A wide view of the 1963 March on Washington.

Celebrating Black History Month Through Books

| Cinnaminson Library

The Georgia of the North: Black Women and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey by Hettie V. Williams
The author presents a historical narrative about Black women and the long civil rights movement in New Jersey from the Great Migration to 1954. How and why did New Jersey’s Black leaders, community members, and women in particular, affect major civil rights legislation, legal equality, and integration a decade before the Brown vs. Board of Education decision?

Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape: Deep Roots, Continuing Legacy by Amy Jane Cohen
Black Philadelphians have shaped Philadelphia history since colonial times. The author recounts notable aspects of the Black experience in Philadelphia from the late 1600s to the 1960s and how this history is marked in the contemporary city.

We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson
This book is an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, it offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation.

A Pathway to American Renewal: Red, White, and Black Volume II edited by Robert L. Woodson, Sr.
A celebration of resilience, this is the inspiring story of how Black America survived unimaginable odds and an examination of the real challenges it faces today. This challenging and inspiring collection of essays constructively frames the story of Black America – not as a tragedy involving helpless victims, but as a model for the nation.

Blackbirds Singing: Inspiring Black Women’s Speeches from the Civil War to the Twenty-first Century by Janet Dewart Bell
With an expansive historical lens, this book celebrates the tradition of Black women’s political speech and labor, allowing the voices and powerful visions of African American women to speak across generations building power for the world.

New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement by Juan Williams
In this highly anticipated follow-up to Eyes on the Prize, bestselling author Williams turns his attention to the rise of a new 21st-century civil rights movement, brilliantly tracing the arc of this new civil rights era, from Obama to Charlottesville to January 6.

Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles
Though broad strokes of Tubman’s story are widely known, the author probes further, examining her inner life, faith and relationships with other enslaved Black women to paint a deeper, more vibrant portrait of a historical figure whose mythic status can sometimes overshadow her humanity.

Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black
Based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants, this is the story of the Combahee River Raid, a daring attack on the major plantations making up the breadbasket of the Confederacy and one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments,

Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History by Anthony E. Kaye with Gregory P. Downs
An enslaved preacher, Nat Turner was as enigmatic as he was brilliant. He was also something more – a prophet, one who claimed to have received visions from the Spirit urging him to act. This is the fullest recounting to date of Turner’s uprising, and the first that refuses to tame or overlook his divine visions.

Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid
This triumphant work of biography repositions slain Civil Rights pioneer Medgar Evers at the heart of America's struggle for freedom, and celebrates Myrlie Evers's extraordinary activism after her husband's assassination in the driveway of their Mississippi home.

John Lewis: A Life by David Greenberg
This comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, “the conscience of the Congress,” draws on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents.

The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land by Aaron Robertson
This is a lyrical meditation on how Black Americans have envisioned utopia – and sought to transform their lives. 

HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience edited and with an introduction by Ayesha Rascoe
This first book featuring famous alumni sharing personal accounts of the Black college experience offers a series of warm, moving, and candid personal essays about the schools that nurtured and educated them.

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock MD
This is the rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system.

The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby
This is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of both their historic careers and the sustaining, grounding power of female friendship, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry
This is a surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue – and its fascinating role in Black history and culture -- from National Book Award winner Perry.

The Black Box: Writing the Race by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
This is a magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with one another, over the course of the country’s history.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The author originally set out to write a book about writing, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories – our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking – expose and distort our realities.

Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
The author explores the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminating the eternal life of Lorde so that her life and work become more than a sound bite; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.

The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon’s shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world.

The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump by Clay Cane
Part history and part cultural analysis, this book chronicles the nuanced history of Black Republicans. The author lays out how Black Republicanism has been mangled by opportunists who are apologists for racism.

The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade by Hannah Durkin
This is an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors – the last documented survivors of any slave ship – whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways.

Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank by Justene Hill Edwards
In the years immediately after the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank. A leading historian exposes how the rise and tragic failure of the Freedman’s Bank has shaped economic inequality in America.

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton
This is a history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, tracing the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It’s a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.

The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson
This shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.

On a MOVE: Philadelphia's Notorious Bombing and a Native Son's Lifelong Battle for Justice by Mike Africa Jr. with D. Watkins
This is the incredible story of MOVE, the revolutionary Black civil liberties group that Philadelphia police bombed in 1985, killing 11 civilians, by one of the few people born into the organization, raised during the bombing's tumultuous aftermath, and entrusted with repairing what was left of his family.

Audience: Seniors, Adult, Emerging Adult
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