neym.org --> M&C Working Party on Racism --> Bibliography
Bibliography
for study of Racial Justice, Antiracism, Multicultural Issues
This bibliography is a list of suggested readings in the areas of racial justice, antiracism, and multicultural issues. It is by no means complete or exhaustive. We are gradually trying to make it more complete, and we expect that it may always be a "work in progress." Annotations come from various sources, are sometimes credited, but often are just taken from the book jacket or a public review.
Starred (*) items are available
through FGC bookstore [www.quakerbooks.org]
Double starred (**) items require special ordering (see comments after the
reference).
Q/ denotes a Quaker-related book
Adams, Maurianne, Ximena Zuniga, and Rosie Castaneda, Rosie (Editors),
The Reader contains a mix of short personal and theoretical essays as well as entries designed to challenge students to take action to end oppressive behavior and to affirm diversity and racial justice. Each thematic section is broken down into three divisions: Contexts; Personal Voices; and Next Steps and Action.
*Anderson, J. (1997) Bayard Rustin: The Troubles I’ve Seen.
One of the most interesting of black intellectuals during
the Civil Rights Movement——and a Quaker. This story of the organizer of the
1963 march on
Q/ Bacon, Margaret Hope. Sarah Mapps Douglass; Faithful Attender of Quaker Meeetings View
From the Back Bench.
A new publication about one of the few African Americans to attend meeting—and be asked to sit on the back bench—in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A dedicated teacher and abolitionist, Sarah Mapps Douglass wrote movingly of the trials of being an African American attender. Foreward by Vanessa Julye.
Q/ Bacon, Margaret Hope. Valiant Friend; The
Life of Lucretia Mott.
The life of Lucretia Mott, the best known female Quaker abolitionist and founder of the women’s rights movement.
Baldwin, James. (1985) The Price of
the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985.
Barndt, Joseph, Dismantling Racism: The
Continuing Challenge to White
This book presents a tough, demanding message on facing and dismantling racism in our hearts and institutions to build a just, multiracial, multicultural society.
This book-length essay is a rigorously honest, deeply felt
exploration of the "hidden wound" of racism and its damaging effect
on American whites. Wendell Berry, English professor at the
Brown, Dee Alexander, Bury My Heart at
First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the
way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning
with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the
massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it
tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically
expanding white society. During these three decades,
Q/ Cadbury, Henry J. (1936) “Negro Membership in the Society of Friends,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. XXI, No. 2, April 1936. Most accessible: look up “Henry Cadbury” on the web. Several sources of the paper, which is in four parts, will come up—including www.qhpress.org/quakerpages.
Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust and Denial in
the
This book is packed full of information for so relatively small a number of pages. Mr. Churchill is man of immense learning and passion. In this iconoclastic study he engages in a comparative study of genocide and its academic treatment with a specific focus on the history of Native Americans vis à vis the U.S. government and the dominant white race.
Conley,
As recalled in Honky, Dalton Conley’s childhood has
all of the classic elements of growing up in
*Cope-Harrison Eliza, editor, For Emancipation and Education: Some Black and Quaker Efforts 1680-1900, Awbury Arboretum, 1997, 60 pp. Can be ordered for $5 or $6 from the Arboretum at 215-849-2855.
Essays by Margaret Hope Bacon, Charles L. Blockson,
*
"Dalton's main goal here is honest engagement between
Euro- and African Americans, and he spells out 'What White Folk Must Do'
(recognize the privilege white skin gives, accept joint ownership of the race
problem, give up Horatio Alger, and resist the temptation to divide and
conquer) and 'What Black Folk Must Do' (retell their story in more complex,
inclusive terms, restore community, take stock of African American culture, and
build alliances with other people of color). Challenging as these prescriptions
are,
Davies, S.E. & Hennessee, S.
