Black History: Biographies

Celebrate Black history with critical biographies of African American public figures and leaders, selected by RCL editors. Resources for College Libraries (RCL) features 90,000+ core titles for academic libraries, curated by Choice/ACRL subject specialists and available at rclweb.net.

Updated September 23, 2025
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March
Lewis, John
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon and key figure of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated...
The new Negro : the life of Alain Locke
Stewart, Jeffrey C.
Ebook
Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography Winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale...
My work is that of conservation : an environmental biography of George Washington Carver
Hersey, Mark D.
Paper Book
George Washington Carver (ca. 1864-1943) is at once one of the most familiar and misunderstood figures in American history. In My Work Is That of Conservation, Mark D. Hersey reveals the life and work of this fascinating man who is widely--and reductively--known as the African American...
A promised land
Obama, Barack
Ebook
A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making--from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK...

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