Bethlehem Public Library Provides Anti-Racist Resources

Press release from the Bethlehem Area Public Library:

June 29, 2020

The Bethlehem Area Public Library is committed to actively supporting essential conversations and actions to confront racism in America.

This page will feature antiracist resources available in our collections, links to external resources, and information about library programs that promote antiracist conversation within our community and with our patrons.

In our collections
Antiracist reading

• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Author), Karen Chilton
• Tears we Cannot Stop, by Michael Eric Dyson
• We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta Nehisi Coates
• Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
• White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
• Educated by Tara Westover
• Race Matters, 25th Anniversary by Cornel West
• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces by Radley Balko
• Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
• When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
• A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis
• How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin

• On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by Deray McKesson

Black Lives Matter: Community Read
Overdrive is making a series of titles free to libraries throughout June and July without waitlists or holds, on both e-book and audiobook, including:

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (June 15-July 15)
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (June 22-July 19)
• Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F Saad (June 22-July 12)
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijemoa Oluo (upcoming)

Black authors, thinkers, and creators
N.K. Jemisin
One of the most important writers working today, you simply fall in to Jemisin’s worlds, care desperately for her characters, and live alongside them as they search, love, struggle and survive. The first author to win the Hugo Award (honoring the best of science fiction and fantasy) three times consecutively, for each volume in her Broken Earth trilogy.

• How Long Til Black Future Month? (Overdrive)
• The City We Became (Overdrive)

Octavia Butler
Spare and haunting, like a good friend telling you a strange true story by the fireside. Her writing about writing (including essays in Bloodchild) is just as inspiring as her fiction.

• Bloodchild and Other Stories
• Kindred

Jasmine Guillory
Guillory writes modern romances you just want to hug. Smart, sexy, and so much fun.

• The Wedding Party
• Royal Holiday (Overdrive)

Toni Morrison
To read Toni Morrison, through her fiction or her non-fiction, is to encounter a great mind, and to have your own mind made richer.

• Sula
• The Source of Self Regard: selected essays, speeches, and meditations

Margo Jefferson
Theater critic and culture writer Jefferson’s memoir, about growing up in the 1950s in the upper crust of Black Chicago society–her father was head of pediatrics at a hospital, her mother was a socialite–is as beautifully written as it is illuminating about privilege and race.

• Negroland: A memoir

Colson Whitehead
Whether he’s writing about zombies, the fleeting summer vacations of youth, elevator repair, or putting a postmodern spin on the Underground Railroad, Whitehead is always inventive, always humane, always himself.

• Sag Harbor
• Zone One
• The Intuitionist (Overdrive)
• The Underground Railroad (Overdrive)

Films and documentaries
On Kanopy

• I Am Not Your Negro, written by James Baldwin, dir. by Raoul Peck
• Moonlight, dir. by Barry Jenkins
• Within Our Gates, dir. by Oscar Micheaux
• Daughters of the Dust, dir. by Julie Dash

In the catalog

• Boycott, Directed by Clark Johnson
• Do the Right Thing, dir. by Spike Lee
• Fences, written by August Wilson, dir. by Denzel Washigton
• Fruitvale Station, dir. by Ryan Coogler
• Get Out, dir. by Jordan Peele
• If Beale Street Could Talk, dir. by Barry Jenkins
• Malcolm X, dir. by Spike Lee
• Selma, dir. by Ava DuVernay

Available via Inter-Library Loan (email interlibraryloan@bapl.org to request)

• Blackout, dir. by Jerry LaMothe
• Middle of Nowhere, dir. by Ava DuVernay
• Pariah, dir. by Dee Rees

Upcoming programs

BAPL Virtual Film Club: The Last Black Man in San Francisco

• Watch the film on Kanopy anytime in July
• Join the Virtual Film Club discussion on Thursday July 30, 7:30 pm.

Register today!

Join us for a virtual film series for adults! Each month we pick a culturally significant film for library patrons to watch on Kanopy. This month the featured film is Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019). Watch the film on your own schedule and then meet with our virtual film club to discuss the film on Thursday July 30 at 7:30 pm. Librarians Valerie and Matthew will discuss this month’s film via Zoom; come ready to join the conversation or just enjoy listening to the discussion! Registration is required. Last day to register is July 28. Email invitations for Zoom will be sent out the day prior to the event.

Black Women Writers: Past and Present

• 4-session series. Thursday July 9 & 23 and August 6 & 20 from 7:00-8:00 p.m.
• In Partnership with Lehigh University Dept. Of English
• Facilitated by Jo Grim and Shelby Carr

Register today!

Dialogues on Racial Justice: An Introductory Workshop Series on Issues of Systemic Racism in the United States

• 4-session series. 2nd and 4th Tuesdays in July and August from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
• Presented by Linda-Wiggins Chavis

Register today!

The Clearing: Movement towards Communities of Compassion

• A Dancing Mindfulness Gathering with Dr. Alisha Tatem
• 4-week series. Saturdays July 25-August 15 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Register today!

External links

• Full length films and other videos from PBS
  • Racism in America
• Bookshare reading lists
  • A further list of anti-racist books
  • Books on anti-racism for kids and teens
  • Books by black authors for adults and teens
  • YA reads featuring leads that are People of Color
• Black Film history links
  • UCLA Film and Television Archive
  • Criterion Channel: Pioneers of African American Cinema
  • NPR Podcast Special Series: African Americans in Film
  • Film Quarterly
  • National Museum of African American History & Culture: Film and Television
  • The Guardian: “Black films matter – how African American cinema fought back against Hollywood”
  • Film Forum: “BLACK WOMEN: Trailblazing African American Actresses & Images, 1920 – 2001”
  • University of Maine Honors Thesis: “A Comparative Study of African American Representations in Film from Original to Remake as Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement”

This press release was produced by the Bethlehem Area Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.