Readings are provided free for use by participants studying in the Anne Braden Training Program for Anti-Racist Organizers, a noncommercial, nonprofit educational program. We encourage everyone to honor the emotional and intellectual labor of these authors by buying the works from which excerpts have been taken where possible. This is especially important as we all have white skin privilege and many of these authors are folks of color. When sharing any of these readings with your comrades, please also pass on this message.

We are assigning some readings that were difficult for us to read. And we’re going to talk about some theories that are difficult to grasp. It’s totally normal to struggle to read theoretical pieces that weren’t written for mass consumption. But we think it’s worth it, because how we understand what we’re up against impacts what we think the solutions are, and how we need to organize to get there.  In order to do that we need to know the history that we’ve been denied through traditional school systems.

If you’re struggling with reading, reach out to others in the group to read together, or get help on terms you’re struggling with. We’ve also created this glossary to support with key terms.

All of these categories are very overlapping, and many of these readings are deeply intersectional. We offered these categories to help you all pull out themes, but take them with a grain of salt and look for interconnections. It all adds up to about 25 pages of reading and 30 minutes of video/audio a week for 8 weeks, so don’t wait till the end.

Enjoy!

Black Liberation

• Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014. (32 pages text, 61 page PDF: best read online for the interactive maps at TheAtlantic.com)
• “I am Not Your Negro” documentary film (strongly recommend whole movie, last 30 mins required) – To access go to amazon.com, check your email 🙂
• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Double Standard of Justice,” Chapter 4 of #BLACKLIVESMATTER to Black Liberation (26 pages) 
• Charles Payne, “Slow and Respectful Work: Organizers and Organizing”, Chapter 8 of I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. (29 pages). 

Patriarchy

• Annalise Ophelian, Major! (90 minutes) check your email 🙂
• The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” from Beverly Guy-Sheftall, ed., Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought. (6 pages)
  • Black women and other women of color in social justice movements have been developing these politics for a long time! Check out the Francis M. Beal and Claudia Jones pieces in the recommended readings for some older versions of “intersectional” feminism. Combahee really built on this work by adding politics about heterosexism/homophobia.
• Silvia Federici, excerpts from “Caliban and the Witch” (15 pages) 
  • Note: This piece is one of the more difficult to read and also worth struggling through. Seek out support if you need it, and Clare Bayard’s overview is highly recommended, below.
• Anne Braden Program Alum who are sex workers and sex worker organizers, “Note on Federici’s Approach on Sex Work” (2 pages)
• METRAC: Action on Violence, “Don’t Need Saving: Aboriginal Women and Access to Justice” — video on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (6 mins)
• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Not Murdered, Not Missing” (6 pages)
• Prison Moratorium Project, “Transgender Youth and the Prison Industrial Complex: Disrupt the Flow”  (1 page)
• Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “Flow Chart: Disproportionate Deportation”  (1 page)

Climate Change

• Berta Cáceres Democracy Now video, “Remembering Berta Cáceres, Assasinated Honduras Indigenous & Environmental Leader” (14 mins) 
• Naomi Klein, “This Changes Everything”, excerpts (29 pages)

Imperialism & Neoliberalism

• Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break Silence” (1967) (38 mins, 5:00-43:40 required, the rest recommended)
• Tom Engelhardt, “Seventy-Six Countries Are Now Involved in Washington’s War on Terror.” (6 pages)
• Arundhati Roy, “Come September” from War Talk. (14 page excerpt of her original presentation: Roy Come September;  video is 44 mins) 
• David McNally, excerpts from Global Slump. (part 1- pages 115-121) (part 2- pages 134-145) (17 pgs total). 
• Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez, ed., “Manifest Destiny or Imperialism?” map from 500 Años del Pueblo Chicano / 500 Years of Chicano History. (1 page)

Class & Classism

• Prosperity Now, “The Road to Zero Wealth: How the Racial Wealth Divide is Hollowing out America’s Middle Class”  (5 pages, 3 sections required: Key Findings; Racial Wealth Inequality Doesn’t Just Plague Black and Latino families; How Government Policies Built & Preserve the Racial Wealth Divide. Entire report is recommended reading)
• Oxfam, “Chart on Global Income” from Reward Work Not Wealth Report (1 page)
• Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “Flow Chart: Disproportionate Poverty” (1 page)
• Russell Rickford, “Rebuilding the Robesonian Labor Movement” (3 pages) 
• Molly Hein, [diagram of privilege x-rayed] from Karen Pittelman and Resource Generation, Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It for Social Change. (2 pages)
• Showing Up for Racial Justice, “Cross-Class Capacity Tool.” (4 pages)
• Sonnie, Amy, and Tracy, James, Excerpt From “Lightning on the Eastern Seaboard: October 4th Organization and White Lightning,”  Chapter 4 of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power, (11 pages) 

Poetry:

