Racial Reconciliation
Celebrating Our Differences
At Christ Church Cathedral, we are a people of prayer and action. We are also a community who values learning and who wants to equip everyone with the knowledge of God’s healing and reconciliation in the world. The following is a list of resources available in the Church and beyond for anti-racism.
This is a Gospel-based agenda and not a political one. Racism is completely contrary to our baptismal call to seek and serve Christ in all people, and it undermines God’s vision for a united human family. When we strive for racial justice and reconciliation we strive for the Kingdom of God that lies at the heart of the Gospel tradition. This is our inheritance in Christ.
Taking this journey can be challenging, especially when there are so many resources available. If you’re looking for a simple place to start, we’d highly recommend exploring any of the resources below. This is not a comprehensive list but is a great place to start.
In the Episcopal Church
The Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing
The Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, founded by Dr. Catherine Meeks, provides programs and resources to promote racial reconciliation.
http://www.centerforracialhealing.org/
Sacred Ground: A Film-Based Dialogue Series on Race and Faith
“Sacred Ground” is a Film-Based Dialogue Series on Race & Faith created by Episcopal Church staff led by film director Katrina Brown. This set of videos and workbooks can be used to facilitate conversations on racism and reconciliation.
https://episcopalchurch.org/sacred-ground
In the Wider Community
Websites
Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation
Books and Resources to Help You Raise Anti-Racist Children
Listed by Brightly
Books
Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US
by Lenny Duncan
How to be Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Color Blindness
by Michelle Alexander
Between the World and Me
Podcasts
Fresh Air: Black Liberation Theology, in its Founders Words
Floodlines from The Atlantic
An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. "As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn't care about you," said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.
1619 from The New York Times
"In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began." Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.
Intersectionality Matters! from The African American Policy Forum
Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term "intersectionality," this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. This recent episode on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.
Films
13th
The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a third of U.S. prisoners are black. In this infuriating documentary, director Ava DuVernay argues that mass incarceration, Jim Crow and slavery are "the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date."
I Am Not Your Negro
Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film's release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them.
Whose Streets?
The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, "They don't tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil...and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot."
LA 92
LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage — no talking heads needed. It's chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, "No justice, no peace."
Teach Us All
Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. Teach Us All explains why that is — school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes — and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we've really come.
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump's win. "Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction — a 50-year Reconstruction — that ended last night," Gates said in an interview with Salon.