These resources include books, podcasts, documentaries, movies, and TV shows that celebrate Black life and gives the opportunity to learn more about the Black experience and Black history.
Podcast- NPR Code Switch
- Code Switch is a race and culture outlet and a weekly podcast from American public radio network NPR.
Book – White Fragility by Robin D’Angelo
- The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
Movie/TV – The Hate U Give
- The Hate U Give is about a teenage girl who grapples with racism, police brutality, and activism after witnessing her black friend murdered by the police.
- Can be purchased on Amazon Prime or YouTube for $3.99
Documentary- 13th
- Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African Americans.
- Streaming on Netflix or YouTube (free)
Children’s Book – Tiny Stitches
- Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas tells the story of an early 20th-century African American who distinguished himself in medicine. Son of a Nashville carpenter, he worked with his father to save money for college and medical school but lost it all in the stock market crash. He got a job as a medical technician at Vanderbilt University and excelled at research, though he discovered his job description was “janitor” and he had to fight to earn as much as his white co-workers. When he went to work at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, he had to eat in the “colored” cafeteria, he pioneered surgery to help “blue babies,” infants with a heart condition called “Tetralogy of Fallot.” Never allowed to perform the surgery himself, Thomas coached others who were nominated for the Nobel Prize. Twenty-six years after the first operations, Thomas was publicly honored for his work saving thousands born each year with this life-threatening heart condition.