Black History Book List

By Jabari Asim
“John wants to be a preacher when he grows up a leader whose words stir hearts to change, minds to think, and bodies to take action. But why wait? When John is put in charge of the family farm’s flock of chickens, he discovers that they make a wonderful congregation! 

By Troy Andres
“Hailing from the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews got his nickname by wielding a trombone twice as long as he was high. A prodigy, he was leading his own band by age six, and today this Grammy-nominated artist headlines the legendary New Orleans Jazz Fest”– Provided by publisher.

By Andre Davis
A brief recounting of the career of this jazz musician and composer who, along with his orchestra, created music that was beyond category.

By Ma Isabel Sánchez Vegara
When he was little, Muhammad Ali had his bicycle stolen. He wanted to fight the thief, but a policeman told him to learn how to box first. After training hard in the gym, Muhammad developed a strong jab and an even stronger work ethic. His smart thinking and talking earned him the greatest title in boxing: Heavyweight Champion of the World.

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld
While twins Ella and Herbie help the handyman Mr. Midal work on their new home, he tells them about such inventors as Granville Woods, Dr. Henry T. Sampson, and James West, giving them a new view of their heritage as African Americans.

By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
The fascinating life of Bass Reeves, who escaped slavery to become the first African American Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi.

By Peter Golenbock
This is the moving story of how Jackie Robinson became the first black player on a major league baseball team and how on a fateful day in Cincinnati, Pee Wee Reese took a stand and declared Jackie his teammate.

By Sherri Smith
During World War II, black Americans were fighting for their country and for freedom in Europe, yet they had to endure a totally segregated military in the United States, where they weren’t considered smart enough to become military pilots. 

By Helaine Becker
You’ve likely heard of the historic Apollo 13 moon landing. But do you know about the mathematical genius who made sure that Apollo 13 returned safely home? As a child, Katherine Johnson loved to count. 

By Chris Barton
Chronicles the life and achievements of the NASA engineer and inventor, from his childhood to his accidental invention of the Super Soaker water gun.

By Edwin Brit Wyckoff
“Learn about Vivien Thomas and the clamp he invented to help stop bleeding in a very small space”– Provided by publisher.

By Andrea Beaty
Ada Twist is a very curious girl who shows perseverance by asking questions and performing experiments to find things out and understand the world.

By Jean Merril
A young girl describes how her school friend made over a million dollars by creating and marketing a cheaper and better toothpaste.

By Thea Feldman
Meet Katherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician who worked at NASA in the early 1950s until retiring in 1986. Katherine’s unparalleled calculations (done by hand) helped plan the trajectories for NASA’s Mercury and Apollo missions (including the Apollo 11 moon landing). 

By Dianna Hutts Aston
On her family’s farm in the town of Star, eight-year-old Mae eagerly follows the progress of the 1969 Apollo 11 flight and moon landing and dreams that she might one day be an astronaut, too.

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld
While twins Ella and Herbie help the handyman Mr. Midal work on their new home, he tells them about such inventors as Granville Woods, Dr. Henry T. Sampson, and James West, giving them a new view of their heritage as African Americans.

By Carole Boston Weatherford
Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977. Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that, despite President Johnson’s interference, aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats. 

By Cynthia Levinson
Nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks intended to go places and do things like anybody else. So when she heard grown-ups talk about wiping out Birmingham’s segregation laws, she spoke up. As she listened to the preacher’s words, smooth as glass, she sat up tall. And when she heard the plan–picket those white stores! March to protest those unfair laws! Fill the jails! –she stepped right up and said, I’ll do it! She was going to j-a-a-il! Audrey Faye Hendricks was confident and bold and brave as can be, and hers is the remarkable and inspiring story of one child’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.

By Andrea Davis Pinkney
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and his strong voice and powerful message were joined and lifted in song by world-renowned gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. It was a moment that changed the course of history and is imprinted in minds forever. Told through Andrea Davis Pinkney’s poetic prose and Brian Pinkney’s evocative illustration, the stories of these two powerful voices and lives are told side-by-side — as they would one day walk — following the journey from their youth to a culmination at this historical event when they united as one and inspiring kids to find their own voices and speak up for what is right.

By Diane McWhorter
Explores the sacrifices and triumphs of African-Americans in their pursuit of social and political equality, and takes a hard, painful look at the often violent resistance they met from white Americans.

