Black History Month: Nonfiction

A selection of new nonfiction books about Black History.

Updated December 27, 2023
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The 1619 Project : a new origin story
Hannah-Jones, Nikole
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER * A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. "[A] groundbreaking compendium . . ....
By hands now known : Jim Crow's legal executioners
Burnham, Margaret A.
Paper Book
If the law cannot protect a person from a lynching, then isn't lynching the law? In By Hands Now Known, Margaret A. Burnham, director of Northeastern University's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, challenges our understanding of the Jim Crow era by exploring the relationship...
Driving the Green book : a road trip through the living history of Black resistance
Hall, Alvin D.
Paper Book
Join award-winning broadcaster Alvin Hall on a journey through America's haunted racial past, with the legendary Green Book as your guide. For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers experienced...
Four hundred souls : a community history of African America, 1619-2019
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on...
Half American : the epic story of African Americans fighting World War II at home and abroad
Delmont, Matthew F.
Paper Book
The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont. Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in...
How the word is passed : a reckoning with the history of slavery across America
Smith, Clint
Paper Book
This "important and timely" (Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine) #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America--and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint...
Of blood and sweat : Black lives and the making of White power and wealth
Ford, Clyde W.
Paper Book
"Ford's overlap of past and present, narrative and commentary is masterful, and makes this volume all the more valuable to those readers wise enough to allow the past to inform the future. Of Blood and Sweat is a myth-busting work of genius that will stand as the last word on this vital subject...
Race and reckoning : from founding fathers to today's disruptors
Cose, Ellis
Paper Book
Ranging from chattel slavery, through the New Deal to the Covid pandemic, a groundbreaking work that investigates how pivotal decisions have established and perpetuated discriminatory practices, even as the rise of disinformation and other modern advertising techniques...
Say their names : how Black lives came to matter in America
Bunn, Curtis
Paper Book
This definitive guide to America's present-day racial reckoning examines the forces that pushed our unjust system to its breaking point after the death of George Floyd.   For many, the story of the weeks of protests in the summer of 2020 began with the...
Until justice be done : America's first civil rights movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Masur, Kate
Paper Book
The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling within their boundaries and restricted their rights to testify in court, move freely from place to...

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