This is a working list of resources for #blacklivesmatter – if you have any extra resources you would like to add, DM us on Twitter or Instagram @beaveronline.
Many thanks to Angbeen Abbas, Dylan Stevens, Ashley Masing, Sadia Sheeraz, Colin Vanelli, Tom Prendergast, Zehra Jafree, Marianne Hii, and Zahra B for contributing to this article.
Petitions – USA
#JusticeforFloyd – calling for the officers involved in the death of George Floyd to be charged with murder.
Another petition calling for justice for George Floyd by change.org.
Justice for Breonna Taylor – change.org petition calling for the arrests of officers involved with her death.
Petitions – UK
Justice for Belly Mujinga, who died after being spat on in Victoria Station, London, by a man who claimed he had Coronavirus.
Charities and fundraisers – USA
Black Visions Collective – a Black, trans, and queer-led organisation.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd – splits your donation to 39 community bail funds.
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
Another George Floyd fundraiser, set up by his sister, Bridgett Floyd.
Donate directly to Black Lives Matter here.
Masterlist of bail funds for protestors across the USA by state.
Twitter thread of videos you can stream to donate through ad revenue.
Charities and fundraisers – UK
Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust – named after a Black teenager who was killed in a racist attack in 1993.
Black Cultural Archives – organisation that aims to “collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK” (you can also donate using the link provided).
Racial Justice Network – organisation focusing on racial justice in West Yorkshire.
Runnymede Trust – an independent racial equality think tank.
George Padmore Institute – a research centre housing materials relating mainly to Black communities in Britain and continental Europe, connected to New Beacon Books (see below).
Kids of Colour – a charity providing resources, workshops, emotional and financial support to young people of colour growing up in a racist society (they’re currently running low on funds for their Bookshelf Project, which sends kids of colour important books).
The Northern Police Monitoring Project – a Mancunian organisation which aims to campaign for better policing, monitors police misbehaviour and brutality in Manchester and advises and educates people of colour about their rights.
NetPol – the Network for Police Monitoring campaigns for the freedom to protest, fundraising for those arrested during protests, petitioning for better policing and against the racialisation of policing and sharing information about police misdemeanours and brutality.
London Campaign Against Police and State Violence – campaigning against racial policing in London.
Take Back the Power – a campaign for racial equality in various sectors of public life, both in education and for collaborative policing, aiming to encourage the cooperation of police with communities, rather than policing against them.
Charities and fundraisers – Europe
European Network Against Racism – A hub for information on anti-racism charities all across Europe.
Charities and fundraisers – Australia
These have less focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, but instead are resources to help fight against Indigenous struggle in Australia.
Aboriginal Legal Service – available in several states.
Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies – archives for Indigenous cultural resources.
Healing Foundation – organisation to address the ongoing trauma in Indigenous communities.
Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse – publishes papers and resources on Indigenous justice.
Change the Record – national Aboriginal-led justice coalition.
Australians for National Truth and Reconciliation (ANTaR) – independent, not-for-profit organisation based on reconciliation between Indigneous and non-Indigenous Austrailians.
Human Rights Law Centre – provides legal support for those suffering under inequality and injustice in Australia.
Resources (from the LSE library)
Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon – historical critique of the dehumanisation in racism and colonialism.
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, Patrica Hill Collins – provides a framework for prominent Black feminist intellectuals and writers.
A Letter to My Nephew, James Baldwin – a letter, written in 1962, with words easily applicable to life today.
Natives: race and class in the ruins of empire, Akala – A book about the history and impact of colonialism on race relations in the UK today, with an intersectional analysis of class
The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britian, Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, Suzanna Scafe – A book about the unique experienced black women as maternal figures for an entire community in a racist society.
Discourse on Colonialism, Aime Cesaire – prominent piece of postcolonial literature based on European colonisation, discusses the relationship between colonizer and colonized and how colonial violence is reproduced in domestic colonial spaces
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois – series of essays on race by one of the first American sociologists, as well as a seminal text in African-American literature.
“Necropolitics” by Achille Mbembe – this short paper discusses the role of death in shaping state power and has been celebrated in modern scholarship for providing a deep racial analysis often ignored in studies of power
These are not available in the LSE Library, but are free ebooks to download:
The End of Policing by Alex Vitale – an in-depth look into the role of police in society and the corruption of the justice system.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon – written after BSWM, examines the psychology of racialised colonial rule and reflects on the possibilities of Black psychological and material liberation
Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Edited by Joe Macare, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price – a collection of essays exploring police brutality and failed reforms.
Black-owned businesses to support
New Beacon Books – London bookshop specialising in Caribbean, Black British, African, and African American authors (currently closed until July due to Coronavirus).
Look at @ukblackowned on Instagram for more.
Multimedia
About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge – a short podcast series by the author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race.
13th (2016) – documentary about the incarceration system and the history of racial inequality in the USA (available on Netflix).
Dear White People (2017- ) – comedy-drama about modern US race relations, centering around college life (available on Netflix).
When They See Us – a four part miniseries recounting the story of the Central Park Five. It looks at the racial injustice and inadequacy of the US criminal justice system, and the racist mentalities of the white middle class. (Available on Netflix)
I Am Not Your Negro – A reading of James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House, interspersed with interviews with Baldwin.
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/race_power_policy_workbook.pdf, workbook about structural racism in US
Other texts/ resources
Letters For Black Lives are open letters with translated versions aimed at creating a space for conversations about racial justice, police violence, and anti-Blackness in our families. Originally created in 2016, there is a 2020 version being written.
Intro to the Black Radical Tradition and Critical Race Theory
A Short History of the ‘Critical’ in Critical Race Theory – Lewis Gordon – a brief summary of critical race theory with suggested readings as well as and introduction to key scholars in the field
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Between the world and me – a slightly dense read but it contains some really poignant insight into how our legal and educational systems have failed Black people as told through poetic exposition
Black Marxism: the making of the Black radical tradition – an insightful analysis of the ways racism and capitalism are related to one another
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley sets forth the core thinking of one of the most influential Black radicals of the twentieth-century
“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” by Audre Lorde discusses the intersection of patriarchy and racism, arguing that patriarchy cannot be dismantled without a core racial analysis
Prison Abolition
Here is what Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, renowned prison abolitionist and scholar, has to say about the modern prison system.
US case:https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration
UK case: https://novaramedia.com/2018/01/14/what-does-justice-look-like-without-prisons/
Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis – a look at how racism and sexism are at the heart of the prison system and why we need decarceration.
A useful infographic on alternatives to policing centred around community development and public safety
Other masterlists
