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Diversity education resources

Histories

Before the Mayflower: A History of African Americans, 1619-1962, by Lerone Bennett, Jr. (Johnson Publishing Co., Inc., 2003).

Written over the course of 12 years by Bennett, longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine, this work chronicles the presence of African-Americans in what became the United States, starting with the first group of Africans who arrived in America as indentured servants.

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality, by Richard Kluger (Random House, 2004).

Kluger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, tells the story of the NAACP's 20-year struggle to overturn the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision. The book features extensive treatment of Charles Hamilton Houston, a law professor at Howard University who taught Thurgood Marshall and other members of the NAACP legal team that ultimately won reversal of the “separate but equal” doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The book has also been made into a movie.

Videos

Four Little Girls, directed by Spike Lee. By far the least controversial of Lee's films, this documentary contains interviews with family and friends of the four girls who were killed in a Birmingham church bombing during the summer of 1963. (102 minutes.)

Age group: Middle school and high school.

The Color of Fear, directed by Lee Mun Wah. This film depicts eight men of different racial backgrounds who gather at a retreat center in California. The ensuing dialogue and interactions between the men are occasionally volatile, always engaging and ultimately uplifting. (90 minutes.)

Age group: Upper middle school and high school.

The Lunch Date, directed by Adam Davidson. This Oscar-winning film is an excellent vehicle through which to enter conversations about race. A white woman misses her train in New York City and decides to have a quick salad, with amusing and ironic consequences. (10 minutes.)

Age group: All.

Compiled by Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, MTA Today correspondent.