LibGuides: Examining Structural Racism in the U.S.: Outside Resources

Systemic Racism Topics

The Boston Foundation: Qualified Renters Need Not Apply Race and Voucher Discrimination in the Metro Boston Rental Market
The Boston Foundation and the Racial Justice Fund supported research led by the Suffolk University Law School Housing Discrimination Testing Program and Analysis Group, Inc. that gathered statistical data about discrimination based on race and source of income (i.e., vouchers) in the Greater Boston rental market. Such discrimination is always concerning but is especially important to investigate now, in a moment when more eyes are opening to the systemic though sometimes camouflaged nature of bias and injustice. Please join us via webinar for the release of a report detailing the project’s findings and recommendations.
The Eviction Lab
The Eviction Lab at Princeton University has built the first nationwide database of evictions. Find out how many evictions happen in your community. Create custom maps, charts, and reports. Share facts with your neighbors and elected officials.
HUD: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
This tool is publicly available and also for use by program participants to access HUD-provided data to conduct the fair housing analysis required as part of the Assessment of Fair Housing.
Suffolk Law School: Housing Discrimination Testing Program
Suffolk Law's Housing Discrimination Testing Program (HDTP) is proud to be funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Boston Foundation, and the Hyams Foundation to eliminate housing discrimination in the Boston metro area through testing, enforcement, education, and research.

Economic Policy Institute: State of Working America
The State of Working America Data Library provides researchers, media, and the public with easily accessible, up-to-date, and comprehensive historical data on the American labor force. It is compiled from Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data sources. Use it to research wages, inequality, and other economic indicators over time and among demographic groups.
Urban Institute: Debt in America
Credit can be a lifeline during emergencies and a bridge to education and homeownership. But debt, which can stem from credit or unpaid bills, often burdens families’ and communities’ financial well-being. This map shows the geography of debt in America and the debt differences that can reinforce the wealth gap between white communities and communities of color.
Mapping Student Debt
More than 44 million Americans owe a total of $1.5 trillion in student debt, making it the second-largest liability on the national balance sheet. A generation ago, student debt was a relative rarity, but for today's students and recent graduates, it's a central fact of economic life that we don't know much about. Mapping Student Debt is changing that. The maps below show how borrowing for college affects the nation, your city, and even your neighborhood, giving a new perspective on the way in which student debt relates to economic inequality.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation: Closing the Racial Divide in the U.S. and Massachusetts: A Baseline Analysis
MTF President Eileen McAnneny, "The Foundation has always been committed to fiscal stability, economic growth, and opportunity for all, and this new report represents our effort to ensure we are adding a racial-equity lens to our research on policy impacts. This report does not assign blame—it gathers facts, puts them in context, and makes clear the economic as well as moral and justice-based reasons for closing the economic divide.’’

LSC: The Justice Gap Report
The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-income Americans report explores the “justice gap,” the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs in 2017.
National Center for Access to Justice
The National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ) uses data, research, policy analysis and advocacy to expose how the justice system fails to stand up for equal justice and, all too often, functions as a source of oppression. Our work is rooted in the principle that all people should enjoy access to justice, which we describe as the meaningful opportunity to be heard, secure one’s rights and obtain the law’s protection.
Massachusetts Limited Assistance Representation
Looking for a lawyer? Limited Assistance Representation (LAR) is one way to get legal help.
Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation
The Commonwealth established MLAC in 1983 to ensure that low-income people facing critical non-criminal legal issues would have access to legal information, advice, and representation. Our mission is to improve legal aid in Massachusetts through collaboration with the legal services community, the public, the bar, and the legislature.
Massachusetts Trial Court Electronic Case Access
The case information contained within this web site is generated from computerized records maintained by the Massachusetts Trial Court and is deemed to be public information. While every effort is made to assure the data is accurate and current, it must be accepted and used by the recipient with the understanding that no warranties, expressed or implied, concerning the accuracy, reliability or suitability of this data have been made. The Trial Court, and the developers of this web site assume no liability whatsoever associated with the use or misuse of the data contained herein. The case information from this web site is not the official record of the Trial Court.

Access to the Massachusetts eAccess site by a site data harvester or any similar software intended to discover and extract data from a website through automated, repetitive querying for the purpose of collecting such data is expressly prohibited.
NAACP: Criminal Justice
The NAACP advocates for smarter, results-based criminal justice policies to keep our communities safe, including treatment for addiction and mental health problems, judicial discretion in sentencing, and an end to racial disparities at all levels of the system.

TED Talks

Ted Talks: Talks to Help You Understand Racism in America

From passionate pleas for reform to poetic turns of phrase, these talks take an honest look at everyday realities of Black Americans and illuminate the way forward.

From Privilege to Progress

Melissa DePino and Michelle Saahene met at Starbucks in Philadelphia on April 12, 2018. They connected after witnessing two innocent black men being arrested for not buying a coffee. Michelle was the first person to speak up, and Melissa tweeted the video, which went viral with over 13 million views. It took their cohesive effort -- a black woman and a white woman standing up to racism -- to set off an international story that sparked the dialogue on what racism looks like today.

Together they started From Privilege to Progress (P2P), a national movement to desegregate the public conversation about race. P2P calls on all Americans to join on the path to antiracism by learning, speaking up in their everyday lives and amplifying the voices of people of color on social media.

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter
#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.

Urban Institute: Structural Racism in America

Urban Institute: Structural Racism in America
At the Urban Institute, we examine how structural racism continues to disproportionately segregate communities of color from access to opportunity and upward mobility by making it more difficult for people of color to secure quality education, jobs, housing, healthcare, and equal treatment in the criminal justice system.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture

Talking About Race
Race does not biologically exist, yet how we identify with race is so powerful, it influences our experiences and shapes our lives. In a society that privileges white people and whiteness, racist ideas are considered normal throughout our media, culture, social systems, and institutions. Historically, racist views justified the unfair treatment and oppression of people of color (including enslavement, segregation, internment, etc.). We can be led to believe that racism is only about individual mindsets and actions, yet racist policies also contribute to our polarization. While individual choices are damaging, racist ideas in policy have a wide-spread impact by threatening the equity of our systems and the fairness of our institutions. To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives.