture-code-switching/ 

Speeches

• The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcolm X
• Police Brutality and Mon Violence by Malcolm X
• Police Killings by Malcolm X
• The Race Problem by Malcolm X
• No Taxation without Representation by Malcolm X
• MLK’s 60 min about race riots- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K0BWXjJv5s
• Atlanta hip-hop artist Killer Mike’s reaction to George Floyd protests https://youtu.be/Vy9io6VEt58 

EMPOWERING/ENTERTAINING

Movies/Documentaries

• Becoming on Netflix (Michelle Obama’s tour for her book Becoming)
• Homecoming on Netflix (Beyoncé’s ICONIC 2018 Coachella performance)
• Quincy on Netflix (empowering movie about black musical icon Quincy Jones)
• She’s Gotta Have It (a Spike Lee Joint about a liberated black woman)
• Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool on Netflix (movie AND album, movie is about the jazz icon himself)
• The Black Godfather on Netflix (documentary about Clarence Avant, a mentor in black film, music, and TV)
• Chasing Trane on Netflix (documentary about John Coltrane)
• Get Out
• BlacKkKlansmen
• Hidden Figures

Series

• Self Made on Netflix (series about the story of Madame CJ Walker)
• Rhythm + Flow on Netflix (a show focused on finding new & upcoming rappers. Not everyone is black, they’re celebrating a black art form)
• #blackAF on Netflix (black sitcom)
• Insecure
• They’ve Gotta Have Us on Netflix (a series about black cinema)
• She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix (adaption of the Spike Lee Joint about an empowered, liberated black woman)
• Marching Orders on Netflix (about HBCU bands)
• Black-ish (black sitcom)
• Hollywood on Netflix

Music

• To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
• Lemonade by Beyoncé
• “We the People….”  by A Tribe Called Quest
• “Now” by Miguel
• “Americans” by Janelle Monáe
• “Long Way To Go” by Gwen Stefani and André 3000
• A Seat at the Table by Solange
• “XXX” by Kendrick Lamar ft. U2
• The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
• The Return of the Cool by Nick Grant
• “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy
• “Strange Fruit” by Nina Simone
• “If I Ruled The World” by Nas
• “The Story of OJ” by Jay Z
• “Y U Don’t Love Me?” By Joey Bada$$
• “Temptations” by Joey Bada$$
• “Land of the Free” by Joey Bada$$
• “Good Morning Amerikkka” by Joey Bada$$
• “Say It Loud” by James Brown
• “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Cannonball Adderly
• “This is America” by Childish Gambino
• “Brown Skin Girl” by Beyoncé
• “Hella Black” by Tobe Nwigwe
• “BLACK EFFECT” by The Carters
• “Sue Me” by Wale