Black History Month Non-Fiction for Adults

A selection of non-fiction books that highlight the history, accomplishments and experiences of Black Canadians.

Updated January 25, 2025
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Black Harbour: Slavery and the Forgotten Histories of Black People in Newfoundland and Labrador
Campbell, Xaiver
It has been largely assumed that Black people are only recently settlers in Newfoundland and Labrador. Certainly. In fact, the sordid history of Black slavery within the British colony--and the role of Newfoundland merchant families in promoting the trade in human beings--has been denied,...
'Membering
Clarke, Austin
Paper Book
2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature -- Longlisted 2016 RBC Taylor Prize -- Longlisted The unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize-winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called "Canada's first multicultural writer."
Bedroom rapper : Cadence Weapon on hip-hop, resistance and surviving the music industry
Pemberton, Rollie
Paper Book
Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what's happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate. ...
Black and white : an intimate, multicultural perspective on "white advantage" and the paths to change
Dorsey, Stephen (Author of Black and white)
Paper Book
The anticipated debut by a biracial community leader and citizen activist, exploring his lived experience of systemic racism in North America and the paths forward. My race duality has given me a unique perspective on both the Black and white experience in Canada..... What...
Black boys like me : confrontations with race, identity, and belonging
Morris, Matthew R.
Paper Book
'This is an examination of the parts that construct my Black character; from how public schooling shapes our ideas about ourselves to how hip-hop and sports are simultaneously the conduit for both Black abundance and Black boundaries. This book is a meditation on the influences that have shaped...
Black women who dared
Moyer, Naomi M.
Paper Book
Inspirational stories of ten Black women and women's collectives from Canadian and American history. Included are leaders and groundbreakers who were anti-slavery activists, business women, health-care activists, civic organizers and educators. Celebrate these remarkable women, some of whom you may...
Black writers matter. [online electronic book]
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Ebook
BlackLife : post-BLM and the struggle for freedom
Walcott, Rinaldo
Paper Book
What does it mean in the era of Black Lives Matter to continue to ignore and deny the violence that is the foundation of the Canadian nation state? BlackLife discloses the ongoing destruction of Black people as enacted not simply by state structures, but beneath them in the foundational modernist...
Can you hear me now? : how I found my voice and learned to live with passion and purpose
Caesar-Chavannes, Celina
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING   In Can You Hear Me Now?, Celina Caesar-Chavannes digs deep into her childhood and her life as a young Black woman entrepreneur and politician, and shows us that effective and humane leaders...
Dear current occupant : a memoir
Knight, Chelene
Paper Book
Winner of the 2018 City of Vancouver Book Award From Vancouver-based writer Chelene Knight, Dear Current Occupant is a creative non-fiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Using a variety of forms,...
From my mother's back : a journey from Kenya to Canada
Wane, Njoki Nathani
Paper Book
In From My Mother's Back: A Journey from Kenya to Canada, Njoki Wane introduces us to her mother, a woman of deep wisdom, and to all the richness of a life lived between two countries. A celebrated professor and award-winning teacher, she shares her journey from a Catholic girls' boarding school...
The girl in the middle : growing up between black and white, rich and poor
Granofsky, Anais
Paper Book
A moving and vivid memoir of a young girl--long before her starring role in the Degrassi series--who was always switching between worlds, wanting only to be loved When Anais Granofsky's parents meet in the early 1970s, they are foreign and fascinating to each other. Stanley is the son of a...
Go do some great thing : the black pioneers of British Columbia /
Kilian, Crawford, 1941-
Paper Book
The hanging of Angélique : the untold story of Canadian slavery and the burning of old Montréal
Cooper, Afua.
Paper Book
How she read : poems
Gibson, Chantal
Paper Book
How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and bodies, across the Canadian cultural imagination.    Drawing from grade-school vocabulary spellers, literature, history, art, media and pop culture, Chantal Gibson's...
I've been meaning to tell you : a letter to my daughter
Chariandy, David John
Paper Book
In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, acclaimed novelist David Chariandy's latest is an intimate and profoundly beautiful meditation on the politics of race today....
Ignite: Unlock the Hidden Potential Within
De Grasse, Andre
Paper Book
Insightful, practical lessons on life, on and off the track, from an Olympic and world champion Not only is Andre De Grasse blazingly fast on the track, he's also incredibly popular with his fans. His beaming smile and magnetic personality have won over millions of people around the world....
The long road home : on Blackness and belonging
Thompson, Debra
Paper Book
INSTANT BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION From a leading scholar on the politics of race comes a work of family history, memoir, and insight gained from a unique journey across the continent, on what it is to be Black in...
