Theme: Racism & Racial Identity

Racism & Racial Identity
Men searching through rubble after the Galveston hurricane. Source: Library of Congress

Sept. 8, 1900: Galveston Hurricane

An unexpected hurricane crashed into the Gulf Coast and devastated Galveston, Texas, leaving thousands of people dead and even more left houseless. The storm’s turmoil and destruction allowed white terror and fraud to flourish.
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book cover showing women protesting during the March on Washington.

More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Book — Non-fiction. By Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long. 2023. 272 pages.
A look at the March on Washington through a wider lens, using Black newspaper reports as a primary resource, recognizing the overlooked work of socialist organizers and Black women protesters, and repositioning this momentous day as radical in its roots, methods, demands, and results.
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colorful but haunting painting of a small reform school surrounded by trees and shadows

The Reformatory: A Novel

Book — Historical fiction. By Tananarive Due. 2023. 576 pages.
Follow twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr., who, after a small indiscretion, journeys into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
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Reconsidering Reparations

Book — Non-fiction. By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. 2022. 280 pages.
Táíwò’s take on reparations and distributive justice has wide implications for views of justice, racism, the legacy of colonialism, and climate change policy.
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Jan. 10, 1942: Lee Street Massacre

A month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Black soldiers on R&R in the town of Alexandria, Louisiana were attacked by local and military police, with dozens murdered and countless others injured in this brutal instance of Jim Crow violence.
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