Resource Center
We are committed to making our website a resource to individuals and groups wrestling with issues of race, racism, whiteness and white privilege. We invite you to explore these links pages to find information and action opportunities within sectors of the racist systems.
Ally Organizations
We understand our work as complementary to, not in competition with, the work of many organizations around the country and the world that are dedicated to the elimination of inequality and oppression. All of us are needed to build the movement for equality and justice. We hope this information helps you work with us to build relationships and movements that support a movement for systemic change.ANTIRACISM
- Catalyst Project – a center for political education and movement building based in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Challenging White Supremacy Workshop – Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) workshop organizers believe that the most effective way to create fundamental social change in the U.S. is by building mass-based, multi-racial grassroots movements led by radical activists of color.
- Color of Change: Changing the Color of Democracy – Perhaps the most straightforward website of its kind, Color of Change looks to coordinate and amplify the voice of politically disregarded demographics through the Internet in their sponsorship of a range of issues of discrimination and inequity squared against individuals and societies of color.
- Crossroads AntiRacism Organizing and Training – organizes to remove institutional and cultural barriers maintaining racial inequality, and replaces them with new institutional structures and culture that are liberating, life-giving and just.
- People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond – a national and international collective of anti-racist, multicultural community organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social transformation.
- V.I.S.I.O.N.S. – provides training and consulting to organizations, communities and individuals seeking to achieve greater effectiveness in a multicultural setting.
- Western States Center – at the forefront of building a progressive movement and just society since 1987, WSC’s vision is of a just and equitable society governed by a strong, grassroots democracy. Its mission is to build a progressive movement for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in the eight western states: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
ARTS
- ACT (Arts, Culture & Trade) Roxbury Consortium – ACT Roxbury is the cultural economic development program of Madison Park Development Corporation. Programs include cataloguing and publicizing Roxbury’s artistic and cultural resources and hosting special art exhibits and performances.
- The Theater Offensive (TTO) – TTO seeks to create and present the diverse realities of queer lives in art so bold it breaks through personal isolation and political orthodoxy to help build an honest, progressive community.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
- Boston Workers Alliance (BWA) – Boston Workers Alliance is a community organization led by unemployed and underemployed workers fighting for employment rights. BWA campaigns for CORI reform and economic and racial justice, demanding decent jobs for all people who want to work.
- Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ) – CfJJ is the only independent, non-profit, statewide organization working exclusively to improve the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts.
- Partakers – Partakers was formed to reduce correctional recidivism and promote smooth and beneficial resettlement of for individuals recently out of prison, recognizing and responding to both systemic inadequacies of rehabilitation policies and the institutionalized prejudice of jailing.
- Critical Resistance – Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
- Alternative for Community and Environment (ACE) – Pushing for environmental accountability, justice, and activism, ACE has been fundamental in restructuring public transportation policies, cleaning and regulating hazardous waste sites, and supporting environmentally conscious grassroots campaigns.
- Green Justice Coalition – Green Justice Coalition builds a broad-based constituency in support of a sustainable, equitable and clean energy economy statewide and advocates for green jobs and programs for residents of lower-income communities and communities of color.
- Co-op Power Metro East – Co-op Power Metro East revitalizes local economies in Greater Boston with quality green jobs and brings people together for a sustainable and just energy future.
LESBIAN, GAY, BI-SEXUAL, TRANSGENDER JUSTICE
- GLAAD – The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
- Boston Pride Committee – The Boston Pride Committee, serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and allied community, works to enhance the visibility of Boston’s LGBT community through a week of events each June, in conjunction with year-round activities, to promote LGBT awareness, dignity, and understanding.
- Friends of LGBT Youth, Inc. – A non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating homophobia and transphobia to create larger, safer space for young LGBT people to reach their full potential.
- Mass Equality – Mass Equality is a grassroots organization working to achieve full equality for the LGBT community.
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) – ENDA is an act that would ensure workplace equality by protecting LGBT workers from employment discrimination. ENDA is pending federal legislation that would ban employment discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation. Take action on helping to move this legislation!