• Assata Shakur, “The Tradition” (text of the poem at this link, she reads it as a part of the clip in the recommended section). (1 page)
• Chrystos, I Walk in the History of My People (2 pages)
• June Jordan, “Poem about My Rights” from Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan. (**Note: contains explicit descriptions of sexual violence). (5 mins of audio, or 4 page transcript: June Jordan Poem About My Rights)
• Pat Parker, “My Lover is a Woman”  (1 page)

Total pages – 189

Total Audio – 222 minutes  — 3 hours 44 minutes

 

Recommended Readings & Video By Subject

Indigenous Resistance and the Colonization of North America

• Andrea Smith, “Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide,” lecture at the CMC Media and Democracy Lectures, Wealthy Theatre, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011. (video; lecture starts at 9:25; or 22 page transcript: Smith Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide lecture).
• Historical Map of the United States–Early Native American Tribes
• Indian Land Cessions short video 
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Excerpts from An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (19 pages)

Imperialism and Global Peoples’ Movements for Justice

• Winona LaDuke, “The Militarization of Indian Country”, interview on Democracy Now! (38 minute video) (or 6 page transcript: LaDuke Militarization of Indian Country)
• David Gilbert, “Looking Historically at the White Working Class in the U.S.” From Abolition (8 pages) 
• Mazen Masri, “No Backing Down on Palestinian Right of Return,” Left Turn April 2008. (also 3 page PDF)
• Vijay Prashad, “Bread,” pages 9–14 of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter. (5 pages)
• Jean Stewart and Marta Russell, excerpt from “Disablement, Prison, and Historical Segregation,” Monthly Review (4 pages)
• June Jordan, “Moving Toward Home” from Living Room: New Poems. (2 pages)
• “Global Resistance, Africa to Palestine”, audio of Amilcar Cabral, Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani, the South African national anthem, and June Jordan, from Freedom Archives, Roots of Resistance (Audio).
• South African Congress Alliance, “The South African Freedom Charter.” (5 pages)

Patriarchy, Feminism & Queer & Trans Liberation

• Clare Bayard for Catalyst, “Overview of Caliban and the Witch” (5 pages)
• Deon Haywood, “Deon Haywood Shares a Story”  SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW. (21 minute video on sex worker organizing in NOLA)
• Isidore, “The Myths of Sex Trafficking” From the Belli Research Institute
• INCITE/Critical Resistance, “Gender violence and the prison industrial complex” (3 pages)
• Sunny Taylor, “The Right Not to Work: Power and Disability,” Monthly Review (13 page PDF and at monthlyreview.org/2004/03/01/the-right-not-to-work-power-and-disability)
• Maria Mies, “Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale – revisited”, International Journal of Green Economics (9 pages)
• Alex DiBranco, “Mobilizing Misogyny” originally published in The Public Eye.
• [note: active description of sexual violence in this piece] At the Dark end of the street – prologue – 8 pages
  
• Frances M. Beal, “Black Women’s Manifesto; Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” (1969) (8 pages)
• Southerners on New Ground, “Our People are Worth the Risks: a southern queer agenda from the margins and the red states” (6 pages)
• Claudia Jones, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” Political Affairs (11 pages)
• Bell Hooks, “Feminism and Class Power” from Where We Stand: Class Matters. (11 pages)
• Gerda Lerner, the introduction of the book “The Creation of Patriarchy,” (14 pages)

Deconstructing Class – Building Analysis and Power

• Maria Poblet, “Revolutionary Democracy, Class-Consciousness, and Cross-Class Movement Building: Lessons from Amílcar Cabral” (4 pages)
  • Skip down to the section on Class Consciousness if you feel overwhelmed by the Marxist jargon 🙂
• Robin D.G. Kelly, “Shiftless of the World Unite!” Chapter 1 of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (17 pages)
• Robert Allen, “Organized Labor: From Underdog to Overseer” from Reluctant Reformers. (25 pages)
• Karen Pittelman and Resource Generation, with illustrations by Molly Hein, Chapter 3, Wealth= Class Privilege of Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It For Social Change. (6 pages)
• Michael James, “Getting Ready for the Firing Line: Organizing in Uptown in the 60s. Remembering JOIN Community Union” (10 pages)
• Peggy Terry Key wiki Page (1 webpage, 5-6 printed pages)

Black Liberation

• Dan Berger, excerpt from “Introduction” to Captive Nation, pages 1–11. (14 pages)
• Vincent Harding, “American Bondage, American Freedom” from There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. (18 pages)
• Malkia Cyril, “We say black lives matter. The FBI says that makes us a security threat”  (4 pages) 
• Patrice Khan-Cullors, “When They Call You a Terrorist.”
• Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots” (1963) audio on YouTube
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Chapter 1 of Hammer & Hoe
• The Movement for Black Lives, “Vision for Black Lives Policy Demands”  (12 pages — use glossary if you’d like to, but it’s not required!) 
• Black Panther Party for Self Defense, “Ten Point Program” (2 pages)
• Bay Area Solidarity Action Team, “Protocol and Principles for White People Working to Support the Black Liberation Movement, Bay Area Solidarity Action Team,”