Racial Justice

​OCSJM’s Top Picks for Racial Justice Parish Resources 
​
​Visit Ignation Solidarity Network for their

​ ​"Novena for Racial Justice"

Open Wide Our Hearts
A Pastoral Letter Against Racism

View the letter online in English or Spanish.

Click here for more USCCB resources to accompany the pastoral letter, including prayers and latest statements from the US Catholic Bishops.

Click HERE to view a pastoral planning presentation "How to be Anti-racist" by Sonya Ware


Racism Resources for Small Groups
JustFaith Ministries offers 8-week modules designed for participants who are willing to wrestle with hard questions about their faith and social action.


1) Faith & Racial Equity: Exploring Power & Privilege

2) Faith & Racial Healing: Embracing Truth, Justice, and Restoration

Take action with these Interfaith organizations:

1) Naugatuck Valley Project

2) Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance

3) Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut
Click here to view current film and book resources on the topics of racism and racial justice.
View Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

Click Here to view 10 Things Everyone should Know About race.

CLICK HERE to view Resources for Parents and the "Anti-Racist Starter Pack".


​For Racism Stations of the Cross, please click here


Check out these other organizations and resources:




"When we begin to separate people in our thoughts for unjust reasons, when we start to see some people as "them" and others as "us," we fail to love. Yet love is at the heart of Christian life."

-Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love, A Pastoral Letter Against Racism


racial justice videos

check out our Open Wide Our HeartS Conference for more videos



The “Magis and Justice” by Rev. Bryan Massingale, 2017
Catholic Mobilizing Network: "Top 5 lessons from the Pastoral Letter Against Racism"

​​​Some suggested books and articles
​
This is by no means an exhaustive list for reading about history and/or race in the United States. The most inclusive list would be very long and would even include fiction. There are some very powerful fiction stories which include historically accurate descriptions of attitudes, places and people. While I have read most of the books on this list, it also includes some books that I have yet to read, but their importance has been impressed upon me by readers whom I trust.

BOOKS

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander

The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Douglas Blackmon

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Dee Brown and Hampton Sides

Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates

My Bondage and My Freedom
Frederick Douglas

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
David Grann

How to Be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi

So You Want to Talk about Race
Ijeoma Oluo

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot

Just Mercy
Bryan Stevenson

Nisei Memories: My Parents Talk about the War Years
Paul Howard Takemoto

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
David Treuer
Articles
​
​Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

Current Housing Policy (2020)

Fair Housing Act (2020)

Black Maternal Mortality
Black Maternal Mortality

Henrietta Lacks

​Education August 2015