An Anti-Racist American History Reading List

Are you struggling with understanding white privileged or reject that it benefits you? Do you not quite understand structural or institutional racism and its depths? Are you uncertain or afraid to talk about race but want to be an ally?

I understand how you are feeling: You were likely given 12+ years of deeply white washed American history education that conveniently left out how we went to great ends to oppress the black community over the late 1800s, throughout the 1900s, and 2000s. You might even find yourself saying you ‘dont see color’ and were raised to treat everyone the same–not recognizing still that you still are a part of a system where you benefit from your own color.

Of course you aren’t prepared to be an ally. Of course you struggle against accepting your white privilege. Of course you probably hold disbelief in the extent and pervasiveness of institutionalized racism in modern society.

However, it is your responsibility to be an educated and aware citizen. The reality is that if you are white, you are more privileged, you benefit from century old systems that oppress our black communities still, and if you truly believe in living in a equitable society you must learn to talk about race, help others confront their own racism, and embrace allyship.

So I present to you a short reading list that can help you learn the american history that has been conveniently been left out of your history classrooms and books, and can also give you tools to help you be a better ally and anti racist. While there are many many more books, I focused heavily on those that covered the 100+yrs of economic, political, and social oppression of the black community spearheaded by american government, police, and white communities POST slavery. These are history and sociology books, as well as first hand accounts that cover:

  • How the American government implemented racist policies and laws to oppress black citizens to the weaponization of the police and incarceration to destroy communities,
  • How banking and financial institutions blocked critical means to wealth building through the 20th century that was critical for whites building wealth and security,…
  • First hand accounts of racism, violence, and oppression during the Great Migration in both northern and southern cities, ….
  • How to confront your own place inside all of this history and your own racism.

Your Anti Racist + American History Primer Reading List

These are in no particular order. If you don’t know where to start or want to talk about what you’re reading and feeling, please send me an email or a comment below. I offer judgement free space for conversation.

📗The Color of Money by Baradaran (history, financial oppression, black banking, etc)
How the American banking and financial institutions (which served as the foundation of American / generational wealth) undermined progress and devastated communities of color throughout the 20th century. Amazing read, historical and well documented. A little slow at times though.

📗The New Jim Crow by Alexander (history, police, incarceration)
The U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. This is an intentional redesign of methods of oppression in a post civil rights era.

📗White Fragility by Diangelo
Ever feel uncomfortable when confronted with talking about race or find yoursd saying you’re ‘colorblind’ and don’t think you benefit from racism?? You’re not alone. White fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. iAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively. Amazing books that recontextualizes your relationship with racism.

📗The Color of Law by Rothstein (urban planning, housing, policy)
interested in why our cities Are segregated or why black home ownership is drastically lower than white home ownership numbers? This book is about how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods.

📗The Warmth of Other Suns by Wilkersons (Social history)
History buffs! This book follows the stories of individuals during the Great Migration, forced to move from south to north in search of safety, community, and opportunity. Reveals through first hand accounts the extreme racist behaviors and laws upheld by southern and northern cities from post slavery into the 1980s. This was your grandparents And parents generations.

📗How To Be An Anti-Racist by kendi (Tools for communication and allyship+history)
Kendi helps us recognise that everyone is, at times, complicit in racism whether they realise it or not, and by describing with moving humility his own journey from racism to antiracism, he shows us how instead to be a force for good.

📗So You Want To Talk About Race by oluo (Tools for communication+history)
Starting with a definition of racism and then delving into topics such as intersectionality, police brutality, affirmative action, the school-to-prison pipeline, microaggressions, the model minority myth and several more, each chapter starts with a personal story illustrating the topic and then explores it more, giving you bullet points of ways to think about and respond to such behaviors.

Is this an end-all-be-all list? No. This is just a primer, a place to get started, to help you realize that you weren’t given all the information, that oppression is real and embedded in the very foundation of how America operates.