Books to read for Black History Month (and all year)

Gabrielle Birchak/ February 1, 2025/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

The Warmth of Oth­er Suns: The Epic Sto­ry of Amer­i­ca’s Great Migra­tion by Isabel Wilkerson

Caste: The Ori­gins of Our Dis­con­tents by Isabel Wilkerson

Stamped from the Begin­ning: The Defin­i­tive His­to­ry of Racist Ideas in Amer­i­ca by Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Ken­di, a pow­er­ful book that explores how indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions per­pet­u­ate racism and offers a frame­work for active­ly dis­man­tling it.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incar­cer­a­tion in the Age of Col­or­blind­ness by Michelle Alexander

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeo­ma Oluo, anoth­er pow­er­ful book that not only breaks down sys­temic racism,  but it also pro­vides real­ly good advice on how to have pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions about race.

Just Mer­cy: A Sto­ry of Jus­tice and Redemp­tion by Bryan Steven­son. This book is a mem­oir by a civ­il rights lawyer and expos­es the injus­tices of the Amer­i­can legal sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly against black indi­vid­u­als. It won an NAACP Image Award and a Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction.

When They Call You a Ter­ror­ist: A Black Lives Mat­ter Mem­oir and Patrisse Khan-Cul­lors and Asha Bandele

Bar­ra­coon: The Sto­ry of the Last “Black Car­go” by Zora Neale Hurston

The Black Jacobins: Tou­s­saint L’Ouverture and the San Domin­go Rev­o­lu­tion by C.L.R. James. This is anoth­er pow­er­ful book that chron­i­cles the Hait­ian Revolution.

Dreams of Africa in Alaba­ma: The Slave Ship Clotil­da and the Sto­ry of the Last Africans Brought to Amer­i­ca by Syl­viane A. Diouf

Lose Your Moth­er: A Jour­ney Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Saidiya Hartman

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry

Black and British: A For­got­ten His­to­ry by David Olusoga

In the Wake: On Black­ness and Being by Christi­na Sharpe

The Slave Ship: A Human His­to­ry by Mar­cus Rediker

The Hang­ing of Angélique: The Untold Sto­ry of Cana­di­an Slav­ery and the Burn­ing of Old Mon­tre­al by Afua Cooper

They Call Me George: The Untold Sto­ry of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Mod­ern Cana­da by Cecil Foster

Canada’s For­got­ten Slaves: Two Cen­turies of Bondage by Mar­cel Trudel (trans­lat­ed by George Tombs), which is one of the most com­pre­hen­sive stud­ies of slav­ery in Cana­da, cov­er­ing the sev­en­teenth to nine­teenth cen­turies, includ­ing how enslaved Indige­nous and African peo­ple were bought, sold, and exploit­ed in New France and British North America.

Free­dom Seek­ers: Blacks in Ear­ly Cana­da by Daniel G. Hill

A Flu­id Fron­tier: Slav­ery, Resis­tance, and the Under­ground Rail­road in the Detroit Riv­er Bor­der­land by Karolyn Smardz Frost and Veta Smith Tucker

North to Bondage: Loy­al­ist Slav­ery in the Mar­itimes by Har­vey Amani Whitfield

Unset­tling the Great White North: Black Cana­di­an His­to­ry by Mul­ti­ple Con­trib­u­tors, includ­ing Black Cana­di­an scholars