Resource Guides
Organizations & Movements
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
The Race Matters Institute works toward a more just and vibrant nation by helping government units, nonprofits, community-based and regional organizations, philanthropies, and state and national networks to become more race-informed and equity-focused in their work.
The Healing Racism Toolkit is primarily for white people in North America to understand and begin to heal the racism they carry. Racism is a chronic spiritual disease born out of a false sense of racial entitlement, arrogance, egotism and superiority. It prevents the building of healthy community.
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) seeks to reach millions, mobilize hundreds of thousands, and organize tens of thousands, so that Black political power is a force able to influence national and local agendas in the direction of our shared Vision for Black Lives.
How to support racial justice in Massachusetts. A running list of local and national organizations committed to racial justice
Police Use of Force Project. How current police use of force policies fail to prevent police violence
Education
Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? – The Atlantic
Best selling author Ibram X. Kendi on being feared for being Black.Reconstruction in America — Equal Justice Initiative
Most Americans know very little about the Reconstruction era and its legacy. Historians have frequently overlooked this critical 12-year period that has had profound impact on life in the United States. Our collective ignorance of what happened immediately after the Civil War has contributed to misinformed stereotypes and misguided false narratives about who is honorable and who is not and has allowed bigotry and a legacy of racial injustice to persist.- How silence can breed prejudice — The Washington Post
A child development professor explains how and why to talk to kids about race. Teaching Ideas and Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the George Floyd Protests — NY Times
Helping kids understand current events- Anti-racism requires more than passive sympathy — The Guardian
It’s not enough to simply be “not racist,” progress depends on becoming proactive and anti-racist. - Policing, Racism, and the Law Webinar — The American Law Institute
Discussion on current issues surrounding policing policy and racial injustice. - Free Courses to Educate Yourself (Webinars) — Business Insider
Free online courses from Ivy League schools to educate yourself on race and America’s long history of injustice. - 1619 Project – NY Times Magazine
The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. It’s My Job to Raise Children Who Are Not Only Not Racist But Actively Anti-Racist — Huff Post
Raising your child to be actively anti-racist.
- The Case for Reparations — The Atlantic
A history on reparations, with ideas and solutions to implement it. Black History Year — Pushback (podcast)
Black History Year connects you to the history, thinkers, and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversations.- The Civil War and Reconstruction Era (podcast)
Yale Professor explains the causes, course and consequences of the Civil War in this 27 episode series. - Intersectionality Matters! (podcast)
Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term “intersectionality,” this podcast brings the academic term to life. - NPR: Code Sw!tch (podcast)
Conversations tackling the subject of race head-on reveal how it impacts every aspect of our society. - Sunstorm (podcast)
Sunstorm is an audio salon hosted by two of America’s leading activists, Alicia Garza and Ai-jen Poo, where they talk to their friends and sheroes about how women, especially women of color, stay powerful & joyful amidst the chaos of life in America today. - NPR: It’s Been A Minute with Sam Sanders (podcast)
Each week, Sam Sanders interviews people in the culture who deserve your attention. Plus weekly wraps of the news with other journalists. Join Sam as he makes sense of the world through conversation. - NPR: Hidden Brain – The Hidden Village (podcast)
Using the Implicit Association Test to uncover the subconscious prejudices transferred from society to the individual mind. - WA State General Rule 37 — Jury Selection
Washington state had a lengthy study of racial bias in jury trials. General Rule 37 was an outcome. The purpose of this rule is to eliminate the unfair exclusion of potential jurors based on race or ethnicity. - Whitewashing the Jury, a California study
Recent California study on jury selection and racial bias. - Financial Literacy in the Black Community
Closing the racial wealth gap isn’t a simple fix. But many experts say education and financial literacy can help. This article identifies the impact this knowledge gap has on the African American community.
Policing Issues
Policing in Black & White — American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association explores how psychologists can join the fight in reducing police violence by studying disparities, developing new interventions and testing what works in the real world.- Police Violence, Use of Force Policies, and Public Health — American Journal of Law & Medicine
Use of force policies and police violence as a public health issue. These 4 charts describe police violence in America — CNBC
Visual aids depicting police violence across America.Why police officer charged with George Floyd’s murder wasn’t concerned about being filmed — MIT Technology Review
MIT Technology Review about the lack of deterrent effect of bodycams.Did Body Cameras Backfire? — The Atlantic
Only a fraction of body camera footage ever finds its way to defense or civil rights attorneys; most of it is stored on the Cloud and gets used to surveil the public.Do Police Body Cameras Provide an Impartial Version of Events? — Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Bodycam footage replicates the perspective of police officers, and research reveals that people assign blame differently after watching body cam v. dashcam footage.Reformist reforms vs. abolitionist steps in policing — Critical Resistance
Abolitionist v. Reformist models of defunding police.Opinion: When It Works to ‘Defund the Police’ — NY Times
Changing the rules to permit arrests only for violent offenses, along with related ideas such as appointment of counsel for clerk’s hearings, emerged as some of our primary initiatives.
- Mapping Police Violence
Map of police violence nationally. Support For Defunding The Police Department Is Growing. Here’s Why It’s Not A Silver Bullet — The Marshall Project
Past budget cuts have had unintended consequences. Now, proponents say it’s time to fundamentally reimagine the role of the police.Councilor, lawyers force release of BPD data — The Bay State Banner
Lawmakers and lawyers force the BPD to respond to public records requests for FIOs in effort for transparency.Boston Police Department Releases Latest Field Interrogation Observation Data — BPD News
Latest FIO data report from BPD – 5/8/20.BPD Field Interrogation and Observation (FIO) — Analyze Boston
More about FIO data from Boston Police Department.Why So Many Police Are Handling the Protests Wrong — The Marshall Project
Police, protesters and use of force.How Much Do We Need The Police? — NPR
The end of policing calls for refocusing and retraining police and redefining their role in protecting the public.How Segregation Shapes Fatal Police Violence — NPR
The role that neighborhood racial segregation plays in the ratio of black to white shootings of unarmed victims.The Struggle to Abolish the Police Is Not New — Boston Review
Understanding prison and police abolition as imagined by midcentury civil rights activists.
Public Defenders
- Implicit Racial Bias in Public Defender Triage — The Yale Law Journal
Yale Law Journal Article: Implicit Racial Bias in Public Defender Triage. Understanding Implicit Bias in Public Defender Social Workers — California State University San Bernadino
Research found that social workers in a public defender setting identify in ways that are very different from their clients and view the resulting implicit bias as an important hurdle to overcome.- Do Public Defenders Spend Less Time on Black Clients? — The Marshall Project
Implicit is not just a problem for police, prosecutors, and judges. - Implicit Bias: The Conversation Starts With Me — National Association of Public Defense
Public defenders are especially prone to implicit bias judgments. Much like emergency room doctors, public defenders practice in environments that are cognitively-depleting, highly pressurized, time-constrained, and information-limited.
10 Things Public Defenders Can Do To Stand Up For Racial Justice — Medium
There is nobody in the system more qualified to confront bias and demand change than public defenders.- Race Bias and the Importance of Consciousness for Criminal Defense Attorneys — Andrea D. Lyon
Owning and understanding one’s own racial bias is imperative for interacting with clients and conducting effective voir dire. - Recognizing and Confronting Bias: A Defender’s Guide — Federal Defenders of NY
CLE by the Federal Defenders of NY on implict bias among defense attorneys. - Implicit racial bias and public defenders — Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
Identifying, addressing and mitigating the problem of implicit bias among public defenders.