HOUSING
- The Fair Housing Center for Greater Boston – The Fair Housing Center offers a comprehensive network for education on resisting and reversing the effects of discrimination in the housing market, providing training and case advocacy, and performing housing discrimination testing.
- Boston Tenants Coalition (BTC) – BTC is a coalition of grassroots tenant neighborhood groups, community development corporations, and homeless and advocacy organizations that promotes affordable housing in Boston, organized to defend and expand the rights of tenants, and to push city, state and federal government, as well as private industry to address the needs of low-income tenants.
- Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA) – MAHA is a statewide non-profit coalition that works to increase public and private sector investment in affordable housing. MAHA staffs the grassroots Homebuyers Union, a group of low to moderate-income tenants and homeowners who organize to break down the barriers to affordable homeownership.
- Mass Access: The Accessible Housing Registry – The Mass Accessible Housing Registry is a free program that helps people with disabilities find rental housing in Massachusetts, primarily accessible and barrier-free housing. The Mass Access database keeps track of accessible and affordable apartments throughout the state and maintains information about their availability.
MEDIA
- The Boston Banner – The Banner is an African American owned and operated weekly newspaper that includes news, church guide, a community calendar, employment listings and other information for and about African American community in the Boston area.
- Open Media Boston – Open Media Boston is an online metropolitan news publication dedicated to regularly publishing fair and accurate news, views, arts, entertainment and technology coverage for the Boston area.
- Press Pass TV – Press Pass is an youth adult partnership organization whose mission is to produce socially responsible video journalism, which promotes a more diverse media, empowers communities and increases civic engagement.
- Sampan – The only bilingual Chinese-English newspaper in New England.
- Media Justice – Media Justice is an organizing body that struggles to build meaningful participation from and within communities of color to reclaim the right to communication and self-expression. It is comprised of the following four anchor organizations:
- Women, Action, & the Media (WAM) – WAM is committed to creating and establishing gender equity in media access, representation, employment and ownership.
- Frameworks Institute – advances the nonprofit sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing the public discourse about social problems. Beginning in 2003, the FrameWorks Institute has pursued an intensive research and applications project devoted to understanding how Americans think and talk about the issue of race.
- FAIR – a national media watch group, that has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. They work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority, and dissenting viewpoints.
RACIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
- Union of Minority Neighborhoods (UMN), Boston – UMN is a broad-based web of resources and individuals committed to effectively and skillfully supporting and organizing grassroots movements sponsored by leaders of color.
- Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice – The Charles Hamilton Institute singularly mobilizes the resources and acumen of Harvard Law School in their endeavor to sustain and advance lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston’s great dedication to the address and reversal of racial discrimination.
- City Live Vida Urbana – a grassroots community organization in Boston committed to fighting for racial, social, and economic justice and gender equality by building working-class power through direct action, coalition building, education, and advocacy.
- Chinese Progressive Association – a grassroots community organization that works for full equality and empowerment of the Chinese community in the Greater Boston area and beyond.
- Asian American Resource Workshop – works for the empowerment of the Asian Pacific American community to achieve its full participation in U.S. society.
- Centro Presente – a member-driven, state-wide Latin American immigrant organization dedicated to the self-determination and self-sufficiency of the Latin American immigrant community of Massachusetts.
- United for a Fair Economy – raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. Supports and helps build social movements for greater equality
RIGHT WING/HATE GROUPS
- Political Research Associates – a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights.
- Southern Poverty Law Center – a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.
YOUTH ORGANIZING/DEVELOPMENT
- Hyde Square Task Force – develops the skills of youth and their families so that they are empowered to enhance their own lives and build a strong and vibrant urban community.
- Boston Youth Organizing Project – an organization of youth, led by youth and supported by adults, who are united by a common purpose: to increase youth power and create positive social change.
- Project Hip-Hop – a youth-led, adult supported organization that provides a space where predominantly young people of color from traditionally low-income communities in Boston can develop and exercise their individual and collective leadership.
