In Becoming Trustworthy White Allies, long-time antiracist facilitator Melanie S. Morrison outlines the actions white people must undertake to become partners in the work of racial justice. In this collection of essays, lectures, and real-life stories, Morrison addresses how white people can navigate the obstacles to becoming an ally so that they can step up with courage, humility, and consistency to participate in BIPOC-led organizations while helping move other white people to greater antiracist awareness and action. Morrison describes the required steps toward allyship: Moving through shame and guilt, nurturing truth-telling relationships of support and accountability, challenging practices and policies that protect white privilege, moving out of social segregation, working from a place of self-love, and staying on the antiracist journey. Now, as always, it is imperative that white people commit to doing the deep work and learning required to become life-long trustworthy allies.
Foreword / Jennifer Harvey
Introduction
I. Inner Work
1. Becoming Trustworthy White Allies
2. Memories of the 1963 March on Washington
3. Qualities and Commitments of White Allies
4. A Misguided Struggle
5. Why an Antiracism Seminar for White People
6. This Is What Accountable Relationships Look Like / Dionardo PizaÑa and Melanie S. Morrison
7. Dear White People
II. Ancestral Investigations
8. Cultural Envy
9. Genealogy as Spiritual Practice: Reflections on My White Ancestral Work
10. Why We Must Remember: A King Descendant’s Reckoning with Her Enslaving Ancestors
11. A Just Reckoning: Forging Deeper, Truer King House Narratives
12. Letter to My Great-Great-Great Grandmother, Elizabeth King Shortridge
III. Legacies of Lynching
13. Soul Splitting
14. Researching Injustice: Telling the Story of Legal Lynching in Jim Crow Birmingham
15. Trayvon Martin, the Legacy of Lynching, and the Role of White Women
16. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Verdict in the Michael Brelo Case
17. “The Fierce Urgency of Now”
IV. Staying Power
18. What Will It Take for White People to Stay the Course?
19. In the Time That I Have Left
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