P. T. (1998) Ending Racism in the Church.
“This book provides a diverse series of chapters and case studies that may equip any community in their common witness to the Church’s mission to eradicating the sin of racism in society and in the churches…”
*Derman-Sparks, Louise, Carol Brunson Phillips, and Asa G. Hilliard, III. Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach, Teachers College Press, 1997, 192 pp.
This exciting book is an indispensable guide for teachers, trainers, and anyone interested in fighting racism.
Q/ Drake,
Thomas E. (1950) Quakers and Slavery in
Du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk. Available in several editions.
Considered by many to be the single most influential writing by and about African Americans in this century and just as relevant today as when it was first written in 1903.
Edelman, Marianne Wright. (1992) The Measure of Our Success: A letter to
my children and yours.
Every parent and every child should read this book to each other. A celebration of the family, a benediction to the young, and an invocation to the nation's conscience.
Q/ Fletcher,
James and Carleton Mabee. (1979) A
Quaker Speaks from the Black Experience: The Life and Selected Writings of
Barrington Dunbar was a New York African American Friends who spoke his truth to Caucasian Friends during the Civil Rights era and the “black power” struggle that followed. He was a “thorn in the side” of Friends with his outspoken comments, some of which apply equally well today.
Q/
Gara, Larry. The
Quaker historian Larry Gara examines the “legend” of Friends’ participation in the Underground Railroad, giving credit to others—most particularly African Americans—who aided fugitives to escape to the North.
Gates, Henry Louis, and Cornel West. (1996) The Future of the Race.
In an unprecedented collaboration, two of our foremost
African-American thinkers examine the legacy of their intellectual ancestor,
the great W.E.B. Du Bois, and especially Du Bois's
notion of the "Talented Tenth", a black
elite that would serve as models and leaders for the black community at large. "Provocative".--
Hacker, Andrew. (1992) Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile,
Unequal.
A profound analysis of the conditions that
keep blacks and whites dangerously far apart in their ability to participate in
the American dream. In this groundbreaking study, Hacker offers a fresh
and disturbing examination of the divisions of color and class in 1990s
**Hitchcock, Jeff. (2002) Lifting the White Veil: An Exploration of White American Culture in a Multiracial Context
Can be ordered from the publisher,
Crandall, Dostie & Douglass Books.
“Many white people already feel battered and bruised, suffering from compassion fatigue brought on by the constant moral, psychological and, less often, economic wear and tear that race places upon us. We’ve been told untold times of our sins, alleged or true. Most of us wish only that it would go away, yet deep down we realize we have a lot of hard work to do to make our community, our nation, our world a better place for people of all colors.” …from the Preface.
*hooks, bell, Killing Rage: Ending Racism, Henry Holt, 1996, 288 pp., paperback
bell hooks, the influential writer
of Ain't I A Woman?, offers a black
and feminist perspective on the issue of race in
Q/Ives, Kenneth, editor. (1991) Black
Quakers: Brief Biographies.
Johnson, C. & Smith, P. (1998) Africans in America:
America’s Journey through Slavery.
This extraordinary book—the accompanying volume to the PBS series—looks as the history of slavery in the United States with an honesty that reveals both horror and heroism in the common humanity of all Americans.
Josephy,
The original 1971 edition of Red Power was a classic documentary history of the American Indian activist movement. Included in this expanded and updated version are speeches by American Indian leaders, among them Vine Deloria Jr., Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Wilma Mankiller, Clyde Warrior, and Ada Deer. Topics such as tribal identity and sovereignty, land claims and economic development, cultural traditions and spirituality, education, and social conditions are covered in six chapters; where the original text had 26 selections, the second edition has 50.
Kivel, Paul, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, New Society, 1996, 243 pp.
Promotes understanding of the dynamics of racism within society, institutions, and daily lives. Stories and suggestions encourage white people to work for racial justice.
