Black History Month: Nonfiction

A selection of new nonfiction books about Black History.

Updated December 27, 2023
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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 . . ....
American inheritance : liberty and slavery in the birth of a nation, 1765-1795
Larson, Edward J.
Paper Book
New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American...
Benjamin Banneker and us : eleven generations of an American family
Webster, Rachel J.
Paper Book
A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present. In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington,...
Black AF history : the un-whitewashed story of America
Harriot, Michael
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMESĀ 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...
Built from the fire : the epic story of Tulsa's Greenwood district, America's Black Wall Street : one hundred years in the neighborhood that refused to be erased
Luckerson, Victor
Paper Book
A multigenerational saga of a family and a community in Tulsa's Greenwood district, known as "Black Wall Street," that in one century survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, urban renewal, and gentrification "Ambitious . . . absorbing . . . By the end of Luckerson's outstanding...
Buses are a comin' : memoir of a freedom rider
Person, Charles
Paper Book
A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward--written by one of the Civil Rights Movement's pioneers. At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement...
Driving the Green book : a road trip through the living history of Black resistance
Hall, Alvin D.
Paper Book
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...
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 theĀ 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...
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...
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...
On Juneteenth
Gordon-Reed, Annette
Paper Book
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed's On Juneteenth provides a historian's view of the country's long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have...
Read until you understand : the profound wisdom of Black life and literature
Griffin, Farah Jasmine
Paper Book
Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has...
Vigilance : the life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad
Diemer, Andrew K.
Paper Book
Born free in 1821 to two parents who had been enslaved, William Still was drawn to antislavery work from a young age. Hired as a clerk at the Anti-Slavery office in Philadelphia after teaching himself to read and write, he began directly assisting enslaved people who were crossing over from the...

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