- Sub/Urban Justice – a group of individuals and organizations committed to transforming our suburban and urban communities by supporting youth to develop a social justice perspective, and empowering them with the leadership skills to make positive changes in their schools and communities.
THE WHITE PROBLEM
- Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building - a monograph exploring how white privilege often structures work that intends to bring resources into a community to make something better, reinforcing racialized power inequities
- I Can Fix It - Vol. I: Racism, Part I: White People - A short guide to understanding white people as part of the problem, and what whites can do about it.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion - Background Readings - a companion guide the Race: The Power of an Illusion film that debunks social, cultural, and historical models of understanding race as biological or ‘natural,’ exposing race as a construct--one, though, that meaningfully affects all of our lives.
- Structural Racism and Community Building - The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
- 2011Kids Count Data Book - America's Children, America's Challenge: Promoting Opportunity for the Next Generation - Report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation released on 8/16/11 shows that child poverty has increased in 38 states in the last decade and that 1 and 5 children in the U.S. live in poverty.
- African Americans in the Workplace: Overview of Persistent Discrimination
by Felix O. Chima and William D. Wharton
- Economic Mobility of Black and White Families by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trust
- The Downslide Before the Downturn: Declining Economic Security Among Middle Class African Americans and Latinos, 2000-2006 - This report from Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University examines six years of declining assets, rising housing costs, and lack of health insurance that have left millions of families dangerously unprotected in the current recession.
- The Geography of Opportunity: Building Communities of Opportunity in Massachusetts - The Kirwan Institute explores how low-income, racial, and ethnic populations are situated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ geography of opportunity--revealing and interrogating the extent of racialized isolation in low-opportunity communities.
- Neighborhoods and the Black-White Mobility Gap - This Pew Charitable Trust Economic Mobility Project report explores how growing up in a high-poverty neighborhood increases the risk of experiencing downward mobility and helps, in part, explains the black-white mobility gap.
- Other Kirwan Institute Publications - This site includes links to other Kirwan Insitute publications, including the Racial Equity Index, which tracks the equity of our national economic recovery and is produced monthly.
- Race, Place, and Opportunity: Racial Change and Segregation
in the Boston Metropolitan Area, 1990-2000 by Nancy McArdle of The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University
- State of the Dream Reports - United for a Fair Economy releases an annual report that evaluates the U.S. racial-economic divide.
EDUCATION AND YOUTH
- "Don't Call Them Post-Racials - Millennials' attitudes on race, racism and key systems in our society" by Dominique Apollo of the Applied Research Center, May 2011
- Changing the Rules of the Game: Youth Development and Structural Racism by the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, 2004
- Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males 2008 - This report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education focuses on how the stratification of school quality works to minimize educational opportunities specifically for Black students.
- Structural Racism and Youth Development: Issues, Challenges, and Implications - In this report, the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change identifies structural racism at work in the lives of youth as the major catalyst for, and perpetrator of, crisis rather than individual deficiency.
- The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings - A study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. A college degree pays off--but by just how much? In this report, we examine just what a college degree is worth--and what else besides a degree might influence an individual's potential earnings. This report examines lifetime earnings for all education levels and earnings by occupation, age, race/ethnicity and gender. The data are clear: a college degree is key to economic opportunity, conferring substantially higher earnings on those with credentials than those without.
JOBS
- Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? by Marianne Bertrand and Aendhil Muliainathan
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
- One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008 - This Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project report details how, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in the U.S. are in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety.
- One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections - This Pew report explores the corresponding rate of one in 31 U.S. adults on probation or parole, interrogating explosive probationary growth and the absence of correlative funding for community supervision.
- Race, Crime and Punishment: Breaking the Connection in America - This book, from the Aspen Institute: Roundtable on Community Change, is the result of several years worth of meetings and discussions among criminal justice reformers, social scientists, legal scholars, rights advocates and activists on the nature and challenges of mass incarceration in the U.S. through the lens of structural racism.
MEDIA
- The Frameworks Institute Race Research - Frameworks offers research publications that explore how Americans think and talk about race as influenced by and reflective of the dominant frame, ultimately considering how to confront and change that frame.
