GO DEEPER INTO DETROIT ’67
Resources Recommended by our Friends at the Denver Public Library.

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Listen, Whitey!: the sights and sounds of Black power 1968-1975 by Pat Thomas

Let music historian Pat Thomas take you on a visual tour of how Black Power influenced the music and cultures of jazz, soul, rock, and even stand-up comedy in this beautifully designed and packaged book.

Listen, Whitey! Documents the militant demand for freedom as experienced through the music of the time; these are songs and artists and ideas that were too radical for the mainstream but moved the entire culture from the underground.

If the Civil Rights movement was Gospel, the Black Power movement was pure street, a lyrical and musical counterculture to be reckoned with.

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Fruitvale Station (2014)

Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer star in this powerful and compassionate biographical drama written and directed by Ryan Coogler that begins with an actual clip of cellphone footage from the frantic moments before the shooting of Oscar Grant III. Beautiful and heartbreaking, Fruitvale Station recounts the last 24 hours of Oscar’s life by focusing on his resolutions to be a better son, boyfriend, and father before he was shot by police while he was unarmed and handcuffed at a train station in Oakland, California in 2009.

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Motowns 1’s Various Artists

Let the sounds of Motown transport you to the Motor City, the hometown of soul music. This CD may lack the charm of vinyl and the nostalgic appeal of 8-tracks, but the songs are timeless. This is a soundtrack fit for a house party from fifty years ago, and this will be true fifty years on. Chart-topping tracks from The Supremes, The Four Tops, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and many more all evoke that 60’s sound that is coming back around.

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Citizen : An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

In this visceral book of prose, Rankine shatters the illusion of justice and pulls readers back down to reality by exposing the everyday racism and microaggressions experienced by people of color in modern America. Drawing from the climate of mounting racial tension, this important collection of unsettling moments, blatant insults, and life-threatening interactions readily illustrates the varied experiences that chip away at the emotional and physical wellness of citizens in our country. For further study, the National Endowment for the Arts published an insightful reader’s guide to accompany Citizen.