Black History Month

A collection of nonfiction books pertaining to Black History in the United States.

Updated January 11, 2024
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Angela Davis : an autobiography
Davis, Angela Y.
Paper Book
Edited by Toni Morrison and first published in 1974, An Autobiography is a classic of the Black Power era which resonates just as powerfully today. Long hard to find, it is reissued now with a new introduction by Davis, for a new audience inspired and galvanised by her ongoing activism and...
Half American : the epic story of African Americans fighting World War II at home and abroad
Delmont, Matthew F.
Paper Book
. 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...
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...
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 . . ....
Colorization : one hundred years of Black films in a white world
Haygood, Wil
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR * BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE * ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.... Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the...
Barracoon : the story of the last "black cargo"
Hurston, Zora Neale
Paper Book
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 * ...
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...
Stamped from the beginning : the definitive history of racist ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paper Book
Now a major Netflix documentary 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...
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Lee Shetterly, Margot.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller -WINNER OF ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD FOR NONFICTION -WINNER BLACK CAUCUS OF AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NAACP IMAGE AWARD BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES,...
An Afro-Indigenous history of the United States
Mays, Kyle T.
Paper Book
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...
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake
Miles, Tiya
Paper Book
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 color of law : a forgotten history of how our government segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paper Book
Widely heralded as a "masterful" (Washington Post) and "essential" (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law offers "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood...
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...
Driving while black : African American travel and the road to civil rights
Sorin, Gretchen Sullivan
Paper Book
The basis of a major PBS documentary by Gretchen Sorin and Ric Burns (first airing: October 13, 2020 at 9PM ET), this revelatory history shows how the automobile fundamentally changed African American life. It's hardly a secret that mobility has always been limited, if not impossible...
The color of compromise : the truth about the American church's complicity in racism
Tisby, Jemar
Paper Book
A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller! An acclaimed, timely narrative of how people of faith have historically--up to the present day--worked against racial justice. And a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response. The Color...
The three mothers : how the mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin shaped a nation
Tubbs, Anna Malaika
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller "This dynamic blend of biography and manifesto centers on Louise Little, Alberta King, and Berdis Baldwin . . . Tubbs's book stands against the women's erasure, a monument to their historical importance." --The New Yorker...
Medical apartheid : the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present
Washington, Harriet A.
Paper Book
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both...

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Caste : the origins of our discontents
Wilkerson, Isabel
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * "An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times
The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
Wilkerson, Isabel.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY   "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...

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