BOSTON & MASSACHUSETTS
- We Don’t Feel Welcome Here: African Americans and Hispanics in Metro Boston - Harvard University’s The Civil Rights Project
- The State of Black Boston 2010 - the Urban League of Eastern MA, NAACP - Boston Chapter and the William Monroe Trotter Institute.
- Massachusetts Immigrants by the Numbers: Demographic Characteristics and Economic Footprint (Second Ed.) - Released by the Public Education Institute at The Immigrant Learning Center, Inc., this report provides demographic information and delves into immigrants' impact on public assistance, social security and tax payments as well as their income disparities and rate of institutionalization including incarceration.
- Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America - NAACP (2011). The report reveals direct connections between the trend of increasing, unprecedented turnout among voters of color and the proliferation of restrictive measures across the country designed to thwart electoral strength among people of color—particularly those who are poor, young, or elderly.
Articles: essays that inform, critique, analyze, assess and reflect on race, racism, anti-racism, whiteness, white privilege, etc. Expand
CONSTRUCTION OF RACE AND RACISM
- The History of the Idea of Race...and Why It Matters, a paper presented by Audrey Smedley at the conference “Race, Human Variation and Disease: Consensus and Frontiers,” sponsored by the American Anthropological Association, March 14-17, 2007
- The Color-Blind Bind by Lee D. Baker
RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS
- Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice by Derald Wing Su, etal
- Acts of microaggression by Jessica Troiano
- Microaggressions can Cause Problems in the Workplace by Rick Haberstroh
- Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls” by Tami Winfrey Harris
- Racial Microaggressions: The Schooling Experiences of Black Middle-Class Males in Arizona’s Secondary Schools by Quaylan Allen
- Racial Microaggressions by Secondary School Teachers Against Students of Color by Mary Anne Percy Meeks
MAKING CHANGE
- The Path from a Monocultural Club to an Inclusive Organization by Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Mille
- Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies adapted from Uprooting Racism: How White People can Work for Social Justice by Paul Kivel
- Leading Boldly: Foundations can move past traditional approaches to create social change through imaginative - and even controversial - leadership by Ronald A. Heifetz, John V. Kania and Mark R. Kramer
- Operationalizing A Structural Racism Framework: A Guide for Community Level Research and Action by Stacy A. Sutton and the Aspen Roundtable Structural Racism and Community Revitalization Project
- Applying a Theory of Change Approach to the Evaluation of Comprehensive Community Initiative: Progress, Prospects, and Problems by James P. Connell and Anne C. Kubisch
- A Community Builder's Tool Kit: 15 Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities A project of The Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative
- Making Difference Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ely
- Redefining the Imperative for Leveraging Diversity and Inclusion: A Fresh Look by Frederick A. Miller and Judith Katz
- The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman aka Joreen
- Dismantling Racism: A Resource Book for Social Change Groups from the Western States Center and Collaborators
- Diversity and Its Discontents: Diverse workplaces require emotional maturity, and that means confronting "rankism" by Art Kleiner
- Facing the Fear: White Leaders, Diverse Communities, and Racism by Patti DeRosa
- A Time To Break the Silence by Dr. Martin Luther King
- Integration Anxiety: Montclair, N.J. by Lise Funderburg
- Diversity is being invited to the party; Inclusion is being asked to dance by Verna Myers
EDUCATION
- Critical Literacy for Xenophobia: A Wake Up Call by Lisa Patel Stevens and David Omotoso Stovall
- Ultimate $uperpower: Supersized Dollars Drive "Waiting for Superman Agenda by Barbara Miner
- Talking About Race, Learning About Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom by Beverly Daniel Tatum
WHITENESS AND WHITE PRIVILEGE
- Blinded by White: We Caucasians Would Prefer to Ignore Our Preferences by Roy Hartman for the Riverfront Times
- Climbing the White Escalator by Betsy Leondar-Wright
- Digging Out of the White Trap by Meck Groot and Paul Marcus for Poverty and Race Action Council
