Black History Month: A Reading List
Each February, we celebrate Black History Month to recognize historical moments and to celebrate the identities and achievements of Black Americans. The month long acknowledgement and celebration has been officially recognized since 1976 and provides a space for examining history and listening to the words and experiences of Black people. As the words Black Lives Matter emphasize, in the last year more prominently than ever before, February is not and can not be the only time for these moments of pause and listening and for this celebration of achievement and identity. Certainly, though, we can take this month of February to pay particular attention to the Black voices that speak strongly through varying forms of literature, sociocultural work, and historical narrative. Here, then, is a reading list of fiction, memoirs, biographies, plays, poetry, history, essays, and social commentary written by Black authors. Follow the links to request books reach out to your librarians at the Camden Public Library to find more.
If you'd like to share an impactful read or learn about more books related to the Black experience, check out State Rep Vicki Doudera's interactive book discussion on Feb 21st at 5 pm! Sign up for the Zoom event here for the opportunity to share or to listen about impactful reads related to the Black experience.
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
Kindred, Octavia Butler
When No One is Watching, Alyssa Cole
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Lakewood, Megan Giddings
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, Anissa Gray
Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: stories from the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
It’s Not All Downhill From Here, Terry McMillan
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Deesha Philyaw
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
Real Life, Brandon Taylor
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead
Remembrance, Rita Woods
Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson
Debut Novel Spotlight
(summaries courtesy of NoveList Plus)
Black Buck, Mateo Askaripour
An unambitious college graduate accepts a job at Sumwun, the hottest NYC startup, and reimagines himself as "Buck" a ruthless salesman and begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America's sales force.
Conjure Women, Afia Atakora
A midwife and conjurer of curses reflects on her life before and after the Civil War, her relationships with the families she serves and the secrets she has learned about a plantation owner's daughter.
The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Daré
Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who longs for an education, must find a way for her voice to be heard loud and clear in a world where she and other girls like her are taught to believe, through words and deeds, that they are nothing.
The Kindest Lie, Nancy Johnson
Needing to reconnect with the baby she gave up for adoption years earlier, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer uncovers devastating family secrets before her bond with a young white misfit scandalizes her racially torn community.
The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr.
Two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation find refuge in each other while transforming a quiet shed into a haven for their fellow slaves, before an enslaved preacher declares their bond sinful.
Luster, Raven Leilani
A young black artist falls into an affair with a man in an open marriage before gradually befriending his wife and adopted daughter against a backdrop of dynamic racial politics.
The Tradition, Jericho Brown
Blessing the Boats: new and selected poems, 1988-2000, Lucille Clifton
Be Holding: a poem, Ross Gay
A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes
A Strange Loop: a musical, Michael R. Jackson
Sweat, Lynn Nottage
Citizen: an American lyric, Claudia Rankine
Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith
Don’t Call Us Dead: poems, Danez Smith
Fences, August Wilson
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Black is the Body: stories from my grandmother’s time, my mother’s time, and mine, Emily Bernard
The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom
Ladysitting: my year with nana at the end of her century, Lorene Cary
Eloquent Rage: a black feminist discovers her superpower, Brittney Cooper
Think Black: a memoir, Clyde W. Ford
Ordinary Hazards: a memoir, Nikki Grimes
The Last Black Unicorn, Tiffany Haddish
Barracoon: the story of the last “black cargo,” Zora Neale Hurston
How We Fight For Our Lives: a memoir, Saeed Jones
When They Call You a Terrorist: a Black Lives matter memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors
This is Major: notes on Diana Ross, dark girls, and being dope, Shayla Lawson
March, John Lewis
A Promised Land, Barack Obama
Becoming, Michelle Obama
Notes from a Young Black Chef: a memoir, Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein
Ordinary Light: a memoir, Tracy K. Smith
The New Negro: the life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart
Memorial Drive: a daughter’s memoir, Natasha Trethewey
Biography Spotlight
The Dead Are Arising: the life of Malcolm X, Les Payne and Tamara Payne
Winner of the 2020 National Book Award
The Dead Are Arising isn't only a biography of Malcom X, it is a book that contextualizes race in America prior to Malcolm's birth, takes an in-depth, nuanced, unflinching look at Malcolm's life, and then explores his death and its aftermath, all backed by 28 years of research. (NPR)
The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
A Most Beautiful Thing: the true story of American’s first all-Black high school rowing team, Arshay Cooper
Well-read Black Girl: finding our stories, discovering ourselves, ed. Glory Edim
The Last Negroes at Harvard: the class of 1963 and the eighteen young men who changed Harvard forever, Kent Garrett and Jeanne Ellsworth
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, white supremacy, and the rise of Jim Crow, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Wandering in Strange Lands: a daughter of the Great Migration reclaims her roots, Morgan Jerkins
How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
Sister Outsider: essays and speeches, Audre Lorde
They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a new era in America’s racial justice movement, Wesley Lowery
On the Other Side of Freedom: the case for hope, DeRay Mckesson
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America, Ijeoma Oluo
Do Better: spiritual activism for writing and healing from white supremacy, Rachel Ricketts
Hidden Figures: the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race, Margot Lee Shetterly
Overground Railroad: the Green Book and the roots of Black travel in America, Candacy Taylor
The Fire This Time: a new generation speaks about race, ed. Jesmyn Ward
The Warmth of Other Suns: the epic story of America’s great migration, Isabel Wilkerson
New Nonfiction Spotlight
Black Futures, ed. Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham
A dynamic mixed-media exhibition of Black creativity and culture.“What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?” Born of a social media exchange between curator and activist Drew and New York Times Magazine staff writer Wortham, this unique collaboration seeks to answer that question. The work is vivid, juicy, thick—as fecund as all of Black culture—and equal parts anthology, scrapbook, and art exhibition. (Kirkus)
Long Time Coming: reckoning with race in America, Michael Eric Dyson
Georgetown University sociology professor Dyson (What Truth Sounds Like) offers heartfelt letters to victims of racial injustice in America... Rich with feeling and insight, this elegiac account hits home. (Publishers Weekly)
Four Hundred Souls: a community history of African America, 1619-2019,
ed. Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Noting that most histories of Black America are written by men, award-winning editors Kendi (Ctr. for Antiracist Research Boston Univ.; Stamped from the Beginning) and Blain (history, Univ. of Pittsburgh; Set the World on Fire) compile a community history of Black America, with contributions from a range of writers, poets, activists, and more. The gem of this work is how it brings lesser-known historical events to the forefront. (Library Journal)