Racial literacy is a set of skills needed to talk thoughtfully about race and to identify and respond to racism. These books provide background and guidance for meaningful conversations and positive action.
Junior High
The Talk: conversations about race, love & truth edited by Wade Hudson & Cheryl Willis Hudson
Thirty diverse and award-winning authors and illustrators capture frank discussions about racism, identity, and self-esteem.
This Book is Antiracist by Tiffany Jewell
This book will give kids the language and ability to understand racism and a drive to undo it.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds
Racist ideas are woven into the fabric of this country, and the first step to building an antiracist America is acknowledging America's racist past and present. The young adult adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, his book takes you on that journey, showing how racist ideas started and were spread, and how they can be discredited.
Highschool
We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden
When America makes progress toward racial equality, the systemic response is a backlash that rolls back those wins. In this edition especially for teens, Anderson and Tonya Bolden illuminate these dark moments of history.
Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Brandy Colbert
The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. But how did it come to pass and why are the events unknown to so many of us today?
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World by Patrisse Cullors
This is the story of how the movement that started with a hashtag--#BlackLivesMatter--spread across the nation and then across the world and the journey that led one of its co-founders, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, to this moment.
Rise Up! How You Can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy by Crystal Marie Fleming
An overview of the roots and legacies of racial bias and white supremacy in the United States.
The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege by Brendan Kiely
In an instantly readable account of his own life, Brendan Kiely offers young readers a way to understand one's own white privilege and why allyship is so vital, so that we can all start doing our part-today.
