Antiracist Resources

The Bethlehem Area Public Library is committed to actively supporting essential conversations and actions to confront racism in America.

This page will feature antiracist resources available in our collections, links to external resources, and information about library programs that promote antiracist conversation within our community and with our patrons.

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In our collections

Antiracist reading

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Author), Karen Chilton
Tears we Cannot Stop, by Michael Eric Dyson
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta Nehisi Coates
Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
Educated by Tara Westover
Race Matters, 25th Anniversary by Cornel West
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces by Radley Balko
Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis
How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin
On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by Deray McKesson
Slavery By Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F Saad

Black authors, thinkers, and creators

“Reading Anti-Racist Nonfiction Is a Start. But Don’t Underestimate the Power of Black Fiction,” Jasmine Guillory, writing for Time Magazine

N.K. Jemisin

One of the most important writers working today, you simply fall in to Jemisin’s worlds, care desperately for her characters, and live alongside them as they search, love, struggle and survive. The first author to win the Hugo Award (honoring the best of science fiction and fantasy) three times consecutively, for each volume in her Broken Earth trilogy.

How Long Til Black Future Month? (Overdrive)
The City We Became (Overdrive)

Octavia Butler

Spare and haunting, like a good friend telling you a strange true story by the fireside. Her writing about writing (including essays in Bloodchild) is just as inspiring as her fiction.

Jasmine Guillory

Guillory writes modern romances you just want to hug. Smart, sexy, and so much fun.

Toni Morrison

To read Toni Morrison, through her fiction or her non-fiction, is to encounter a great mind, and to have your own mind made richer.

Margo Jefferson

Theater critic and culture writer Jefferson’s memoir, about growing up in the 1950s in the upper crust of Black Chicago society–her father was head of pediatrics at a hospital, her mother was a socialite–is as beautifully written as it is illuminating about privilege and race.

Negroland: A memoir

Colson Whitehead

Whether he’s writing about zombies, the fleeting summer vacations of youth, elevator repair, or putting a postmodern spin on the Underground Railroad, Whitehead is always inventive, always humane, always himself.

Films and documentaries

On Kanopy

I Am Not Your Negro, written by James Baldwin, dir. by Raoul Peck
Moonlight, dir. by Barry Jenkins
Within Our Gates, dir. by Oscar Micheaux
Daughters of the Dust, dir. by Julie Dash
Slavery By Another Name, dir. by Samuel D. Pollard

In the catalog

Boycott, Directed by Clark Johnson
Do the Right Thing, dir. by Spike Lee
Fences, written by August Wilson, dir. by Denzel Washigton
Fruitvale Station, dir. by Ryan Coogler
Get Out, dir. by Jordan Peele
If Beale Street Could Talk, dir. by Barry Jenkins
Malcolm X, dir. by Spike Lee
Selma, dir. by Ava DuVernay

Available via Inter-Library Loan (email interlibraryloan@bapl.org to request)

Blackout, dir. by Jerry LaMothe
Middle of Nowhere, dir. by Ava DuVernay
Pariah, dir. by Dee Rees

Upcoming programs

Black Women Writers: Past and Present

4-session series. Thursday July 9 & 23 and August 6 & 20 from 7:00-8:00 p.m.
In Partnership with Lehigh University Dept. Of English
Facilitated by Jo Grim and Shelby Carr

How can two novels by nineteenth-century Black women writers illuminate our present historical moment? Over the course of four weeks, this group will come together to read Hannah Craft’s The Bondwoman’s Narrative and Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig and discuss how these works are relevant to racism and racial injustice today. This group is facilitated by Jo Grimm and Shelby Carr.

Dialogues on Racial Justice: An Introductory Workshop Series on Issues of Systemic Racism in the United States

4-session series. 2nd and 4th Tuesdays in July and August from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Presented by Linda-Wiggins Chavis

Learn about how racism is constructed and maintained, historical contexts of systemic oppression and police brutality, and the progress towards equitable reform for restorative justice. This class is taught by Linda Wiggins-Chavis.

Read about our Dialogues on Racial Justice series in The Southsider!

Community suggested resources from Dialogues on Social Justice
- Slavery By Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon (nonfiction)
- The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
- The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (nonfiction)
- Slavery By Another Name, dir. by Samuel D. Pollard (documentary)
- ‘The Strange Story Of The Man Behind Strange Fruit’
  by Elizabeth Blair for NPR Morning Edition (2012)
- ‘The Philadelphia Race Riot (1918)’
  by Will Mack for Blackpast.org (2017)
- ‘Race riots in Philadelphia during the 1919 Red Summer’
- ‘MOVE: Or When the Philly Police Dropped a Bomb on a Residential Neighborhood’
  Stuff You Should Know podcast episode (2019)
- ‘The Long Hot Summer’
  NPR’s Throughline podcast episode (2020)
- Felony Disenfranchisement Laws Map
  ACLU.org (accessed July 2020)
- Criminal Disenfranchisement Laws PDF – State by State Breakdown
  BrennanCenter.org (updated June 2020)
- The Childhood Opportunity Gap Expanded Data Visualizations
  Diversitydatakids.org (2019)

The Clearing: Movement towards Communities of Compassion

A Dancing Mindfulness Gathering with Dr. Alisha Tatem
4-week series. Saturdays July 25-August 15 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Join us for a 4-week dancing mindfulness gathering! Participants will create an open space where they can engage through movement, song, and storytelling about the impacts of systemic racism, how we can begin to dismantle systems that oppress people, and develop communities of care and compassion. This class is taught by Dr. Alisha Tatem.