New and Recommended Nonfiction to Read During Black History Month and BeyondUnpublished

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#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 . . ....

Already a major international bestseller, Zeinab Badawi's sweeping and much-needed survey of African history traces the continent's extraordinary legacy from prehistory to the present from the African perspective. "Equal parts gripping and galvanizing. . . . Researched across more than 30...

Warrior. Samurai. Legend. "A readable, compassionate account of an extraordinary life." --The Washington Post The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai, and his astonishing journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When...

The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing | Winner of The Times Sports Biography of the Year | The definitive biography of an American icon, from a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author with unique access to Ali's inner circle. "Finally...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a "deeply layered and insightful" (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out...

The instant New York Times bestseller * Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe "It literally changed...

One of the New York Times' Most Memorable Literary Moments of the Last 25 Years!  * New York Times Bestseller *  TIME Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2018 * New York Public Library's Best Book of 2018 * NPR's Book Concierge Best Book of 2018 * ...

An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States   #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WATCH THE EMMY-NOMINATED NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER * ONE OF...

From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life. If it weren't for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life...

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...

A magnificently researched, dramatically told work of narrative nonfiction about the history, evolution, impact, and ultimate demise of what was known in the 1930s and 1940s as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Black Cabinet. In 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression,...

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. "Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work." --Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again "Engaging. . . . In Gates's telling, the Black church shines bright...

"A literary experience unlike any I've had in recent memory . . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going."-The New York Times Book Review(Editors' Choice) What does it mean to be Black and alive right...

WINNER OF THE EISNER AWARD . A bold and fascinating graphic novel history of the revolutionary Black Panther Party. Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political organization that stood in defiant contrast to the...

A new, transformative history - in Tudor times there were Black people living and working in Britain, and they were free 'This is history on the cutting edge of archival research, but accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth.' David Olusoga, author of Black and...

The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this "groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States" (Ibram X. Kendi)-the perfect companion to An Indigenous People's History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment Weekly), "soul-nourishing" (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid  

Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X--all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam...

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...

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A HARPERS BAZAAR BEST BOOK OF 2022 * A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK * A MARIE CLAIRE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK "It's clear from the first page that Davis is going to serve a more intimate, unpolished account than is typical of the average (often ghost-written)...

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with his eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next...

#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...

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History** "Extraordinary...a great American biography" (The New Yorker) of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading...

. Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction . A New York Times Notable Book . A Best Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Washington Independent Review of Books, and more! The definitive history of...

***An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!*** From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a deeply intimate memoir of discovery, found family, and self-acceptance. The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the...

What if the most steadfast faith you'll ever encounter comes from a Black grandmother? The church mothers who raised Yolanda Pierce, dean of Howard University School of Divinity, were busily focused on her survival. In a world hostile to Black women's bodies and spirits, they had to be....

New York Times Book Review Top 100 Books of 2024 Explore the "comprehensive and compelling" (Jon Meacham) biography of civil rights leader John Lewis, celebrated as "the conscience of Congress," through a narrative that weaves together exclusive interviews, never-before...

"A celebration of African American cuisine right now, in all of its abundance and variety."-Tejal Rao, The New York Times JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER . IACP AWARD WINNER . IACP BOOK OF THE YEAR. TONI TIPTON-MARTIN NAMED THE 2021 JULIA CHILD AWARD RECIPIENT ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND JAMIE FOXX * A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice--from one of the most brilliant and influential...

WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY A finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award | Named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Time A New York Times...

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER * In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world.<...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Embark on a captivating journey with Love & Whiskey. New York Times bestselling author Fawn Weaver unveils the hidden narrative behind one of America's most iconic whiskey brands. This book is a vibrant exploration set in the...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In her "vulnerable, tender, and infinitely inspirational" (Oprah Daily) memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States chronicles her extraordinary life story. "A billowingly triumphant...

#1New York TimesBestseller 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 schoolroom to...

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life for a new...

Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, continues his award-winning graphic novel trilogy with co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell, inspired by a 1950s comic book that helped prepare his own generation to join the struggle. Now,...

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography "A rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class, and...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell--and the ones we don't--shape our realities. "Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a...

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author presents "a celebration of all things country music" (Ken Burns) as she reflects on her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Alice Randall and her activist mother together and...

Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPRThe New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice The Washington Post's Books to Read in 2017 USA Today, "New and Noteworthy" Read it Forward, Favorite Reads of January 2017

"Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an eminent Dean of American journalism, a vital voice whose work chronicled the civil rights movement and so much of what has transpired since then. My People is the definitive collection of her reportage and commentary. Spanning datelines in the American...

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction "A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and...

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Octavia E. Butler's bestselling literary science-fiction masterpiece, Kindred, now in graphic novel format. More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers with its deep exploration of the violence and...

"A Roots for a new generation, rich in storytelling and steeped in history." --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "A compelling saga that gives a voice to those that history tried to erase...Poignant and eye-opening, this is a must-read." --Booklist  ...

From New York Times bestselling author of Lead From The Outside and political leader Stacey Abrams, a blueprint to end voter suppression, empower our citizens, and take back our country. "With each page, she inspires and empowers us to create systems that...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER . A lyrical culinary journey that explores the hidden legacy of Black Appalachians, throughpowerful storytelling alongside nearly forty comforting recipes, from the former poetlaureate of Kentucky."With Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts,...

A debut book from Entertainment Weekly writer and former Out magazine editor Lester Fabian Brathwaite, Rage is a darkly comedic exploration of Blackness, queerness, and the American Dream, at a time when creative anger feels like the best response to inequality.

In the bestselling tradition of The Notorious RBG comes a lively, informative, and illustrated tribute to one of the most exceptional women in American history--Harriet Tubman--a heroine whose fearlessness and activism still resonate today. Harriet Tubman is best known as...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that "speaks to today's social and political moment as directly as this morning's headlines" (NPR). These pages give us her...

WINNER OF THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South--and thus of America--by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration." -...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A striking graphic novel edition of the National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas have shaped American life--from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist. NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD

 The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America -- it is more...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK * The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history--until now. "This is the kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!" --Misty...

A celebration of African American cooking with 109 recipes from the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Sweet Home Cafe. A James Beard Foundation Book Award nominee for best American cookbook; a Food & Wine best cookbook; a Booklist top 10 food book; an...

This "landmark" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist) dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "powerful" (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home--from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America "Mesmerizing . . . not only the most original...

The #1 New York Times bestseller From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring political leaders, comes a book about the core truths that unite us and how best to act upon them.  "A life story that genuinely...

A Kirkus Best Book of the Year Stamped from the Beginning meets You Can't Touch My Hair in this timely and resonant essay collection from Guardian contributor and prominent BBC race correspondent Emma Dabiri, exploring the ways in which black hair has been appropriated and...

A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and The Washington Post Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour-de-force that tells the "powerful" (The New York Times Book Review) story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall's...

Caleb Gayle tells the story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full members. A chief named Cow Tom - a former Black slave - created a treaty with the U.S. government which recognized Creek citizenship for its Black members. This...

One of Essence's Best Books of the Year. NAACP Image Awards Winner for Outstanding Literary Work in the Debut Author category. With a foreword by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "There was no greater friend to the poor, to the lost, to the left out, and to the...

**The New York Times Bestseller** **Parade magazine must-read books by celebrities 2023** "I went through so many emotions reading this book. Reconnecting to one's ancestors and truly feeling, not only hearing, their stories are fertile ground for true ecstatic embodiment of the...