Africana Studies Resources
The Africana Studies program has compiled the following list to serve as a resource for members of the SUNY Plattsburgh community who are seeking to better understand our current moment.
This list contains a variety of types of sources (e.g., books, articles, films, blog posts, and podcasts) from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. If you would like guidance in navigating these sources or if you have a question that is not addressed by the listed topics, please feel free to submit a question using our Google form. Please also check out the Office for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion resources.
- African American History
- Branch, Taylor 1988. Parting the Waters: America during the King Years 1954-1963. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Branch, Taylor 1998. Pillar of Fire: America during the King Years 1963-1965. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Branch, Taylor 2006. At Canaan’s Edge: America during the King Years 1965-1968. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Cooper, Anna Julia. 1892. A Voice from the South. Xenia, OH: Aldine Printing House.
- Davis, Angela 1998. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York: Penguin.
- Du Bois, W.E.B. 1935. Black Reconstruction in America. New York: Harcourt Brace.
- Glaude Jr., Eddie. 2017. Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. New York: Broadway Books.
- Hannah-Jones, Nikole. “The Idea of America.” In The 1619 Project, The New York Times Magazine.
- Kelley, Robin D.G. 2003. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Neale-Hurston, Zora. 2018. Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo. New York: Harper Collins.
- Olsson, Goran, dir. 2011. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Film.
- Painter, Nell Irvin. 2006. Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. New York: Oxford UP.
- Peck, Raoul, dir. 2017. I Am Not Your Negro. Film.
- Rothstein, Richard. 2018. The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright.
- The New York Times. 2019. 1619 Podcast.
- Alternatives to Policing & Prisons
- Davis, Angela Y. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories.
- Kushner, Rachel. 2020. “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind.” New York Times Magazine.
- Marshall Project. 2020. Prison Abolition: A Curated Collection of Links.
- Martin, José. 2014. “6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World.” Rolling Stone.
- Vitale, Alex S. 2017. The End of Policing. London and New York: Verso.
- Antiracism
- Kendi, Ibram. 2019. How to Be an Antiracist. New York: One World.
- The Integrated Schools Podcast. 2020. “Raising White Kids with Jennifer Harvey” Season 5, Episode 13.
- Zamalin, Alex. 2019. Antiracism: An Introduction. New York: NYU Press.
- Black Lives Matter
- Folayan, Sabaah, dir. 2017. Whose Streets? Film.
- Garza, Alicia. 2014. “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.” The Feminist Wire, October 7.
- Movement for Black Lives. 2016. Policy Platform.
- National LGBTQ Task Force. 2016. “Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers.”
- Ransby, Barbara. 2018. Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. Oakland: University of California Press.
- Taylor, Keeanga-Yahmatta. 2016. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
- Civil Liability
- Abumrad, Jad. 2017. “Mr. Graham and the Reasonable Man.” More Perfect. Podcast audio. November 30.
- Civil Rights, Generally
- Browne-Marshall, Gloria J. 2013. Race, Law, and American Society: 1607–Present, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
- Francis, Megan Ming. 2014. Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Klarman, Michael J. 2006. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Onwuachi-Willig, Angela. 2019. “Reconceptualizing the Harms of Discrimination: How Brown v. Board of Education Helped to Further White Supremacy.” Virginia Law Review 105(2):343-369.
- Williams, Patricia J. 1991. The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
- Drama
- Harris, Jeremy O. 2020. Slave Play. New York: Theater Communications Group.
- Jones, Leroi (Amiri Baraka). 1971. Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays. New York: Harper Perennial.
- Nottage, Lynn. 2017. Sweat. New York: Theater Communications Group.
- Parks, Suzan-Lori. 1997. Venus. New York: Theater Communications Group.
- Rankine, Claudia. 2019. The White Card. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
- Wilson, August. 2003. Gem of the Ocean. NY; Theater Communications Group.
- Fiction
- Baldwin, James. 1974. If Beale Street Could Talk. New York: Dial Press.
- Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred. New York: Doubleday.
- Ellison, Ralph. 1952. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage.
- French, Albert 1995. Billy. New York: Penguin Books.
- Gyasi,Yaa. 2017. Homegoing. New York: Vintage.
- Johnson, Mat. 2009. Incognegro. New York: Vertigo.
- Larsen, Nella. 1929. Passing. New York: Knopf.
- Morrison, Toni. 1987. Beloved. New York: Vintage.
- Ward, Jesmyn. 2018. Sing, Unburied Sing. New York: Scribner.
- Wright, Richard. 1940. Native Son. New York: Harper & Row.
- Freedom & Justice
- Hartman, Saidiya. 2019. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. New York: W.W. Norton.
- Roberts, Neil. 2015. Freedom as Marronage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Social Justice at UIC. 2014. “Robin D.G. Kelley and Angela Davis: Freedom Dreams, Freedom Now!”. Video.
- Taylor, Keeanga-Yahmatta, ed. 2017. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
- Threadcraft, Shatema. 2016. Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Global Perspectives on Racism & Antiracism
- Beaman, Jean. 2019. “Where do Black Lives Matter?: Police Violence and Antiracism in France and the United States.” ITEMS. Social Science Research Council. June 4.
