Racial Equity Resources

In Pursuit of Racial Equity

At the University of Nebraska, we strive for excellence in all that we do. True excellence requires that each individual be able to work and learn in an atmosphere of respect, dignity, and acceptance. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion requires each of us to continuously ensure our interactions be respectful, protect free speech, and inspire academic freedom.

We encourage you to read Vice Chancellor Barker’s statement "The Echoing Call for Systemic Change." in response to the ongoing challenges within our nation.

The N2025 Strategic Plan contains six ambitious aims. Each aim represents a purpose or intended outcome. Supporting each aim are strategies and expectations. As part of the Inclusive Excellence and Diversity aim, notable strategies include:

Enhance participation in critical dialogue around issues of equity and inclusion and embed inclusive excellence into existing and new educational and professional learning opportunities for students, staff, faculty, and administrators.

Our response to systemic inequities and racial injustice must be diverse and wide-ranging, reflecting the vast needs of our campus while supporting, understanding, and contributing to the expansion of knowledge in pursuit of equity.

In addition to action and resources coordinated by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, resources presented reflect our Colleges, University Libraries, collaborating units, and key institutional groups.

In addition to action, the resources below are designed to effect change.

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Books

  • How to Be an Anti-Racist - Ibram X. Kendi (2019)
  • Racecraft - Barbara J. Fields and Karen Fields (2012)
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Beverly Daniel Tatum (2017)
  • A Deam Called Home - Reyna Grande (2018)
  • So You Want to Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo (2019)
  • Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All - Martha S. Jones (2020)
  • Letters to My Mother - Teresa Cárdenas (2016)
  • Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism - Allissa V. Richardson (2020)
  • Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
  • A Nation of Women - Luisa Capetillo (2021)
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander (2010)
  • How to be Less Stupid About Race - Crystal M. Fleming (2020)
  • Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom: Notes from a White Professor - Cyndi Kernahan (2019)
  • Medical Apartheid - Harriet A. Washington (2006)
  • Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America - Melissa Harris-Perry (2011)
  • The Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools - Monique W. Morris (2015)
  • The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism - Edward E. Baptist (2016)
  • Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race - Derald Wing Sue (2016)
  • Divided Sisters - Midge Wilson and Kathy Russell (1995)
  • Finding Latinx - Paola Ramos (2020)
  • They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement - Wesley Lowery (2016)
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou (1969)
  • Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century - Dorothy E. Roberts (2012)
  • Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America - James Forman Jr. (2018)
  • The Miner's Canary - Lani Guinier, Geral Torres (2002)
  • The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon (1961)
  •  The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin (1963)

  • Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership - Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2019)

  • A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on The American Mind - Harriet A. Washington (2019)

  • From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America - Elizabeth Hinton (2016)

  • Go Tell It On the Mountain – James Baldwin (1953)

  • Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor - Virginia Eubanks (2018)

  • Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy - Darryl Pinckney (2014)

  • Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class - Ian Haney López (2013)

  • Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology - Deirdre Cooper Owens (2017)

  • Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination - Alondra Nelson (2011)

  • Notes of a Native Son – James Baldwin (1955)

  • Breathe: A Letter to My Sons – Imani Perry (2019)

  • The Mothers – Brit Bennett (2016)

  • How We Fight for Our Lives – Saeed Jones (2019)

  • Trap Door - Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton (2017)
  • White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue… and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation – Lauren Michele Jackson (2019)

  • How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America - Kiese Laymon (2013)
  • One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy - Carol Anderson (2018)
  • Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks - Jason Reynolds (2019)
  • Your Silence Will Not Protect You - Audre Lorde (2017)
  • Unapologetic - Charlene A. Carruthers (2018)
  • Transcending Racial Barriers: Toward a Mutual Obligations Approach - Michael O. Emerson and George Yancey (2011)
  • Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism - Safiya Umoja Noble (2018)
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Articles & Journals

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Websites

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TV & Video Segments

  • U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
  • Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
  • Dear White People (Netflix Series)
  • SpeakOut - the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture (SpeakOutNow.org)
  • Raising Anti-Racist Kids - Exploring the Next Generation of Changemakers (Haymarket Books)
  • How to Build an Antiracist World (TED Talk)
  • The Danger of a Single Story (TED Talk)
  • USC Race and Equity Center (Youtube)
  • This 16-Year-Old Indigenous Activist is Fighting for Environmental Justice (NowThis News)
  • Black South Rising (Vice News)
  • An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matters (Ted Talk)
  • The Difference Between Being "Not Racist" and Antiracist (Ted Talk)
  • How We're Honoring People Overlooked by History (Ted Talk)
  • Why Black Girls Are Targeted for Punishment at School (Ted Talk)
  • The Problem with Race Based Medicine (Ted Talk)
  • A Visual History of Inequality in Industrial America (Ted Talk)
  • Why Lakes and Rivers Should Have the Same Rights as Humans (Ted Talk)
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Documentaries & Movies

  • 13th (Documentary)
  • When They See Us (Documentary)
  • Time: The Kalief Browder Story (Documentary)
  • Let It Fall: 1982 - 1992 Los Angeles (Documentary)
  • Asian Americans (Documentary)
  • Teach Us All (Documentary)
  • Just Mercy (Movie)
  • Salute (Documentary)
  • #AsianAmCovidStories (Documentary)
  • The Black Panthers (Documentary)
  • I Am Not Your Negro (Documentary)
  • American Son (Movie)
  • Call Her Ganda (Documentary)
  • If Beale Street Could Talk (Movie)
  • King in the Wilderness (Documentary)
  • 9-MAN (Documentary)
  • Moonlight (Movie)
  • The Death and Life of Martha P. Johnson (Documentary)
  • Free CeCe (Documentary)
  • Disclosure (Documentary)

*Found on various streaming platforms

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Podcasts

  • 1619, The New York Times
  • About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge
  • Code Switch, NPR
  • Self Evident, Asian America's Stories
  • Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberle Crenshaw, AAPF
  • Momentum: A Race Forward
  • Pod For the Cause: Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights
  • Pod Save the People, Crooked Media
  • Seeing White, Scene on Radio
  • Fare of the Free Child, Raising Free People Network
  • Black Wallstreet 1921 (podcast)
  • About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge (podcast)
  • The Stacks (podcast)

*Podcasts can be found on Spotify, Apple Music and the Podcast app

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