{ Resources for Diversity & Inclusion }

In honor of John Lewis’s Legacy (a civil rights icon, activist, politician, Freedom Rider, and American leader), we wanted to share some ways you can follow in his foot steps (and it’s pretty darn simple); be active, be a voice, and vote. There are plenty of ways as allies you can help, and one of the most important ways is to educate yourself and take the time to have these conversations. It is actually astounding how much we weren’t taught in schools, so here are some guides for you a long the way:

Documentaries to watch:

  • John Lewis: Get in the Way

  • Freedom Riders

  • 13th

  • Jewel’s Catch One

  • LA 92’

Books on history and a good starting point:

  • Across that Bridge by John Lewis

  • Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde

  • Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

  • Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis

  • Stamped From The Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

  • A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

  • White Rage by Carol Anderson

  • So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

  • Becoming by Michelle Obama

  • Tears We cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson

Books on Anti-Racism :

  • The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America by Anders Walker

  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

  • The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

  • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

  • Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill

  • Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum

  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

  • Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy by Darrel Pinckney

Fiction & Graphic Novels to read :

  • March ( a trilogy ) by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, illustrator Nate Powell

  • Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

  • Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

  • The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi

  • The Underground Abductor by Nathan Hale

If you are a Feminist, these topics matter to you too :

  • Beloved by Toni Morrison

  • How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  • Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

  • Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism by Bell Hooks

  • Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

  • In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker

  • Women Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis

  • Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

LGBTQ+ books to read:

  • Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

  • Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers

  • No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies edited by E. Patrick Johnson

  • Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

  • The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin

  • No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Darnell L. Moore

  • The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie

Book Lists to Follow: by Divya from Gotham Taxidermy on bookshop.org

References/Resources used:
Link to the anti-racist resource guide that Victoria Alexander created
Instagram & newspaper @goodgoodgoodco
Women Love Tech
Graphic Novels for Black, Brown, Queer Girls
bookshop.org
Willa’s Books and Vinyl, 1734 E 63rd St, Kansas City, MO 64110