By Amy Nathan and Sharon Langley
A Ride to Remember tells how a community came together–both black and white–to make a change. When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated, and African-American families were not allowed entry. This book reveals how in the summer of 1963, due to demonstrations and public protests, the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland became desegregated and opened to all for the first time. Co-author Sharon Langley was the first African-American child to ride the carousel. 

By Alice Faye Duncan
This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final stand for justice before his assassination–when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.

By Diane McWhorter
Explores the sacrifices and triumphs of African-Americans in their pursuit of social and political equality, and takes a hard, painful look at the often violent resistance they met from white Americans.

By Kristin Levine
In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy twelve-year-old Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration, but her friendship with Liz, a new student, helps her find her voice and fight against racism.

By Rita Williams-Garcia
In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

By Robert Coles
For month’s six-year-old Ruby Bridges must confront the hostility of white parents when she becomes the first African American girl to integrate Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.

By Laban Carrick Hillk
Before there was hip hop, there was DJ Kool Herc. On a hot day at the end of summer in 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party at a park in the South Bronx. Her brother, Clive Campbell, spun the records. He had a new way of playing the music to make the breaks–the musical interludes between verses–longer for dancing. He called himself DJ Kool Herc and this is When the Beat Was Born.

By Andrea Davis
This markedly talented husband-and-wife team offers a warm profile of dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey . . . intertwining Ailey’s alleged thoughts and conversations with facts about his childhood, his introduction to the world of dance . . . and his founding of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958.”–“Publishers Weekly,”

By Margot Lee Shetterly
Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA’s African American women mathematicians to America’s space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them despite their groundbreaking successes. Includes biographies on Dorothy Jackson Vaughan (1910-2008), Mary Winston Jackson (1921-2005), Katherine Colman Goble Johnson (1918-), Dr. Christine Mann Darden (1942-).

By Louise Borden
Discusses the life of the determined African woman who went all the way to France in order to earn her pilot’s license in 1921.

By Jodie Shepherd
Mae Jemison was a bright child who was always fascinated by science. The top student and gifted dancer ignored naysayers and worked hard to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor and an astronaut. She then went on to become the first African-American woman to travel to space.

By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Relates the story of the National Memorial African Bookstore, founded in Harlem by Louis Michaux in 1939, as seen from the perspective of Louis Michaux Jr., who met famous men like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X while helping there.

By Michelle Lord
Born in the 1940s, Patricia Bath dreamed of being an ophthalmologist at a time when becoming a doctor wasn’t a career option for most women–especially African-American women. This empowering biography follows Dr. Bath in her quest to save and restore sight to the blind, and her decision to “choose miracles” when everyone else had given up hope. Along the way, she cofounded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, invented a specialized laser for removing cataracts, and became the first African-American woman doctor to receive a medical patent.

By Lesa Cline-Ransome
Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program during Virginia’s Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s.

By Caroline Moss
When Oprah Winfrey was a little girl, she watched her grandma hang clothes out on the line. Oprah adored her grandma, but she knew in that moment her life was going to be different… And she was right.

By Amanda Lucidon
This stunning and revealing collection of seventy photographs, coupled with personal reflections and behind-the-scenes stories, captures and celebrates Mrs. Obama’s White House years and her dedication to improving the lives of young people in the United States and around the world. As a former official White House photographer, Amanda Lucidon shares an insider’s view on the role of the First Lady by documenting life at the White House and sharing personal memories that reveal what makes Mrs. Obama so special.

By Alice Faye Duncan
With a voice both wise and witty, Gwendolyn Brooks crafted poems that captured the urban Black experience and the role of women in society. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago, reading and writing constantly from a young age, her talent lovingly nurtured by her parents. Brooks ultimately published 20 books of poetry, two autobiographies, and one novel. Alice Faye Duncan has created her own song to celebrate Gwendolyn’s life and work, illuminating the tireless struggle of revision and the sweet reward of success.

By Vashti Harrison
Among these women, you’ll find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things – bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn’t always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come. 

By Kathryn Lasky
A biography of Sarah Breedlove Walker a.k.a Madame C.J. Walker who, though born in poverty, pioneered in hair and beauty care products for black women, and became a great financial success.

By L. Kaiser
Profiles the African American woman who sparked a bus boycott when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person.

By Dee Romito
This stunning picture book looks into the life of Georgia Gilmore, a hidden figure of history who played a critical role in the civil rights movement and used her passion for baking to help the Montgomery Bus Boycott achieve its goal.