Lerner, Gerta. (ed.) (1992) Black Women in White
This book does an excellent job of documenting the lives of African American women from slavery to the 20th century. It gives a portrayal of their strong abilities to move forward, their religious faith and their degree of hope and self-pride. “Gerda Lerner has collected…material which can change images that whites have had of Blacks, and possibly even those which we, as Blacks, have of ourselves.”—Maya Angelou
Lester, Joan Steinau, The Future of White Men and other Diversity Dilemmas, 1994, Conari Press (Out of Print; available second hand)
Lester’s ability to approach these highly charges issues without anger and blame is consciousness raising. A simple book that can be useful as an introduction to white privilege.
Mathias, Barbara, 40 Ways to Raise a Nonracist Child. Harper, 1996, 176pp.
Divided into five age-related sections, ranging from preschool age to the teenage years, this book provides helpful and practical ways parents can teach tolerance and compassion and contains specific advice addressing the unique concerns of both white parents and parents of color.
**Mazel, Ella (ed.), “And don’t call me
a racist!” : A treasury of quotes on the past,
present, and future of the color line in
This book is not for sale. It is available without charge to
non-profit organizations and institutions for educational purposes. Call
781-862-4521 or write Argonaut Press,
McBride, James, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, Riverhead, 1996, 291 pp.
"This fascinating and unforgettable memoir needs to be read by people of all colors and faiths." - Publishers Weekly
McWhorter, Diane, Carry Me
"The story of civil rights in
Q/ Moulton,
Phillip. (ed.) (1989) The
Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman.
Nabokov, Peter (Editor) Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992, 1992, Penguin.
An updated edition of this classic collection of more than
500 years of Native American history Revised to bring this important chronicle
to the end of the millennium, anthropologist Peter Nabokov
presents a history of Native American and white relations as seen though Indian
eyes and told through Indian voices. Beginning with the Indians' first
encounters with European explorers, traders, missionaries, settlers, and
soldiers to the challenges confronting Native American culture today, Native
American Testimony is a series of powerful and moving documents spanning five
hundred years of interchange between the two peoples. Drawing from a wide range
of sources--traditional narratives, Indian autobiographies, government
transcripts, firsthand interviews, and more--Nabokov
has assembled a remarkably rich and vivid collection, representing nothing less
than an alternate history of
Peltier,
Leonard, Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, 2000,
American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Peltier, arrested more than two decades ago on charges stemming from conflict with the FBI on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, has become a symbol of the oppression of Indians and other indigenous people. As if engaged in the sun dance, in which apparently unendurable sufferings are embraced as a spiritual testimony, Peltier writes of his life, before and behind bars, with anger but not rancor. Since his youth as a warrior, he has become a spiritual elder whose words offer much to Indians and non-Indians alike. "We don't need more prisons," he writes. "We need more compassion. That compassion is our own highest possibility." His own simple, eloquent compassion for his captors as well as himself makes this a remarkable and moving book.
Q/Perry, Mark. Lift Up Thy Voices; The
Grimke’s Journey from Shareholders to Civil Rights Leaders.
The Grimké sisters from
Pevar, Stephen L., The
Rights of Indians and Tribes: The Basic ACLU Guide to Indian Tribal Rights
(American Civil Liberties
This informative guide thoroughly discusses the legal powers of Indian tribes; civil and criminal jurisdiction on Indian reservations; Indian hunting, fishing, and water rights; taxation in Indian country; gaming laws; the Indian Civil Rights Act; and the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Robinson, Randall, The Debt: What
Randall Robinson founded Trans Africa which worked to end
apartheid and continues to seek to influence
Rodriguez, Nelson M. and L. E. Villaverde (editors), Dismantling White Privilege: Pedagogy, Politics, and Whiteness, 2000, Peter Lang Publishers
Dismantling White Privilege critically interrogates whiteness across contexts, from the experiential level to the different ways in which whiteness is deployed in contemporary cultural politics. The editors and contributors contend that "marking" whiteness is an important step in dismantling white privilege within the context of concerns for equity and social justice. Significant to this anthology is linking analyses of whiteness to the discourse of critical pedagogy, especially around constructing "pedagogues of whiteness." Investigating whiteness in its many manifestations, Dismantling White Privilege represents a necessary advance concerning the intersection among race, culture, and pedagogy.