- How to Be an Ally if You Are a Person with Privilege by Frances E. Kendall
- How We Are White by Gary Howard
- How To Be A Reverse-Racist: An Actual Step by Step List For Oppressing White People by by A.D Song and Mia McKenzie for BlackGirlDangerous.tumblr.com
- "I am not a racist but...": mapping White college students' racial ideology in the USA by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Tyrone Forman
- Middle-Class Poverty: Race- and Class-Passing within White America by Tandeka
- More Thoughts On Why the System of White Privilege is Wrong by Robert Jensen
- On Being White….And Other Lies by James Baldwin
- Racism: Negative Effects on Whites by Horace Seldon
- Reverse Racism: Or How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black by Stanley Fish
- Shining the Light on White by Sharon Martinas
- Teachable Moments Require Willing Learners by Robert Jensen posted on Countercurrents, July 27, 2009
- The Unbearable Being of Whiteness by Eric Liu for Slate Magazine
- What White People Fear and Why It Matters by Robert Jensen in YES! Magazine, Spring, 2010
- White People Need to Acknowledge Benefits of Unearned Privilege by Robert Jensen
- White Privilege or White Middle-Class Poverty? by Thandeka
- White Silence, White Solidarity by Christine Sleeter
- White Supremacy Culture by Kenneth Jones & Tema Okun for changework from the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop
- How Jews Became White by Karen Brodkin Sacks
- The End of Safety: Reflections on Being an Anti-Racist Ally by Melanie S. Morrison
- The Linguistics of Colorblind Racism: How to Talk Nasty About Blacks Without Sounds "Racist" by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
- The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media by Stuart Hall
- White Privilege/White Complicity: Connecting "Benefiting From" to "Contributing To" by Barabara D. Applebaum
RACISM AND WHITE PRIVILEGE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS
- Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies by Paul Kivel
- Barriers to Organization Between Anti-Racist White People by Joanie Mayer
- The Forgotten "-ism:" An Arab American Women's Perspective on Zionism, Racism and Sexism by Principal Writers: Nadine Naber, Eman Desouky, and Line Baroudi of the San Francisco Chapter of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association
- An Open Letter to My White Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Sisters and Brothers by Diane Finnerty
- Obscuring the Importance of Race: The Implications of Making Comparisons Between Racism and Sexism (or Other Isms) by Trina Grillo and Stephanie M. WIldman
- With Friends Like These, Who Needs Glenn Beck? Racism and White Privilege on the Liberal-Left by Tim Wise
THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
- Looking for Color in the Anti-War Movement by Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez
- An Open Letter to Activists Concerning Racism in the Anti-War Movement by Steve Bloom, Jean Carey Bond, Humberto Brown, Saulo Colon, Bhairavi Desai, Cherrene Horazuk, Randy Jackson, Hany Kahlil, Ray Laforest, Ngo Thanh Nhan, Rene Francisco Poitevin, Merle Ratner, Liz Roberts, Juliet Ucelli and Lincoln Van Sluytman
- An Anti-Racist Coalition? We Have A Long Way To Go by Ilana Berger, Jennica Born, Jill Dowling, Jesse Ehrensaft-Hawley, Jo Hirschmann, Adam Horowitz, Abbie Illenberger, Evelyn Lynn, Sara Marcus and Emily Thuma
- Anti-Arab Racism, Islam, and the Left by Rami El-Amine
- The antiwar movement retreats post on Youth Against War and Racism
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT
- Environmental Justice In the 21st Century by Dr. Robert Bullard
- Free The Land: People of Color, Social Justice, and the Environmental Movement by Ewuare X. Osayande
- Principles of Environmental Justice written at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit
- Environmental Racism: Old Wine In A New Bottle by Dr. Deborah M. Robinson
- "Greening the Ghetto: a tale of urban renewal" by Majora Carter (TED Talk)
BOSTON, GREATER BOSTON AND MASSACHUSETTS
- Segregation reports raps Boston, Springfield Schools - Boston Globe September 20, 2010
- New England's hidden history - More than we like to think, the North was built on slavery - Boston Globe September 26, 2010
- "Ambiguous Victory" - Patrick Kelly (The University of Texas at San Antonio); a book review of After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans.
