Books for Black History Month

Longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award • A reclamation of essential history and a hopeful gesture toward a better political future, this is what listening to Black women looks like—from a professor of political science and columnist for Teen Vogue.

Spanning the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the “Black Angels,” who risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for New York City’s poorest residents, and were instrumental in helping find the cure for tuberculosis.

From an award-winning historian of Black radical politics comes the definitive biography of Audley Moore—mother of modern Black Nationalism and trailblazer in the fight for reparations.

The first-ever Black history to center queer voices, this landmark study traces the lives of LGBTQ+ Black Americans from slavery to present day.

Dr. Uché Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

A powerful, incisive reckoning with the impacts of school desegregation that traces four generations of the author’s family to show how the implementation of integration decimated Black school systems and did much of the Black community a disservice.

Discover the complete Black history of New York—from 1609 to the present—by the award-winning author of Breaking the Chains and Black Indians.  Includes a new intro and last chapter with insights on modern-day movements like Black Lives Matter, plus 50+ historical maps, illustrations, and photos.

An illuminating, electrifying exploration of the work of Toni Morrison by an award-winning novelist and Harvard professor.

From the Ignatz and Eisner Award-winning cartoonist Ben Passmore comes a whirlwind graphic history of Black life, taken by force.

Steven Underwood digs into the current Black digital arts movement that has shaped popular culture for the last decade.  Written as a collection of thought-provoking essays pulling in social commentary, interviews, popular culture, and deep research, Underwood taps into a topic that is incredibly relevant but often unknown.