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Racial Equity Resources

Citizen: An American Lyric

Cover of Citizen: An American Lyric
by Claudia Rankine
[2014]

Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV--everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

City of Madison Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiative Tools

Tools available from the City of Madison.  The City of Madison is establishing its Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiative (RESJI) as a core principle in all decisions, policies, and functions. Launched in the fall of 2013, the initiative focuses on eliminating racial and social inequities in municipal government by implementing strategies in three main areas: Equity in City policies and budgets; Equity in City operations; and Equity in the community.

City Shapes

Cover of City Shapes
by Diana Murray
illustrated by Brian Collier
2016

A young girl walks through the bustling city, while a pigeon flies above, both spotting hidden shapes at every turn

Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice

Cover of Claudette Colvin:  Twice T
by Phillip M. Hoose
2009

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v.

The Color of Law : A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Cover of The Color of Law : A Forgo
by Richard Rothstein
[2017]

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation--that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies.

The Color Purple

Cover of The Color Purple
by Alice Walker

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple is the heart-wrenching story of a young black girl in the early 20th century who's forced into a brutal marriage and separated from her sister.

Colorlines

Race Forward

Colorlines is a news site founded by Race Forward, a national organization devoted to advancing racial equity through media.  Race matters in the journalism of Colorlines, which covers news from a variety of perspectives and includes groups that are often underrepresented or absent in mainstream media. 

Come on in: 15 stories about immigration and finding home

Cover of Come on in: 15 stories abo
edited by Adi Alsaid
2020

An exceptional anthology exploring the joys, heartbreaks and triumphs of immigration-- written by YA authors who are themselves immigrants and the children of immigrants. Their characters face random traffic stops, TSA detention, customs anxiety, and the daunting and inspiring journey to new lands... while also dancing at weddings, keeping diaries, teaching ESL. In presenting the myriad facets of the immigrant experience, the characters decide their own answer to the question "where are you from?"

A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism

Cover of A Convenient Hatred: The H
by Phyllis Goldstein
2012

A Convenient Hatred chronicles a very particular hatred through powerful stories that allow readers to see themselves in the tarnished mirror of history. It raises important questions about the consequences of our assumptions and beliefs and the ways we, as individuals and as members of a society, make distinctions between "us" and "them," right and wrong, good and evil. These questions are both universal and particular.

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