A map to the door of no return : notes to belonging /
Brand, Dionne, 1953-
Paper Book
A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery. Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean...
My fighting family : borders and bloodlines and the battles that made us
Campbell, Morgan
Paper Book
The debut memoir from award-winning journalist Morgan Campbell: an incredible history of a family's battles across generations, a hilarious and emotional coming-of-age story, and a powerful reckoning with what it means to be Black in Canada--particularly when you have strong American roots....
Ordinary Notes
Sharpe, Christina
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2023 HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD  A dazzlingly inventive, deeply moving, intellectually bracing exploration of pain and beauty, private memory and public monument, art and complexity in contemporary...
Out of the sun : on race and storytelling
Edugyan, Esi
Paper Book
An insightful exploration and moving meditation on identity, art, and belonging from one of the most celebrated writers of the last decade.  What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who...
Persephone's children : a life in fragments
McCandless, Rowan
Paper Book
Finalist for 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction * Co-Winner of 2022 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book After years of secrecy and silence, Rowan McCandless leaves an abusive relationship and rediscovers her voice and identity...
Policing Black lives : state violence in Canada from slavery to the present
Maynard, Robyn
Paper Book
Delving behind Canada's veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond. Robyn Maynard provides readers with the first comprehensive account of nearly four hundred years of state...
Saga Boy : my life of blackness and becoming
Downing, Antonio Michael
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Speaker's Book Award   LONGLISTED for the 2021 Toronto Book Award The triumph of Saga Boy is the triumph of Blackness everywhere--the irrepressible instinct for survival in a world where Blacks are prey." --Ian Williams, Giller...
Shame on me : an anatomy of race and belonging
McWatt, Tessa
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR NON-FICTION   Interrogating our ideas of race through the lens of her own multi-racial identity, critically acclaimed novelist Tessa McWatt turns her eye on herself, her body and this world in a powerful new work of non-fiction...
The skin we're in : a year of Black resistance and power
Cole, Desmond
Paper Book
In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates, a bracing, provocative and perspective-shifting book from one of Canada's most celebrated and uncompromising writers, Desmond Cole. The Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy and inspire activists.
Steal away home : one women's epic flight to freedom -- and her long road back to the South
Smardz Frost, Karolyn.
Paper Book
For readers of The Underground Railroad, The Known World, Bound for Canaan and The Book of Negroes comes the harrowing story of fifteen-year-old escaped slave Cecelia Reynolds, who slips away to freedom in Canada only to return to her childhood home as a free woman many years later. ...
They call me George : the untold story of black train porters and the birth of modern Canada
Foster, Cecil
Paper Book
A CBC BOOKS MUST-READ NONFICTION BOOK FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH Nominated for the Toronto Book Award Smartly dressed and smiling, Canada's black train porters were a familiar sight to the average passenger--yet their minority status rendered them politically invisible, second-class in...
They said this would be fun : race, campus life, and growing up
Martis, Eternity
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A powerful, moving memoir about what it's like to be a student of colour on a predominantly white campus. A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity Martis was excited to move away to Western University for her undergraduate degree. But as one of the...
Unsettling the Great White North : Black Canadian history
Johnson, Michele A.
Paper Book
An exhaustive volume of leading scholarship in the field of Black Canadian history, Unsettling the Great White Northhighlights the diverse experiences of persons of African descent within the chronicles of Canada's past. The book considers histories and theoretical framings within the...
Until we are free : reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada
Diverlus, Rodney
Paper Book
Short-listed, Saskatchewan Book Award, Publishing, 2020 The killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a white assailant inspired the Black Lives Matter movement, which quickly spread outside the borders of the United States. The movement's message found fertile ground in Canada, where...
Viola Desmond : her life and times
Reynolds, Graham
Paper Book
Many Canadians know that Viola Desmond is the first Black, non-royal woman to be featured on Canadian currency. But fewer know the details of Viola Desmond's life and legacy. In 1946, Desmond was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow,...
Whiteout: How Canada Cancels Blackness
Clarke, George Elliott
Paper Book
In Whiteout: How Canada Cancels Blackness, his new and essential collection of essays, George Elliott Clarke exposes the various ways in which the Canadian imagination demonizes, excludes, and oppresses Blackness. Clarke's range is extraordinary: he canvasses African-Canadian...

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