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
- For articles and other resources on Native American studies, see Native Studies Primer.
- Opportunity Agenda, The - works to build public support and public policy for greater and more equal opportunity in the United States
- Race - Are We so Different? - a great resource on race and biology from the American Anthropological Association
- Race, the Power of an Illusion - the online companion to California Newsreel's three-part documentary about race in society, science and history
- Racial Equity Tools - includes ideas, strategies, and tips, as well as a clearinghouse of resources and links from many sources for people working for racial equality and inclusion
- Racism Review - intended to provide a credible and reliable source of information for journalists, students and members of the general public who are seeking solid evidence-based research and analysis of “race,” racism, ethnicity, and immigration issues, especially as they undergird and shape U.S. society within a global setting.
- Not Waiting for Superman - initiated by Rethinking Schools to talk back to the film and support efforts by teachers, students, and parents to improve and preserve public education
- Unnatural Causes - the online companion to California Newsreel's excellent series on Racism and health
- Unnatural Causes Youth Companion Guide - Boston Public Health Commission
- 6 Rules for Allies speech by Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones (video).
- Racialicious - a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture.
- Ill Doctrine - a hip hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth
(Video) How To Tell People They Sound Racist
- Drug War Facts - data about race and prison
- Tim Wise - one of the most widely known antiracist writers and educators in the U.S. The site contains an archive of Tim's articles from 1995 - 2008.
- Children of the Camps, Internment History - a PBS history about Japanese American internment camps during WWII.
- Concentration Camps in North America during WWII - lists the camps, and mentions that Japanese people were taken from Latin America to be interned in the U.S., and Canada held camps as well.
- (Video) Hali Halisi - Documentary about Hip Hop music in Tanzania that discusses the importance of rap as an instrument of social change
- For websites and other resources on Native American studies, see Native Studies Primer.
Reader's Guides: topic specific reference guides to aid you in your exploration of racism, race, whiteness and white privilege Expand
- Dance Me Outside (film)
- Brick by Brick (documentary film)
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Study Guide
- Native Studies Primer
- Race & Gender in the Occupy and SlutWalk movements
- 3 Strikes Bill in MA: Resources and Analysis
- Precious Knowledge (documentary film)
- Civil Rights Movement: Oral Histories and Personal Accounts
- President Obama & Race
- Trayvon Martin & White Privilege
- Librarianship & Racism
- The Mountaintop (play)
- Mass Incarceration
Multimedia: web-based seminars, recordings, videos and more on topics that relates to systemic racism. Expand
- Systems Thinking and Racial Justice (webinar) - Professor Jon Powell
- Say it Plain, Say it Loud: A Century of Great African-American Speeches - from American RadioWorks/American Public Media.
Archives from the Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) Workshop from the years 1993 to 2000 are available for use in the library. The workshop ran for over a decade, from 1993 to 2005. The contents of the archives are listed below and include lectures, essays, newsprint, workshop activities, and flyers. They are an invaluable source of information on white privilege throughout history, imperialism, and progressive movements, and on anti-racist organizing. We welcome you to read them.
ABOUT THE CHALLENGING WHITE SUPREMACY (CWS) WORKSHOP
The mission of the CWS workshop was to 'train principled and effective grassroots anti-racist organizers.' Typical workshops were called 'Becoming an Anti-Racist Activist,' 'Becoming and Anti-Racist Organizer,' and 'Introduction to Grassroots Anti-Racist Organizing.' The workshop, based in San Francisco, began in 1993 after its co-founders Mickey Ellinger and Sharon Martinas were inspired by participating in The People's Institute's 'Undoing Racism Workshop.' The CWS workshop closed in June 2005.
Each workshop session lasted about 15 weeks and met 3 hours per week. Participants were expected to complete reading assignments of 100-150 pages per week, to volunteer in a pre-arranged racial justice organization for 6 to 8 hours per week, and to raise funds to pay the honoraria for organizers of color who presented to the workshop.
