Reading List
The voices of our students, extended family, faculty and alumni are all part of our effort to help facilitate conversations that heal and promote the strength and resilience within Black families. We'll explore the state of our nation, injustice and systematic racism, and its impact on the Black community through our Hopes & Fears series.
The focus of the first Hopes & Fears: Conversations with Black Students on June 30 was to amplify the voices of CGCC’s family but we all know the wider community has a lot to say and share!
Members of the CGCC faculty have curated some books, podcasts, websites and documentaries focused on Black students to help extend the conversation beyond our monthly series.
Books
Young adults
Stamped: Racism, Anti Racism, and You - Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds - This book takes Kendi’s National Book Award-winning study “Stamped from the beginning” and makes it easily accessible to a youth audience.
Young adults
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity - Beverly Daniel Tatum - An updated version of the examination of how and why Black, white and Hispanic students cluster in their own groups even in racially mixed high schools.
Young adults
Why we can’t wait - Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson - Details the Birmingham, Alabama, campaign with the ‘Letter from a Birmingham jail’ a central focus.
Commentary
The socially active ice cream country on the effects of slavery in America.
Documentaries
Parents
The Talk (PBS)
“THE TALK is a two-hour documentary about the increasingly necessary conversation taking place in homes and communities across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.”.
Podcast
Young Adults
Therapy for Black Girls (YouTube)
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible version of ourselves.
Parents/teachers
Teaching while white
The podcast pursues answers to ways educators can become racially literate, examines how their whiteness may impact the identity development of all students, how racially literate teachers ease the burden for students and other topics.
Television shows
Parents/teachers
Raising Dion (Netflix)
A widowed mom sets out to solve the mystery surrounding her young son's emerging superpowers while keeping his extraordinary gifts under wraps.
Teaching tools/websites
Begun to stop the defamation of Jewish people, the ADL works to create a more just society. The ADL created lesson plans, related curriculum and additional anti-bias resources for teachers and other academic administrators to help in the discussion on the topic.
The website’s mission is to help teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators who work with children from kindergarten through high school.
Interested in more readings? Check out our blog about Juneteenth!