• Undoing racism and advancing intercultural transformation is a priority of Mennonite Church USA. Visit this MCUSA Resource Page.

• Mennonite Church USA statement on racial injustice by the Mennonite Church Executive Staff

• 158 Resources for Understanding-articles, videos, podcasts from the Smithsonian

Embracing Beloved Community is a seven-week biblical study for Sunday School classes or other groups to dive into the ways God calls the church to embrace diversity. The curriculum is designed for congregations new to this topic to journey together in an exploration of the sin of racism and Christ’s vision for the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Diversity: God’s Design is a basic introduction to the celebration and acknowledgment of difference. We are peculiar people gifted with the invitation to go out from ourselves and be in relationship with others who are also peculiar masterpieces of the Divine Creator. Choosing to see the beauty in the diverse world God has created is a gift. 

• Weep with me: How Lament Opens a Door for Racial Reconciliation by Mark Vroegop: Vroegop book addresses how biblical lament is an important step in racial reconciliation and redemption.

• An acclaimed, timely study of how people of faith have historically—up to the present day—worked against racial justice. And a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response. 

  The Color of Compromise is both enlightening and compelling, telling a history we either ignore or just don’t know. Equal parts painful and inspirational, it details how the American church has helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. You will be guided in thinking through concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church. 

  In The Color of Compromise Video Study, Jemar Tisby takes us to the root of injustice in the American church. This study: 

  • Takes you on a historical, sociological, and religious journey: from America’s early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War 
  • Covers the tragedy of Jim Crow laws, the victories of the Civil Rights era, and the strides of today’s Black Lives Matter movement 
  • Reveals the cultural and institutional tables we have to flip in order to bring about progress between black and white people 
  • Charts a path forward to replace established patterns and systems of complicity with bold, courageous, immediate action 
  • Is a perfect book for pastors and other faith leaders, students, non-students, book clubs, small group studies, history lovers, and all lifelong learners 

  The Color of Compromise is not a call to shame or a platform to blame white evangelical Christians. It is a call from a place of love and desire to fight for a more racially unified church that no longer compromises what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality. A call that challenges black and white Christians alike to standup now and begin implementing the concrete ways Tisby outlines, all for a more equitable and inclusive environment among God’s people. Starting today. 

• Prayers of lament: Responding to the violence of racism from MCUSA

• “The Mennonite Church, Racism and Whiteness: Two Reflections” Written By: Tobin Miller Sherer and Brenda Zook Friesen, Roots of Justice. This article was published in The Mennonite in 2016.

• Hashtags Hit Too Close to Home by Charlie B. Dobson: Charlie discusses her own experiences with loosing her brother to police violence, the need for love and the realities of white privilege. This article was published by Christianity Today on July 1, 2020.

• White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity by Tom Gjelton and NPR: This article summarizes the history of how racism and slavery were perpetuated in the church. 

• The Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew Hart: “In this provocative book, theologian and blogger Drew G. I. Hart places police brutality, mass incarceration, anti-black stereotypes, poverty, and everyday acts of racism within the larger framework of white supremacy. He argues that white Christians have repeatedly gotten it wrong about race because dominant culture and white privilege have so thoroughly shaped their assumptions. He also challenges black Christians about neglecting the most vulnerable in their own communities. Leading readers toward Jesus, Hart offers concrete practices for churches that seek solidarity with the oppressed and are committed to racial justice.” Herald Press

• The Color of Compromise: the Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, Jemar Tisby, Zondervan, 2019, 256 pages Martin Luther King: “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.”  In MLK’s “I have a dream” speech, King called on Americans to view others not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  King’s call to action, issued more than fifty years ago, remains relevant. Yet churches remain racially segregated, largely ineffective in addressing complex racial challenges. Tisby takes readers to the root of this injustice. –summary by Ruben Chupp

• The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James H. Cone, Orbis Books, 2013, 166 pages Garnering several awards, Cone explores the spirituality of African Americans, turning “his attention to two symbols that dominated not only the spiritual world but also the daily life of African-Americans in the twentieth century” (Henry Louis Gates, Jr). –summary by Ruben Chupp

• 13th (2016)-Documentary (Netflix) Created by Ava DuVernay, this documentary analyzes the criminalization of the Black community and the U.S. prison boom using the voices of scholars, activists, and politicians.

• The Central Park Five (2012)
  • Documentary (Amazon, hoopla, Apple) This film tells the story of five Black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York’s City Central Park in 1989 from the perspective of the five teenagers who lives were upended. There is also a mini-series on Netflix called “When They See Us” about this story.