Workshop participants were mostly white, college-educated, working and middle-class grassroots social justice activists between the ages of 20 and 30. The majority of each workshop of 30-35 participants were women and LGBT activists. After 2001, all applicants had to have at least 1-2 years of prior experience as social justice activists in order to participate in the workshop.
CWS was an anti-racist solidarity workshop. Its co-founders came from a political tradition of white anti-racist solidarity activists who, from the late 1960s through the 1980s, practiced our belief that the role of U.S. white revolutionaries was to win other white activists to support national liberation movements on both sides of the U.S. borders. Mickey and Sharon hoped to pass on the tradition of 'solidarity politics' to a new generation of predominantly white anti-racist activists.
In 2009, Mickey and Sharon donated the CWS files from 1993 to 2000 to Community Change in Boston. We hope you find them useful in your racial justice work.
BOX #1: FOUNDATIONS OF CWS: 1990-1992
- 'Solidarity Without Borders:' El Salvador Hotline, & Linking Issues 1990-1991
- Theoretic Base for 'Fighting White Supremacy in Progressive Movements:' my essay of 1991
- Responses to Essay 'Fighting White Supremacy in Progressive Movements:' August 1991
- Mickey Ellinger's & My class: 'Addressing White Supremacy in Progressive Movements: Summer 1991, Fall 1991
- Mickey's and my class: renamed '500 Years of White Supremacy.' Spring 1992
- My notebook of this period
BOX #2: FOUNDATIONS OF CWS: 1992-1993
- 'Fundi:' 1992-1993 (An effort to create a woman of color led anti-racist training center, which did not eventually happen)
- First cws workshop: a one day workshop for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) fall 1992
- Mickey's and my participation in the Undoing Racism Workshop of the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond: June 1992,
- First CWS 10 Week Workshop: Challenging White Supremacy: Spring 1993
- Evaluations from the first workshop: Spring 1993
- One day CWS workshops for CISPES and Prairie Fire Organizing Committee in Chicago, Spring 1993
BOX #3: SUMMER AND FALL 1993; MISCELLANEOUS DRAFTS OF CWS 'LEGACIES READERS'
- One day CWS workshop for War Tax Resistance, Berkeley, summer 1993
- One Day War Tax Resistance workshop: facilitators handbook and placards
- 8-week workshop: Summer 1993
- Fall workshop: folder #1
- Fall workshop: folder #2
- Draft proposals for Fall 1994 workshops
- Drafts of proposed Legacies Readers, 1993-1997
BOX #4: CWS 1994
- Planning: Brochures 1994
- Planning: Correspondence 1994-1995
- Administration: 1994
- Spring 1994: Workshop for Activists Curriculum
- Small group organizing skills training: 1993-1995
- 'Mentor' training: small group organizing skills summer 1994
- Working Group to plan 'CWS Workshop for Organizers: Summer 1994
BOX #5: CWS 1995
- Planning & 'Swimstorms': 1995
- Workshop Agendas: 1995-1996
- What is Racism? 1996-1999 (analyses and exercises)
- Practice & Model Respectful Behavior; Active Listening
- Creating an Anti-Racist Culture of Resistance: #1
- Creating an Anti-Racist Culture of Resistance: #2
- Evaluations: Fall 1994-Fall 1995
- Small-Group Organizers Training: 1995-1996
BOX #6: CWS WORKSHOPS: 'BECOMING AN ANTI-RACIST ACTIVIST': 1996-1998
- Large white folder 1: Planning and Publicity 1996
- Large white folder 2: Planning and Publicity 1997
- Large white folder 1: Agenda: Political Perspectives & Introduction 1996-1998
- Large white folder 2: Agenda: "Life in the City:" "Life in the Burbs": 1996-1997
A Power Analysis adapted from Peoples Institute
- Large white folder 3: Family Herstories; Research histories of white anti-racist activists 1997-1998
- Large white folder 4: 'Shinin' the Lite on White': White Privilege and Culture' 1994-1998
- Large white folder 5: 'Shinin the Lite on White' Exercises 1997-1999
- Large white folder 6. Small-Group Organizers (SGO) training program 1998-1999
BOX #7: 'BECOMING AN ANTI-RACIST ORGANIZER 1996-1999'
- Legacies Workshop 1996
- CWS brochures 1998
- CWS workshop spring 1999: brochures, planning, trainers, volunteer racial justice placements
- CWS workshop spring 1999: curriculum
- Permissions for Legacies Reader
- Some correspondence 1997-1999
BOX #8: 'BECOMING AN ANTI-RACIST ORGANIZER 1995-1999
- Racism and the Rise of the Right 1995-1996
- Standing in Solidarity: Linking Issues 1998 (for more Stand in Solidarity exercises, see Box #2 of'CWS Workshop onLine, 1998-1999)
- Challenging the Strategy of the Slave Owners: Prioritizing Issues of Peoples of Color (3 folders)
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- Creating an Anti-Racist Organization 1995-1997
- Hold on to your Visions 1997-1998.
