Black History Month Books for Adults

Celebrate Black History Month with recommended nonfiction for adults.

Updated February 3, 2026
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African founders : how enslaved people expanded American ideals
Fischer, David Hackett
Paper Book
In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States. ...
Combee : Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black freedom during the Civil War
Fields-Black, Edda L.
Paper Book
The story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants. Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman's legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out...
Black AF history : the un-whitewashed story of America
Harriot, Michael
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America...
Black-owned : the revolutionary life of the Black bookstore
Adams, Char
Paper Book
**A November LibraryReads Pick** Longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights...
Footnotes : the Black artists who rewrote the rules of the Great White Way
Gaines, Caseen
Paper Book
The triumphant story of how an all-Black Broadway cast and crew changed musical theatre--and the world--forever. "This musical introduced Black excellence to the Great White Way. Broadway was forever changed and we, who stand on the shoulders of our brilliant ancestors, are charged with...
Last seen : the enduring search by formerly enslaved people to find their lost families
Giesberg, Judith Ann
Paper Book
"[A] meticulously excavated tribute to the formerly enslaved mothers, fathers, siblings, and kin who published 'last seen' advertisements in search of loved ones stolen from them in bondage...a vital work of recovery." --Ilyon Woo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master, Slave,...
Savings and trust : the rise and betrayal of the Freedman's Bank
Hill Edwards, Justene
Paper Book
In the years immediately after the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman's Bank. African Americans envisioned this new bank as a launching pad for economic growth and self-determination. But only nine years after it opened, their trust was...

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