This is a collection of resources where you can get educated on worldwide issues and ways you can help. On this list, there are books to read, movies and shows to watch, petitions, ways to donate, and more things you can do to help. As I find more resources, petitions, and donation links, I will update this list.
Posted: August 27, 2020. Last Updated: February 25, 2021
Getting Educated
Books:
This list is split up into two categories: nonfiction and fiction. Each book is hyperlinked to its Goodreads page so you can see a full summary and read reviews. I am also going to write another post on diversifying your reading, which will also be updated regularly. Once it’s posted, you can find the link for it here.
Nonfiction
American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer
Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
We Were Eight Years In Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
How To Be Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
Stamped From The Beginning by Ibram X Kendi
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Evicted: Poverty and Profit In The American City by Mathew Desmond
How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation edited by Maureen Johnson
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, with a foreword by Angela Y. Davis
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis,
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli
The View From Flyover Country by Sarah Kendzior
Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America edited by Ibi Zoboi
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Dark Days by James Baldwin
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip Hoose
Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and It’s Legacy by Albert Marrin
Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at A Time by Tanya Lee Stone
The Stonewall Reader edited by The New York Public Library
Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders
Stonewall: Breaking Out in The Fight for Gay Rights by Ann Bausum
A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from The Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl
Fiction
Internment by Samira Ahmed
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles
King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
I Am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina & illustrated by Stacey Robinson and Jon Jennings
Light It Up by Kekla Magoon
How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro
I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Colorblind: A Story of Racism by Johnathan Harris
American Street by Ibi Zoboi
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
Movies and TV:
Paris is Burning, this can be found here on Youtube.
Here is a list of movies and shows on Netflix about the Black Lives Matter movement and racial injustices.
If Beale Street Could Talk, can be found on Hulu here.
The following selection of movies are available to rent.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Fruitvale Station
Selma
The Hate U Give
The following can be found through Amazon Prime.
Do The Right Thing
Malcolm X
Freedom Riders
Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story
Get Out
Carrds, Websites and Petitions:
Carrds are websites where you can compile large lists and links. The ones I’ve linked contain information on what’s happening, petitions you should sign, places and ways to donate, and some include people you can call and text.
Another Black Lives Matter Carrd
Change.Org Black Lives Matter Petitions
Donations to Change.org do not go to the makers of petitions, they go directly to change.org itself.
Change.Org Racial Justice Petitions
Change.Org Human Rights Petitions
Change.Org Police Brutality Petitions
Change.Org Environmental Petitions
This carrd also includes links to BLM carrds in different languages.
Black Mental Health Matters Carrd
Current Information Carrd Links
Donate Without Money:
Lists of places and ways to donate with money can be found in the carrds and websites listed above, but here are ways you can donate if you don’t have money.
Watch this video and do NOT skip the ads. All money from the ads goes to Black Lives Matter organizations. You can also watch this video, which also donates ad money to Black Lives Matter organizations.
Here and here are two more videos, and ad revenue from these goes to helping Yemen.
Play games on this app, and all ad revenue goes to charity projects.
Daily clicks. On this website, you select a cause and then just click a button. An ad will play and ad revenue goes to help the cause that you chose. This can be done once every day per cause, so every day you can help out all five causes once.
Here is a carrd with more ways to donate without money.
Other Things You Can Do:
Election day is Tuesday November 3rd, and you can get registered to vote here. On the same website, you can check if you’re registered, find polling stations near you, request an absentee ballot so you can vote by mail, set up reminds for election day, fill out your census, and more.
To remind others to vote, you can share the link online or with friends. You can also hang posters/flyers around your town to remind people to get registered, and also to vote on election day.
You can attend a protest. Or if there aren’t any nearby, you can start one. Just make/grab a sign and stand somewhere outside, a grocery store, in a park, on a sidewalk, etc. (Make sure you wear a mask though!)
You can also write to your congressional representatives. You can use Resist bot. This website will walk you through how you can text an automated number to find your representatives, and then you can just text it a message to send to them. You can also find information on voting, find trending petitions, get information on current topics, and more.
You can also use this website to find your representatives at different governmental levels and a list of ways to call or email them.
That’s everything for now. If you have any suggestions or things you want me to add to this, feel free to share them in the comments or send them to me on Instagram, Twitter, or my email. My Instagram is @Imaginereaders, my Twitter is @ImagineReader01, and my email is Imaginereaders@gmail.com.
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