Mission
To cultivate courageous space for individuals and congregations in the Diocese of Indianapolis to live and walk together through holy discomfort, to create an environment for racial justice, healing, and repair, and to learn, listen, and grow into God’s Beloved Community.
Charge from Bishop Jennifer
- First: to either sign onto A Covenant to Root Out Racism, developed by Bishop Deon Johnson of the Diocese of Missouri and share it with the Diocese of Indianapolis, or to adapt for the Diocese of Indianapolis and share it.
- Second: to coordinate with trainers from the Absalom Jones Center to host a regularly-occurring 2-1/2 day training in dismantling systemic racism in the Diocese of Indianapolis. This training is required for ordination, and we strongly encourage all diocesan leaders, lay and ordained, to participate as well.
- Third: to support and connect people and congregations throughout this diocese with the variety of congregational and regional efforts to dismantle racism, including trainings, book studies, discussion groups, witnesses for justice, etc.
Co-Chairs: Kate Bacon and Jay Douglas
Members: Brandon Lowe, Bradley Pace, Natalie Palmer, Valeria Phillips, Cathy Scott, Mariann Scott, Chana Tetzlaff
Terms: 3 years, by appointment of Bishop Jennifer
Resources
Books:
Racism and White Supremacy
- Alexander, Michelle. (2010). The New Jim Crow. Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.
- Anderson, Carol. (2016). White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. New York: Bloomsbury,
- Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2013). Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Delacorte Press.
- Bell, D. A. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: the permanence of racism. New York, NY: BasicBooks.
- Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. (2013). Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Coates, Ta-Nehisi. (2015). Between the World and Me. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
- Coates, Ta-Nehisi. (2014). “The Case for Reparations”. Atlantic.
- Dyson, Michael Eric. (2017). Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to a White America. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- Feagin, Joe R. (2013). The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing. New York: Routledge.
- Gaskins, Pearl Fuyo, ed. (1999). What Are You? Voices of Mixed-Race Young People. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
- Hacker, A. (1992). Two nations: black and white, separate, hostile, unequal. New York; Toronto; New York: Scribner’s ; Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; Maxwell Macmillan International.
- Haney-López, I. (2015). Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford University Press.
- Hobgood, M. E. (2000). Dismantling privilege: an ethics of accountability. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press.
- Hooks, bell. (1995). Killing rage: ending racism. New York: H. Holt and Co.
- Lee, Stacey. Unraveling the “Model-Minority” Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth. New York: Teachers College Press.
- Lui, M., & United for a Fair Economy. (2006). The color of wealth: the story behind the U.S. racial wealth divide. New York: New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton.
- Menakem, Resmaa. (2017) My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press.
- Mills, Charles W. (1997). The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Morrison, Toni. (1992). Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Random House.
- Noguera, P., Pierce, J., & Ahram, R. (2015). Race, Equity, and Education: Sixty Years from Brown. Springer.
- Oluo, Ijeoma. (2018). So You Want to Talk About Race. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
- Sensoy, Özlem, and Robin DiAngelo. (2017). Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Critical Social Justice Education. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
- Tatum, Beverly. (2017). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race. Twentieth anniv. rev. ed. New York: Basic Books.
- West, Cornell. (1993). Race matters. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Wilkerson, Isabel. (2020). Caste. The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House.
Theology and Spirituality of Dismantling Racism; The Church and Racism
- Barndt, Joseph. (2011). Becoming an Anti-Racist Church. Journeying Toward Wholeness. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
- Barndt, Joseph. (1991). Dismantling Racism. The Continuing Challenge to White America. Minneapolis: Augsburg.
- Bowens-Wheatley, M., Jones, N. P., & Unitarian Universalist Association (Eds.). (2002). Soul work: anti-racist theologies in dialogue. Boston, MA: Skinner House Books.
- Campolo, A., & Battle, M. (2005). The church enslaved: a spirituality of racial reconciliation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
- Cleveland, C. (2013). Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart. InterVarsity Press.
- Cone, James H. (1975). God of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
- Cone, James H. (2011). The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
- Davies, S. E., & Hennessee, P. T. (1998). Ending racism in the church. Cleveland, Ohio: United Church Press.
- DeWolf, Thomas N. & Geddes, Jodie. (2019). The Little Book of Racial Healing. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
- DeWolf, Thomas N. & Geddes, Jodie. (2019). The Little Book of Racial Healing. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
- Douglas, Kelly Brown. (2015). Stand Your Ground. Black Bodies and the Justice of God. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
- Francis, Leah Gunning. (2015). Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community. St. Louis: Chalice Press.
- Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: the social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Hart, D. G. I. (2016). Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism. Herald Press.
- Jones, Robert. (2020). White Too Long. The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
- King, Martin Luther Jr. (2010). Strength to Love. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
- Shattuck Jr., Gardiner H. (2000). Episcopalians & Race: Civil War to Civil Rights. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.
- Thurman, Howard. (1949). Jesus and the disinherited. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press.
