A powerful and practical guide to help you navigate racism, challenge privilege, manage stress and trauma, and begin to heal.

Healing from racism is a journey that often involves reliving trauma and experiencing feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety. This journey can be a bumpy ride, and before we begin healing, we need to gain an understanding of the role history plays in racial/ethnic myths and stereotypes. In so many ways, to heal from racism, you must re-educate yourself and unlearn the processes of racism. This book can help guide you.

The Racial Healing Handbook offers practical tools to help you navigate daily and past experiences of racism, challenge internalized negative messages and privileges, and handle feelings of stress and shame. You’ll also learn to develop a profound racial consciousness and conscientiousness, and heal from grief and trauma. Most importantly, you’ll discover the building blocks to creating a community of healing in a world still filled with racial microaggressions and discrimination.

This book is not just about ending racial harm—it is about racial liberation. This journey is one that we must take together. It promises the possibility of moving through this pain and grief to experience the hope, resilience, and freedom that helps you not only self-actualize, but also makes the world a better place.

Anneliese A. Singh's profile page

Tim Wise's profile page

Derald Wing Sue's profile page

Anneliese A. Singh, PhD, LPC, is a professor and associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the college of education at the University of Georgia. Singh is cofounder of the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition to work on reducing heterosexism, transprejudice, racism, and other oppressions in Georgia schools. She founded the Trans Resilience Project, where she translated her findings from nearly twenty years of research on trans people’s resilience to oppression into practice and advocacy efforts. She is author of The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook. She’s delivered widely viewed TEDx Talks, and recorded a podcast for the American Psychological Association on her research with transgender youth and resilience.

Foreword writer Tim Wise is among the nation’s most prominent antiracist essayists and educators. He has spent the past twenty-five years speaking to audiences in all fifty US states, at more than 1000 college and high school campuses, at hundreds of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the nation. He has lectured internationally in Canada and Bermuda, and has trained corporate, government, law enforcement, and medical industry professionals on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions.

Afterword writer Derald Wing Sue, PhD, is professor of psychology and education in the department of counseling and clinical psychology at Teachers College and the School of Social Work, Columbia University. He is a pioneer in the field of multicultural psychology, multicultural education, multicultural counseling and therapy, and the psychology of racism/antiracism.

“Racism is America’s original sin. It is woven into the fabric of this country, and is an inextricable part of this nation’s history. Racism is psychologically and spiritually damaging, yet the sad reality is that in the current political climate racism has been emboldened. Anneliese Singh has given us a desperately needed gift in this racial healing workbook. For those who are social justice activists, or just people who want to understand themselves as racial beings, Singh’s workbook is a psychological guide and spiritual salve for facilitating our own racial healing. It is destined to become a classic!”
—Kevin Cokley, PhD, Oscar and Annie Mauzy Regents Professor for educational research and development, professor in the department of educational psychology and African and African diaspora studies, and author of the book The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism

Kevin Cokley, PhD

“Race and healing? Not words you often see together! Yet Anneliese Singh has brought her gifts together as a healer, a scholar, a clinician, and an activist to weave a heartfelt and liberating book of hope. Whether you’re White, a person of color, or multiracial, Singh invites us all—through personal stories, reflection exercises, self-assessments, and an impressive integration of history and the social sciences—to engage in the lifelong practice of racial transformation for ourselves and our communities. This is a gift and a balm for the racial wounds we all carry!”
—Alvin N. Alvarez, PhD, professor in the department of counseling and dean of the college of health and social sciences at San Francisco State University, and coeditor of The Cost of Racism for People of Color

Alvin N. Alvarez, PhD

“Anneliese A. Singh’s The Racial Healing Handbook is a must-have resource for all educators and mental health workers, and for anyone interested in creating a more racially just world. Singh masterfully weaves together theory, empirical research, and narrative to inform her discussion of the key elements for racial healing for people of color and White individuals. Singh’s strength is her ability to translate research into developmentally appropriate, practical activities that will stimulate deep reflection and action. As such, she offers a nice balance of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral exploration. I can’t wait to use the handbook and practical exercises in my classes and my work with community members.”
—Helen A. Neville, PhD, professor in the department of educational psychology and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; past president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race; and coeditor of The Myth of Racial Color Blindness and The Cost of Racism for People of Color

Helen A. Neville, PhD

“In a political era where we are bombarded daily with reports of racism and discrimination, it is easy to feel helpless and withdraw. Anneliese Singh’s workbook is a practical guide to actively engaging and participating in social justice on a personal and societal level. Singh draws on best practices, research, and advocacy to create pathways to restore hope in humanity and to create the self-efficacy needed to be a change agent. What a gift!”
—Edward Delgado-Romero, PhD, associate dean for faculty and staff services, professor and licensed psychologist, College of Education, University of Georgia

Edward Delgado-Romero, PhD

“This is the book you’ve been waiting for, even if you didn’t know you were waiting for it! Anneliese Singh makes a racial healing path accessible, practical, and comprehensive for anyone willing to pursue it. This handbook is personal, straightforward, honest, inviting, and honors the system of racism in all its complexity. It is the rare kind of book I can recommend to my family, my friends, my colleagues, my clients, and to myself. An important contribution to our individual and collective paths toward liberation!”
—Jen Willsea, MTS, Atlanta-based social justice and anti-racism facilitator, consultant, and coach

Jen Willsea, MTS