Rodriguez, Richard, Brown, The Last Discovery
of
A charming and thought-provoking discussion of what it is
like to grow up Hispanic in the
Rutstein, Nathan, Healing Racism in
Recognizing his own racism, B'ahai
Rutstein tried to confront and overcome it-finding it
such a powerful and deep seated force that he could only work to improve his
own understanding and actions. After the success of his first book, To Be
One: A Battle Against Racism, he met with
like-minded folks to establish the 150 or more Institutes for Healing Racism
operating in
Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists.
African Americans were, of course, active in working for the freedom of their southern brethren. African American historian Quarles describes the relationship, often difficult, between the abolitionists of the two races and offers an essential view not necessarily found in books by white authors.
Q/*Saunders, Deborah Ann, Equality: 36th Annual J. Barnard Walton Lecture, SEYM, 1999, 29 pp. Published as a Pendle Hill pamphlet. Call the bookstore at 1-800-752-3150.
An essay which addresses the need to faithfully follow the Quaker testimony of equality.
Scales-Trent, J. Notes of a White Black Woman.
As a civil rights lawyer and law professor, Scales-Trent spends a great deal of time reflecting on issues of "sameness and difference." As a black woman with a light complexion, she knows firsthand just how absurd and capricious society's imposed boundaries of race, color, and ethnicity can be. These stunningly powerful essays call upon experiences utterly personal yet distinctly universal; they examine flawed constructs that have evolved to set people apart from one another--fundamental notions about how a person is supposed to look or act based upon arbitrary groupings. With a goal no less compelling than building what she terms "a new kind of community," Scales-Trent proves to be a teacher of remarkable humanity and great clarity of thought. - Booklist
Q/Selleck, Linda. Gentle
Invaders: Quaker Women Educators and Racial Issues During
the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Several hundred northern Quakers, primarily women, went south after the Civil War to build and teach in schools for the freed slaves in the face of anger that brought threats to their well-being and to the schools they were running. A fascinating and in-depth examination of life after the war and of Friends living their witness.
Q/Soderlund, Jean R., Quakers
and Slavery: A Divided Spirit.
This book focuses particularly on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and its struggle to free itself of slaveholding in the 1700s, but it would be of interest to any Friend wanting to understand the arguments and actions of a number of Quakers who tried for nearly a century to convince their co-religionists that owning another human being was a sin. Thomas Drake’s book (above) with a similar title covers all Yearly Meetings and extends to the Civil War.
Q/Sterling, Dorothy, Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelly and the Politics of Antislavery, W. W. Norton, 1991, 436 pp.
A remarkable story, told with honesty and compassion, of a Quaker woman (from Worcester) committed to the cause of antislavery and equal rights who followed in the footsteps of Angelina Grimké to become the best known and most eloquent abolitionist spokesman of her time.
Q/*
Takaki, R. Strangers from a Different Shore: A
History of Asian Americans.
An inspiring book about the Asian American
experience from the first generation of immigrants to the current issues that
affect Asian Americans Today. This book demonstrates the important role
of Asian Americans in shaping the history of
Tatum, Beverly Daniel, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting in the Cafeteria Together? Harper, rev. 1999, 270 pp.
Race identity is a positive developmental factor for young people of color, according to psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D. A renowned authority on the psychology of racism, she asserts it is all right, even necessary, for Black adolescents to have a strong sense of belonging, even if it requires a period of segregation. Using real-life examples and a conversational tone, Tatum takes this issue to the grassroots level.
Thandeka, Learning to Be White: Money, Race,
and God in
Thandeka explores the politics of
the white experience in
Thurman, Howard, The Luminous Darkness: A Personal Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground of Hope. Friends United Press, 1989.