BOX #9: CWS WORKSHOP ONLINE 1998-99**
** Please note special caution on use of the CWS workshop online materials. Anyone may read and copy the content of these materials, including emails. But NO ONE, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES may copy names or any contact info about anyone listed on these materials. This includes all email names and email addresses. Neither can any of the people whose emails are listed be contacted by ANYONE using these files. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this rule!
- Brown folder 1: Planning
- Brown folder 2: Inquiries
- Brown folder 3: Jan-April 1998
BOX #10: CWS WORKSHOP ON LINE and STAND IN SOLIDARITY FILES 1992-1999
- Brown folder 1: CWS workshop online: May-Sept. 1998
- Brown folder 2: CWS workshop online: Evaluations Sept-Dec. 1998
- Large white folder 1: Stand in Solidarity: Breaking the Silence on Violence 1992-1999
- Large white folder 2: Stand in Solidarity: Presentations and Exercises 1993-1998
- Large white folder 3: Stand in Solidarity: Legacies of Liberation 1992-1999
BOX #11: "PHOENIX" AND TIME OF TRANSITION: 1999-2000
- "Phoenix:" (an unfulfilled dream): A School for Grassroots Anti-Racist Organizers. 1999-2000.
- Anti racist study groups proposed for Fall 1999 through Summer 2000 (folder #1)
- Study groups and anti-racist activities Fall 1999-2000.
BOX #12: CWS WORKSHOPS: 'BEYOND THE WHITENESS IN SEATTLE:' SUMMER & FALL 2000
- Draft Planning for 'Beyond the Whiteness' Summer 2000 (4 session workshop)
- 'Beyond the Whiteness': Summer 2000 workshop
- 'Beyond the Whiteness:' Fall 2000, a 6-week workshop (Folder #1)
- 'Beyond the Whiteness:' Fall 2000, a 6-week workshop (folder #2)
BOX #13: BECOMING AN ANTI-RACIST ACTIVIST: SPRING 2001
(This workshop was a collaboration with Elizabeth Betita Martinez and her Institute for Multi-Racial Justice. It was a wonderful collaboration between Betita and me. But unfortunately, it only went on for 1 spring. The students of color in Betita's part of the workshop evaluated that 'it was a waste of their time' to have to meet jointly some sessions with the white participants.)
- Orientation booklet: 'Becoming an Anti-Racist Activist' Spring 2001
- Planning Materials for Orientation
- Recruitment Materials
- Draft materials for curriculum
- Spring 2001 Curriculum (brown folder)
- Organizing against Patriarchy with an Anti-Racist Lens
- More Curriculum for Spring 2001
BOX #14: BECOMING AN ANTI-RACIST ACTIVIST: FALL 2001
(Many of the curriculum materials and readers for this session were the same as for Spring 2001)
- Planning for Fall 2001 curriculum
- Extras from Small Group Organizing Training Manual Fall 2001
- Some Exercises and Agenda for Fall 2001 workshop
- Evaluations from both Spring and Fall 2001