- Wallis, Jim. (2016). America’s Original Sin. Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.
History / Biography
- Baptist, E. E. (2014). The half has never been told : slavery and the making of American capitalism. New York: Basic Books.
- Brown, Dee. (2012). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New York: Open Road Media.
- Dennis, Denise. (1995). Black History for Beginners. Danbury, CT: For Beginners LLC.
- Drick, B. (2015). White Allies in the Struggle for Racial Justice. Orbis Books.
- Garrow, David. (2016). MLK: An American Legacy. New York: Open Road.
- Gates Jr., Henry Louis. (2013). The African Americans. New York, SmileyBooks.
- Giddings, P. J. (2009). Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Reprint edition). New York: Harper Paperbacks.
- Kendi, Ibram X. (2016). Stamped from the Beginning. New York: Nation Books.
- Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. rev. ed. New York: New Press.
- McPherson, J. M. . (2015). The war that forged a nation : why the Civil War still matters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness. Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Ortiz, P. (2018). An African American and Latinx History of the United States. Beacon Press.
- Wilkerson, Isabel. (2010). The Warmth of Other Suns. The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. New York: Random House.
- Wormser, Richard. (2003). The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
- Zinn, Howard. (1996). A people’s history of the United States: from 1492 to the present. London: Longman.
Memoir, Personal Essays
- Anthony, Carl. (2017). The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race. New York: New Village Press.
- Blow, Charles. (2014). Fire Shut Up in My Bones. A Memoir. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Irving, Debby. (2014). Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race. Boston: Elephant Room Press.
- Khan-Cullors, P., & bandele, asha. (2018). When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
- Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Andzaldúa, eds. (2015). This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. New York: State University of New York Press.
- Murray, Pauli. (2018). Song in a Weary Throat. Memoir of an American Pilgrimage. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- Stevenson, Bryan. (2014). Just Mercy. A Story of Justice and Redemption. New York: Random House.
- Wells, Ida B. (2014). The Light of Truth. Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader. New York: Penguin Books.
- Wise, Tim. (2010). White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press/Counterpoint.
Activism and Working for Change:
- Abrams, Stacey. (2020). Our Time is Now. Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America. New York: Henry Holt & Company.
- Ginwright, S. A. (2010). Black Youth Rising: Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America. Teachers College Press.
- Harvey, J., Case, K. A., & Gorsline, Robin Hawley. (2004). Disrupting white supremacy from within: white people on what we need to do. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press.
- Kendi, Ibram X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist. New York: Penguin Random House.
- Kivel, P. (1995). Uprooting racism: how white people can work for racial justice. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
- Moore, Eddie, Ali Michael, and Marguerite W. Penick-Parks. The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
- Singleton, Glenn. (2014). Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Films
- Eyes on the Prize America’s Civil Rights Years Ep 1, Awakenings, 1954-1956
- https://youtu.be/GyENK_QfGZc
- Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
- In Whose Honor? Jay Rosenstein, dir. POV (PBS). In In Whose Honor?, filmmaker
- https://youtu.be/8lUF95ThI7s
- Jay Rosenstein focuses on the story of Charlene Teters, a Spokane Indian whose campaign against Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois’ beloved team mascot, turned a college town upside down and made many people rethink the larger issues of culture and identity.
- I am Not Your Negro. Raoul Peck, dir. (2017).
- https://tubitv.com/movies/521419/i-am-not-your-negro?utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed
- In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, “Remember This House.” Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.
- Up From Slavery. Kevin Hersberger, dir. (2011).
- https://youtu.be/1Gx5PM-LGl4
- The nation was founded upon the idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The nation would pay a bloody cost for denying that right to more than twelve percent of its population.
- Dawnland. Adam Mazo and Ben Pender-Cudlip, dir. (2018).
- https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/dawnland/
- The first government-sanctioned truth and reconciliation commission in the U.S. investigates the impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on Native American communities.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion-Ep. 1, The Difference between Us. Larry Adelman, exec. Prod. (2003).
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXEV0tqox9k
- The Difference Between Us examines the contemporary science – including genetics – that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.
- Martin Luther King Jr.: One Man and His Dream. (2018).
- https://tubitv.com/movies/548443/martin-luther-king-jr-one-man-and-his-dream?start=true
- Featuring interviews with civil rights leaders like John Lewis and Harry Belafonte, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is examined in this documentary.
- Dolores. Peter Bratt, dir. (2018).
- https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/dolores/
- One of the most important, yet least known activists of our time, Dolores Huerta was an equal partner in founding the first farm workers union with César Chávez. Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Huerta evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century — and she continues the fight to this day.
- A Class Divided. William Peters, dir. and prod. Yale University Films for Frontline, PBS. WGBH Education Foundation, 1985.
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided
- In this documentary, Jane Elliott meets with her class to talk about the classroom experiment focused on discrimination she performed 15 years earlier and the effects it had on their lives.