This book is a commentary on what segregation does to the
human soul. First published in the 1960s during the struggle for integration of
blacks in the
Q/Todras, Ellen H., Angelina Grimké: Voice of Abolition, Linnet, 1999, 178 pp.
Based on her diaries, letters, and other primary sources, this biography follows an intense and sometimes difficult woman from childhood to her career as a reformer, her passionate courtship and marriage with abolitionist Theodore Weld, her later life of service to the cause in spite of chronic ill health.
Vine, Jr., Deloria. The
Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty, 1998,
Those of us who try to understand what is happening in North American Indian communities have learned to see Vine Deloria, Jr., both as an influential actor in the ongoing drama and also as its most knowledgeable interpreter. This new book on Indian self-rule is the most informative that I have seen in my own half-century of reading. Deloria and his co-author focus on John Collier's struggle with both the U.S. Congress and the Indian tribes to develop a New Deal for Indians fifty years ago. It is a blow-by-blow historical account, perhaps unique in the literature, which may be the only way to show the full complexity of American Indian relations with federal and state governments. This makes it possible in two brilliant concluding chapters to clarify current Indian points of view and to build onto initiatives that Indians have already taken to suggest which of these might be most useful for them to pursue. The unheeded message has been clear throughout history, but now we see how-if we let Indians do it their own way-they might, more quickly than we have imagined, rebuild their communities."
Vine, Jr., Deloria, Custer
Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, 1988,
First published in 1969 and reissued in 1988 with a new preface
by the author, this is the one that started it all. This book is required
reading and you will be tested. Best Sellers magazine says of Custer Died for
your Sins, "nauseated by the traditional Indian image, (Deloria) asserts the worth if not the dignity of the redman and blasts the political, social, and religious
forces that perpetrate the Little Big Horn and wigwam stereotyping of his
people." Deloria shines his distinctive light on
Indian missions, federal relations,
Wall, S. & Arden, H. (1994) Wisdom’s Daughters:
Conversations with Women Elders of Native America.
Weatherford, Jack, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the
After 500 years, the world's huge debt to the wisdom of the
Indians of the
West, Cornel. (1993) Race Matters.
Q/Wiggins, Rosalind, A Black Quaker's "Voice from within the
Veil": Captain Paul Cuffe's Logs and Letters,
1808-1817.
Paul Cuffe, one of few black Quakers in the early 1800s, and an important figure in American trade history, tried to undercut the slave trade by forming a trading cooperative. Written by former NEYM archivist.
Williams, Lena, foreword By Charlayne Hunter-Gault, It's the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions that Get under the Skin of Blacks and Whites, Harvest Books, 2002, 288 pp.
"A clear, honest yet humorous picture of the little
things that often interfere with communication and friendship between blacks
and whites. . . .
Q/Woolrych, Liamani, Communicating across Cultures: A Report. Joseph Rountree Trust, 1998, 77 pp.
"In 1992-93 Liamani Woolrych received a Joseph Rountree
fellowship to work with Friends on the topic of cross-cultural communication.
Through her visits with meetings across
Wu, Frank H. Yellow: Race in
Mixing anecdotes, legal cases, and journalistic reporting, a
leading voice in
Publisher’s comments: In the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, Cornel West, and other public intellectuals who confronted the "color line" of the twentieth century, journalist, law professor, and activist Frank H. Wu offers a unique perspective on how changing ideas of racial identity will affect race relations in the new century. Often provocative and always thoughtful, this book addresses some of the most controversial contemporary issues: discrimination, immigration, diversity, globalization, and the mixed-race movement, introducing the example of Asian Americans to shed new light on the current debates. Combining personal anecdotes, social-science research, legal cases, history, and original journalistic reporting, Wu discusses damaging Asian American stereotypes such as "the model minority" and "the perpetual foreigner." By offering new ways of thinking about race in American society, Wu's work challenges us to make good on our great democratic experiment.
Zinn, Howard, A
People's History of the
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly
research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell
America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's
factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and
immigrant laborers. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President
Clinton's first term, A People's History of the