- Beard, Peter. 1975. Longing for Darkness: Kamante’s Tales from Out of Africa. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich.
- Fanon, Franz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove.
- Fatton, Robert. 1986. Black Consciousness in South Africa: The Dialectics of Ideological Resistance to White Supremacy. Breton, H.L., and Turner, J. (eds) - SUNY Series in African Politics and Society. SUNY Press.
- Khapoya, Vincent. 2013. The African Experience: An Introduction. Fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson.
- Mandela, Nelson. 2013. Long walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. New York: Back Bay Books.
- McKaiser, Eusebius. 2015. Run Racist Run: Journeys into the Heart of Racism. First edition. Johannesburg: Bookstorm.
- Obama, Barack. 2004. Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Crown Publishers.
- Intersectionality & Black Feminism
- African American Policy Forum. 2019-present. Intersectionality Matters Podcast.
- Combahee River Collective. 1977. “Combahee River Collective Statement.”
- Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 2015. “Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait.” Washington Post.
- Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.
- Memoirs, Essay Collections & Poetry
- Cooper, Brittany C. Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- Cushway, Phil and Michael Warr (ed). 2016. Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin. First edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- DuBois, W.E.B.. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: McGlurg and Co.
- Khan-Cullors, Patrisse. 2018. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- Rankine, Claudia. 2014. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
- Smith, Danez. 2017. Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press
- Smith, Tracy. 2018. Wade in the Water. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
- Walker. Alice. 1983. In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanvich.
- Ward, Jesmyn (ed.). 2016. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race. New York: Scribner.
- Wideman, John Edgar. 1984. Brothers and Keepers. New York: Henry Holt
- Young, Kevin. 2012. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness
- Police Unions
- Garcia, Cardiff. 2020. “Police Unions and Civilian Deaths.” The Indicator from Planet Money. Podcast audio. June 3.
- Rameswaram, Sean. 2020. “The Problem with Police Unions.” Today, Explained. Podcast audio. June 3.
- Scheiber, Noam, Farah Stockman, and J. David Goodman. 2020. “How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts.” New York Times, June 6.
- Police Violence
- Abdelfatah, Run. 2020 “American Police.” Throughline. Podcast audio. June 4.
- Butler, Paul. 2017. Chokehold: Policing Black Men. New York: New Press.
- Coogler, Ryan, et al. 2014. Fruitvale Station. Anchor Bay Entertainment
- Hasset-Walker, Connie. 2020. “The Racist Roots of American Policing: From Slave Patrols to Traffic Stops,” The Conversation.
- Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. 2010. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- North, Anna. 2020. “How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities, Explained by a Historian.” Vox, June 6.
- NPR. 2015/2020. “A Decade of Watching Black People Die.” Podcast Episode.
- Rios, Victor. 2020. "The Tip of the Iceberg—Victor M. Rios on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter protests" NYU Press Blog, June 9.
- Ritchie, Andrea J. 2017. Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Ritchie, Andrea. J. 2018. “Invisible No More lecture.”
- Qualified Immunity
- Chung, Andrew, Lawrence Hurley, Jackie Botts, Andrea Januta, and Guillermo Gomez. 2020. “For Cops Who Kill, Special Supreme Court Protection.” Reuters, May 8.
- Millhiser, Ian. 2020. “Why Police Can Violate Your Constitutional Rights and Suffer No Consequences in Court.” Vox, Jun 3.
- Thomson-DeVeaux, Amelia, Nathaniel Rakich, and Likhitha Butchireddygari. 2020. “Why It’s So Rare For Police Officers To Face Legal Consequences.” FiveThirtyEight, June 4.
- Race & Mass Incarceration
- Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press.
- Cretton, Destin Daniel. 2019. Just Mercy. Warner Bros. Pictures.
- DuVernay, Ava. 2016. 13th. Los Gatos, CA: Netflix. Streaming.
- DuVernay, Ava. 2019. When They See Us. Netflix. Streaming.
- Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Gonzalez Van Cleve, Nicole. 2019. “When Justice is Not Colorblind.” ASA News.
- Murakawa, Naomi. 2014. The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
- Thompson, H. 2010. “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History.” The Journal of American History, 97(3), 703–734.
- Racism
- Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2018. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Fifth edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield
- Feagin, Joe R. 2014. Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. Third edition. New York: Routledge.
- Fleming, Crystal Marie. 2018. How to be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
- "Historical Foundations Of Race" in Talking about Race, National Museum of African American History & Culture.
- Kendi, Ibram. 2016. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York: Nation Books.
- Mills, Charles W. 1997.The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Whiteness
- Anderson, Carol. 2015. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. New York: Bloomsbury.
- diAngelo, Robin. 2018. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Boston. Beacon.
- diAngelo, Robin. 2019. “White People Assume Niceness is the Answer to Racial Inequality. It’s Not.” The Guardian.
- Eddo-Lodge, Renni and PBS. 2017. “What Happens When I Try to Talk Race with White People”.
- Harris, Cheryl. 1993. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707-1791.
- McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” excerpt from: McIntosh, Peggy. 1988. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies. Working Paper No. 189.