by Michelle Duster
The extraordinary life and legacy of Ida B. Wells is celebrated in this book written by her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster and covers this civil rights icon who brought to light the horrors of lynching in America and cofounded the NAACP.
by Amanda Gorman
This much anticipated work from Gorman comes on the heels of her recital at President Biden’s inauguration. Gorman suggests that change is hard work but worth the effort. She is the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history.
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her coming-of-age story is gregarious but she was an insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s before moving to California during the 1940s. Enduring bigotry and racism and abuse, Angelou refuses subjugation and chooses to soar to become a preeminent author.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This memoir is a letter to Coates’s adolescent son on how to find his place in the world while describing his awakening to the truth about his place through a series of revelatory experiences — from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris. Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis.
by Brit Bennett
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical, but after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age 16, one of them passes for white. Bennett explores the American history of passing whilst expertly weaving a compelling family saga and intertwines multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s as the reader learns how the past continues to influence their lives.
Billie Holiday writes about her life in this searingly honest memoir about her rough Baltimore childhood and subsequent rise to become the legendary jazz, swing and singing sensation. She chronicles her interactions with the greatest stars of the time like Bob Hope, Lana Turner and Clark Gable, and is unflinching in chronicling the racism and discrimination she endured until her tragic decline into heroin addiction.
Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic Invisible Man follows one African-American man’s quest for identity during the 1920s and 1930s. Because of the racism he faces, the unnamed protagonist, known as “Invisible Man,” does not feel seen by society and narrates the reader through a series of unfortunate and fortunate events he undertakes to fit in while living in the South and later in Harlem, New York City. In 1953, Invisible Man was awarded the National Book Award, making Ellison the first African-American author to receive the prestigious honor for fiction.
Angie Thomas is part of a new crop of African-American authors bringing fresh new storytelling to bookshelves near you. Her debut young adult novel, The Hate U Give, was inspired by the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement. It follows Starr Carter, a 16-year-old who has witnessed the police-involved shooting of her best friend Khalil. The book, which topped the New York Times bestseller chart, is a timely fictional tale that humanizes the voices behind one of the largest movements of present times.
During Zora Neale Hurston’s career, she was more concerned with writing about the lives of African Americans in an authentic way that uplifted their existence, rather than focusing on their traumas. Her most celebrated work, 1937’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an example of this philosophy. It follows Janie Mae Crawford, a middle-aged woman in Florida, who details lessons she learned about love and finding herself after three marriages. Hurston used black Southern dialect in the characters’ dialogue to proudly represent their voices and manner.
Black History for Kids
Black History for Adults