• White Like Me (2013)
  • Documentary (kanopy – need library card) In this documentary, anti-racist educator Tim Wise explores race and racism in the U.S. through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. Offers a look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today.

• “Seeing White” from Scene on Radio: this 14-part podcast documentary takes a deep dive into the history of Whiteness in America. What is it? What is it for? Host and producer John Biewen along with a number of scholars seek to answer these questions. 

• “The Land That Never Has Been Yet“ from Scene on Radio: John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika, journalism and media studies professor at Rutgers University, explore voter suppression and gerrymandering; concerns about foreign intervention, election security, and the role of money in politics. This twelve-part  series on democracy addresses these concerns but will go much deeper, effectively retelling the story of the United States from its beginnings up to the present as we complicate, maybe upend, listeners’ understanding of American history. 

• “1619” a project by 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. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. “1619,” an audio series hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, tells this story.”

• Generational racism: using the Genogram to see and slay it: “In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans and people around the globe are expressing outrage and grief on a level I’ve never seem in my lifetime. It appears to be a moment in which God is doing something significant in the world and the church.” Podcast episode by Pete Scazzero

• “Race in America – The History of Post-Civil War Racism” podcast episode from the Holy Post Podcast by Phil Vischer, Skye Jethani, and Christian Taylor

• Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Spiegel & Grau, 2015, 152 pages. Americans have built an empire on the idea of race that falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men–bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it?  Coates attempts to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. –summary by Ruben Chupp

• The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, Michelle Alexander, New Press, 2010, 312 pages. Alexander confronts readers with the uncomfortable truth, that our nation has been reluctant to face: the way things are now for African-Americans in the US, noting the rebirth of a caste system that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars, upon release relegated to a permanent defective, flawed status.  The author places mass incarceration at the forefront of racial injustice in America. –summary by Ruben Chupp

• The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality, Anna-Lisa Cox, PublicAffairs, 2018, 304 pages. Named one of Smithsonian’s Best History Books of 2018, Cox recounts black pioneers taking a stand for freedom in the Northwest Territory, confronted with racial backlash, armed battles and lynching.  Still these pioneers believed that humans were created equal in the sight of God. –summary by Ruben Chupp

• White Trash: the 400-Year History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg, Viking, 2016, 446 pages.In the course of US history, whites, according to Isenberg, have been labeled: offscourings, lubbers, bog-trotters, rascals, rubbish, squatters, crackers, clay-eaters, tackies, mudsills, scalawag, briar-hoppers, hillbillies, low-downers, degenerates, white trash, red necks, trailer trash, swamp people.  But at least they weren’t black.  Historically politicians have posed the US as a domain of equality.  But some have always been more “equal” than others, with blacks clutching the bottom rung of the ladder.  Includes 125 pages of notes. –summary by Ruben

• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi (2020) An adaptation of Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning targeted at young adults, this collaboration between the original author and children’s writer Jason Reynolds seeks to explain why young people are growing up in a world of racism and what they can do about it.

• Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Pual Kivel (2017) This accessible, personal, and supportive guide is ideal for students, community activists, teachers, youth workers, and anyone interested in issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice. Provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice. Includes information about specific cultural groups such as Muslims, Native Americans, recent immigrants, Latinos, and Asian Americans.

• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem: “The consequences of racism can be found in our bodies – in skin and sinew, in bone and blood. In this ground-breaking, inspiring work, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage, the physical consequences of discrimination, from the perspective of body-centred psychology. He argues that until we learn to heal and overcome the generational anguish of white supremacy, we will all continue to bear its scars.

  My Grandmother’s Hands is an extraordinary call to action for all of us to recognize that racism effects not only the mind, but also the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our racial divides.”

• Cultural humility: from being right to being human by Laurie Oswald Robinson, Mennonite Mission Network: This contains “excerpts from a recent Mennonite Mission Network-sponsored webinar presented by Andrea Sawyer-Kirksey. She is executive director for DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection). This Mission Network agency partner is based in Atlanta, Chicago and Denver and provides middle- and high-schoolers with experiential service-learning focused on justice for marginalized people and the dismantling of systemic racism.” The full video of this webinar is found at the top of this webpage.

• For Our White Friends Desiring to be Allies by Courtney Ariel at Sojourners magazine.  This article offers helpful insight and information on how white individuals can be helpful and humble allies for people of color.

• 97 Things White People Can do for Racial Justice by Corinne Shatack at medium.com.