20 Best Black History Books

August is a Black man who works for the Barclays, a white family that’s fallen on hard times. To get by, they decide to sell the rib sauce made by their Black cook, Miss Mamie, with August’s face on the label. But neither of them will see a penny. Taking a good, hard look at racial stereotypes and how elements of Black culture have been exploited, this novel is as delicious as it is thought-provoking.

You’ve heard the phrase, “it takes a village.” But we know so little about the women who raised Civil Rights titans like Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X and James Baldwin. This book is a long-overdue celebration of Black motherhood.

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We hear a lot about the Black experience during the Civil Rights Movement, but the stories of abolitionists and enslaved people are often lost to history. This collection features voices of anti-slavery orators like Sarah Mapps Douglass and James Forten Jr., stories from formerly enslaved people about how they found joy and a look at how the arts were part of the anti-slavery movement.

For most of her life, Pheby Delores Brown has been relatively sheltered from the worst of enslaved life by her mother’s position as a plantation woman and favor from the slaveholder’s sister. But all of that changes when she turns 18 and finds herself thrust into the Devil’s Half Acre, a horrific jail in Richmond. There, she has to carefully navigate the jailer’s contradictory nature in order to survive. This unputdownable story barely lets you breathe.

If you think there’s no caste system in America, this probing book will open your eyes. It delves into the hidden hierarchies that exist within our society that investigates threads between how the Nazis studied the racial systems in the U.S., as well as the health, cultural and political ramifications of our striated culture.

This literary feat catalogues the 400-year history of Black people in America, with 90 different writers each taking on a five-year span. It’s a story of hope and struggle, resistance and oppression, historical icons and ordinary folks that dispels the idea that any one group are a monolith.

This collection of 15 essays and speeches takes on racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia and class in the beautiful, searing language that canonized Lorde as an icon in both the civil rights movement and literature. Her words will stay with you long after the last page.

Powerhouse activist Angela Y. Davis reveals the connection between Black feminism, prison abolition and the fight for liberation from South Africa to Ferguson and Palestine. This must-read collection of essays, speeches and interviews shows how much all humans long for freedom and equality all over the world.

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If you’ve never read Toni Morrison, her first novel is a great starting point. You’ll meet Pecola Breedlove, who longs for the blue eyes and blonde hair she (and her white schoolmates) consider the pinnacle of beauty. It takes on gender, race and class in a story that’s as lyrical as it is educational.

Get to know the Harlem Civil Rights icon James Baldwin called home while also digesting the ramifications of racial injustice in this seminal text. Part sermon, part history lesson, this is Baldwin at his best.

The criminal justice system has been disproportionately weaponized against Black people and this deep explainer on the carceral state should be required reading for everyone. Now in its tenth anniversary, this edition starts with a new foreword by the author on the movement’s progress since its first publication.

Sadly, racism isn’t just an American institution. A psychoanalyst who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement helps break down the struggle against colonization in this expansive, slightly dense text. It really gets into just how entrenched racism is in our society, and the changes necessary to truly eradicate it.

Not all Black history is ancient, so step into the near-past with this bracing memoir about one man’s coming of age as a queer Black boy in Texas. From tentative sexual encounters to the secretive home that shaped his future, this book investigates the intersection between race and identity that so many will see in themselves.

Women of color often get sidelined in big conversations about race, but their experiences matter and deserve to be shared. This anthology of essays, poetry, criticism and visual art explores the intersection between race, class and feminism.

The title of this classic work says it all. Feminism has historically been very white, and this groundbreaking book will help explain why and how that impacts Black people while challenging society’s assumptions.

You’re probably at least passingly familiar with the life stories of Black men like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. But unless you’ve sought her out, you may never have heard of Elaine Brown, the first and only female leader of the Black Panthers. This book will change that.

Angelou’s heartbreaking and brilliantly written coming-of-age memoir tells the story of a difficult and lonely childhood. After she was sexually assaulted as a young girl, her strength of spirit and discovery of literature kept her going through tragedy and trauma. It’s a difficult read, but a necessary one.

By the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God comes an anthology of folklore, sermons, tall tales and other stories that made up the rich cultural fabric of Black families in the South. These elements are an important part of history too even if they’re vastly underrepresented in popular culture. This book will help broaden your folk diet.

Following one man’s family from Africa, through the middle passage into slavery, and then six generations of farmers, blacksmiths, porters, lawyers and architects, this meaty text will speak to anyone who has ever yearned to know their own family history. Read it first, then watch the History Channel series.

In Whitehead’s telling, the underground railroad is more literal than it was in real life, but the struggles of its characters as they flee slavery are all too real. This brilliant book gives faces and names to the journey toward freedom, and the unrealized promise that holds.