Exploring Black identities
Here we explore the identifications that determine our governmental, economic and social outcomes.
* This concept remains under construction as we continue to add resources and tools to the field guide. If you have a link or tool to share, please email us at research@upwithcommunity.org and we’ll check it out.
How We Fight For Our Lives
Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears.
Saeed Jones
BlackPAC
BlackPAC is an independent, Black-led organization that uses the power of year-round political engagement and elections to change our economic, justice, and political systems.
BlackPAC
The Movement for Black Lives
Black lives matter. The Movement for Black Lives formed in December of 2014, was created as a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy, cultural and political wins, convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a shared movement wide strategy.
The Movement for Black Lives
Black History Month Resources
Access endless resources, from information on historical figures to speeches and everything in between.
Various Sources
The National Museum of African American History and Culture Library
The library’s primary mission is to provide support for the research, exhibition, and programmatic endeavors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It does this by collecting, preserving, and providing access to resources and scholarship in the subjects of African American history and culture.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture Library
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson
In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates how and why efforts to understand black people’s history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate.
UNC Press
Lift Every Voice and Sing by Lee Anderson
Listen to this beautiful rendition by Lee Anderson.
The Movement of Black Lives
I Love Being Black
Produced by: Jonathan Lykes / Music by: Jonathan Lykes Lyrics by: Je Nae Taylor / Background vocals: BYP 100 Choir / Video editor: @rxxteddy / Barbershop: L St. Hair Station
The Movement of Black Lives
Healing and Transformative Justice: Imagining Black Feminist/Abolitionist Futures with Adaku Utah, Mariame Kaba, and Cara Page
Watch this discussion on the current moment through the lenses of healing justice and transformative justice, imagining a black feminist future free from state violence, policing, and exploitation.
Goethe-Institut New York
An ‘unapologetic’ black feminist on accelerating the pace of change
Watch cultural theorist, author and professor Brittney Cooper giving her brief but spectacular take on “eloquent rage.”
PBS: Public Broadcasting Service
SWITCH PATHWAYS
We move through change each day – it is a constant in our lives. These are the building blocks of sustainability for living in this moment and throughout the long road ahead.
There can be a deep sense of urgency for change that drives us to action before we have fully aligned our purpose and outcomes. This can lead to disruptions, unnecessary conflict and ultimately failure of our plans. Here are valuable guides for aligning intention and action to save energy, resources and time.
To make change in our society, we need to understand the fundamentals of how decision making happens, in our teams, through our social identities, and in our systems of power.
Work for diversity, equity and inclusion achieves lasting impact when we orient our energy towards structural change and integrate structural change tools into our programs and operations. This pathway provides support for analyzing structures and transforming them for justice.
Breaking the status quo and opening up new possibilities for equity and freedom in our work requires innovative experiments. Teams must ensure that all members have the ability to act on the vision and goals they are co-creating.
Our minds cannot move toward racial justice, equity or transformation if our bodies are not prepared for change. This pathway offers those preparations that we have found most beneficial to adult learning.
Explore the interviews, frameworks, templates and articles created and published by Up With Community.
GROW COMMUNITY
Giving thanks: We share these resources with gratitude to all of our teachers and with appreciation for the value they have brought us.
The field guide is a living resource that we are consistently adding to. We receive no payment or kickbacks from contributors for sharing. Access and use of these resources should be done at one’s own discretion.
If you see a resource you like, we strongly encourage you to reach out to the author and support their work in the world through contributions, donations or by hiring them. One goal of this guide is to expand the circle of connections for powerful justice and equity work in the world.
Coming soon: A searchable list of contributors to make it easier to support members of the Field Guide.
Have a resource to add? We continue to expand the resources we can share. If you have a tool, resource or link you would like to share through the Field Guide, please email us: research@upwithcommunity.org.
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