Black History Month Featured Nonfiction

Black History Month is a chance to engage more deeply with the stories, scholarship, and lived experiences that shape our understanding of the past and present. These nonfiction books highlight voices that illuminate overlooked histories, challenge assumptions, and celebrate the resilience and creativity of Black communities, offering meaningful insight and reflection.

Updated January 30, 2026
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Grand Prairie Memorial Library
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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. ...
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 ball : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the generation that saved the soul of the NBA
Runstedtler, Theresa
Paper Book
A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation's imagined descent into...
The Black box : writing the race
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book * Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Christian Gauss Award for Outstanding Books in Literary Scholarship "Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard...
The Black church : this is our story, this is our song
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
Paper Book
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...
Black in blues : how a color tells the story of my people
Perry, Imani
Paper Book
A "vast, multifaceted and enchanting" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) meditation on the color blue and its fascinating role in Black history and culture, from National Book Award winner Imani Perry, "the most important interpreter of Black life in our time" (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.) Throughout...
Black wings : courageous stories of African Americans in aviation and space history
Hardesty, Von
Paper Book
Colin Powell once observed that "a dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work." This sentiment is mirrored dramatically in the story of African Americans in aerospace history. The invention of the airplane in the first decade of...
BLK MKT vintage : reclaiming objects and curiosities that tell black stories
Stewart, Kiyanna
Paper Book
This one-of-a-kind treasure trove of Black cultural ephemera, from the entrepreneurs behind the vintage shop BLK MKT Vintage, expands on their mission to curate vintage objects that tell Black stories and celebrate the contributions Black people have made to our American consciousness....
Driving while black : African American travel and the road to civil rights
Sorin, Gretchen Sullivan
Paper Book
The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has shaped this country from the moment the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line. Yet cars have always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by...
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...
HBCU made : a celebration of the black college experience
Rascoe, Ayesha
Paper Book
In this joyous essay collection edited by NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, celebrities and other alumni provide testimonials about their experience attending historically Black college universities-which shaped their lives and made them who they are today. With a diverse set...
The jazzmen : how Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie transformed America
Tye, Larry
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping group portrait of the pioneers and longtime kings of jazz--Duke Ellington, Satchmo Armstrong, and Count Basie--who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to...
King of the North : Martin Luther King Jr.'s life of struggle outside the South
Theoharis, Jeanne
Paper Book
A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book Shortlisted 2025, Museum of African American History Stone Book Award From the New York Times bestselling author, a radical reframing of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. "Theoharis shows us...
The kneeling man : my father's life as a Black spy who witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Seletzky, Leta McCollough
Paper Book
BCALA Literary Award Winner Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr--and a daughter's quest for the truth about her father...
The message
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
#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...
My black country : a journey through country music's black past, present, and future
Randall, Alice
Paper Book
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...
A soldier's life : a Black woman's rise from Army brat to Six Triple Eight champion
Cummings, Edna W.
Paper Book
One woman's extraordinary personal journey in the US military and her triumphant effort to honor her predecessors with the Congressional Gold Medal Looking back on her remarkable career, Retired Army Colonel Edna W. Cummings can justly say that "the odds ain't good,...
The swans of Harlem : five Black ballerinas, fifty years of sisterhood, and their reclamation of a groundbreaking history
Valby, Karen
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK * Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography * 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...

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