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MLK & BLM – Resources for Learning

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King said, "the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education." Below you will find resources that may educate and inspire you to take action and continue your journey of engaging with others in meaningful dialogue to create a better and more just, equitable and inclusive society.

Videos

Talking Black in America: This 5-part documentary series explores the most controversial and misunderstood language variety in the United States: African American Language (AAL). The series showcases the history of the language, the symbolic role it plays in the lives of African Americans, and the tremendous impact on the language and cultures of the United States. 

Signing Black in America: Black ASL is the unique dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) that developed within historically segregated African American Deaf communities. Black ASL today conveys an identity and sense of belonging that mirrors spoken language varieties of the African American hearing community. 

Racial Justice Beyond Constitutional Law: Ralph Richard Banks, Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice speaks.

A Chosen Exile: Allyson Hobbs, assistant history professor at Stanford University, examines the lives of African Americans who chose to pass as white between the 18th and mid-20th centuries. 

Oprah Winfrey 2015 "Harry's Last Lecture": Oprah shares her vision for a meaningful life with the Stanford community. She also speaks on Career, Life, and Leadership.

Movies

Selma: Director Ava DuVernay depicts an Alabama city in 1965 that became the battleground in the fight for suffrage. 

A Raisin in the Sun: A play by Lorraine Hansberry adapted into film portrays the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. 

Thurgood Marshall: Thurgood Marshall faces one of his most significant challenges working as a lawyer for the NAACP. 

Freedom Riders: Renowned director Stanley Nelson chronicles the inspirational story of American civil rights activists' peaceful fight against racial segregation on buses and trains in the 1960s. 

Mississippi Burning: When a group of civil rights workers goes missing in a small Mississippi town, FBI agents Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson are sent in to investigate. 

Do the Right Thing: Salvatore "Sal" Fragione is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors and believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. 

Boyz in the Hood: Director John Singleton's story portrays Tre, sent to live with his father, Furious Styles, in tough South Central Los Angeles. 

Books

Black Books

In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s: Dr. Clayborne Carson's book about the radical ideology and effective tactics of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that was the cutting edge of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. 

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do: Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt exposes racial bias at all levels of society – in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system and offers us tools to address it. 

The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students: Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they've arrived on campus. 

Caste: Isabel Wilkerson's latest book describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity.

The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics: Cathy Cohen examines the response of a changing community to an issue laced with stigma. There is much to teach us about oppression, resistance, and marginalization. 

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America: Richard Rothstein argues with precision and fascinating insight how segregation in America has contributed to so much recent social strife and is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state, and federal levels.

Behind the Mules: Michael Dawson demonstrates that the growth of a black middle class has left race as the dominant influence on African American politics. 

Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class: As Karyn R. Lacy's innovative work in the suburbs of Washington, DC, reveals, there is a continuum of middle-classness among blacks, ranging from lower-middle-class to middle-middle class to upper-middle class.

Additionally: Black Women Manifesto, Audre Lorde essays and poetry, Go Tell it to the Mountain by James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Sing, Unburied, Sung by Jesmyn Ward, Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Hurston, Mama by Terry McMillan, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Beloved by Tony Morrison, The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Additional Resources

Student Affairs: Black Lives Matter and Cardinal at Work: Actions You Can Take