Juneteenth for Adults

Celebrate June 19th with these books about the abolition of slavery.

Updated May 24, 2023
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Freedom national : the destruction of slavery in the United States, 1861-1865
Oakes, James.
Freedom National is a groundbreaking history of emancipation that joins the political initiatives of Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress with the courageous actions of Union soldiers and runaway slaves in the South. It shatters the widespread conviction that the Civil War was first and...
She came to slay : the life and times of Harriet Tubman
Dunbar, Erica Armstrong
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...
Watermelon & red birds : a cookbook for Juneteenth and black celebrations
Taylor, Nicole A.
The very first cookbook to celebrate Juneteenth, from food writer and cookbook author Nicole A. Taylor--who draws on her decade of experiences observing the holiday. On June 19, 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Major...
Conjure women : a novel
Atakora, Afia
A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing--and for the conjuring of curses--are at the heart of this dazzling first novel   LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times * NPR *...
Four hundred souls : a community history of African America, 1619-2019
Kendi, Ibram X.
#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...
Frederick Douglass : prophet of freedom
Blight, David W.
**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...
Stony the road : Reconstruction, white supremacy, and the rise of Jim Crow
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
The abolition of slavery after the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked 'a new birth of freedom' in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in...
The 1619 Project : a new origin story
Hannah-Jones, Nikole
#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 . . ....
Up from slavery : authoritative text, contexts, and composition history, criticism
Washington, Booker T.
"Contexts and Composition History" includes a selection of letters between Washington and his editor, Lyman Abbott, that reveals the process by which Up From Slavery was planned and written. Reviews from The Nation, North American Review, and Colored American Magazine offer examples of contemporary...
How the word is passed : a reckoning with the history of slavery across America
Smith, Clint
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...
Sweet Home Cafe cookbook : a celebration of African American cooking
Lukas, Albert
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...
Twelve years a slave : narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853
Northup, Solomon
The story that inspired the major motion picture, with an introduction by the bestselling author of Wench, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing, vividly detailed, and utterly unforgettable account of slavery. The story that inspired the major...
Stamped from the beginning : the definitive history of racist ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
 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...
Homegoing
Gyasi, Yaa
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah's 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016
The underground railroad : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. * Now an original Amazon Prime Video series directed by...
A madman's will : John Randolph, 400 slaves, and the mirage of freedom
May, Gregory
Few legal cases in American history are as riveting as the controversy surrounding the will of Virginia Senator John Randolph (1773-1833), which--almost inexplicably--freed all 383 of his slaves in one of the largest and most publicized manumissions in American history. So famous is the case that...
And there was light : Abraham Lincoln and the American struggle
Meacham, Jon
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . Pulitzer Prize-winning biographerJon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how-and why-he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. "Meacham has given us...
Unsung : unheralded narratives of American slavery & abolition
Young, Kevin
A new historical anthology from transatlantic slavery to the Reconstruction curated by the Schomburg Center, that makes the case for focusing on the histories of Black people as agents and architects of their own lives and ultimate liberation, with a foreword by Kevin Young This...
Master slave husband wife : an epic journey from slavery to freedom
Woo, Ilyon
One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2023 New York Times Bestseller Named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, Time, NPR, Smithsonian Magazine, Boston, Chicago Public Library, Oprah Daily, and People...
The Grimkes : the legacy of slavery in an American family
Greenidge, Kerri K.
Sarah and Angelina Grimke--the Grimke sisters--are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Their antislavery pamphlets, among the most influential of the antebellum era, are still...
Beloved : a novel
Morrison, Toni.
Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed.
Carolina built : a novel
Alexander, Kianna
This "exuberant celebration of Black women's joy as well as their achievements" (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author) novelizes the life of real estate magnate Josephine N. Leary in a previously untold story of passion, perseverance, and building a legacy after...
Yonder : a novel
Asim, Jabari
The Water Dancer meets The Prophets in this spare, gripping, and beautifully rendered novel exploring love and friendship among a group of enslaved Black strivers in the mid-19th century. They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They...
Juneteenth : a novel
Ellison, Ralph
"Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental." --Henry Louis Gates, Jr., TIME From the renowned author of the classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth...

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