Book Recommendations for Black History Month and Beyond

In celebration of Black History Month and in alignment with our core value “Embrace Diversity”, we’re thrilled to present a curated list of must-read books. Each title in this collection offers a profound exploration of the Black experience, covering historical narratives, personal journeys, and critical societal insights. From Clint Smith’s thought-provoking “How the Word is Passed” to Antonia Hylton’s insightful “Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum,” these books provide a diverse range of perspectives that are essential for understanding and appreciating the complexities of Black history and culture.
*Book descriptions are adapted from the publisher.
 
Join us in delving into these powerful works that celebrate, educate, and inspire!

How the Word is Passed – Clint Smith

 

 
Non-fiction
A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted.

Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
More Details Here
 
 
 
 
 

The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead

 

 
Fiction
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation’s best” (Entertainment Weekly).
More Details Here
 
 
 

The Beauty in Breaking – Michelle Harper

 
Memoir
An ER doctor shares her journey of self-healing through serving others. Michele Harper, an African American woman in a male-dominated field, reflects on her life, marriage, and career. The Beauty in Breaking explores how each patient encounter taught her about healing, letting go of fear, telling the truth, and finding compassion. Amidst systemic challenges, Harper learns to make peace with the past and embrace support for the future, offering invaluable lessons in this moving memoir.
More Details Here
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi

 
Fiction
Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
More Details Here
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Heavy – Kiese Lamon

 
Memoir
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.

A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
More Details Here
 
 
 
 

We Love You, Charlie Freeman – Kaitlyn Greenidge

 
Fiction
The Freeman family–Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie–have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute’s history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways.

The power of this shattering novel resides in Greenidge’s undeniable storytelling talents. What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history’s long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America’s failure to find a language to talk about race.
More Details Here
 
 
 
 
 

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum – Antonia Hylton

 
Nonfiction
In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.
More Details Here
 
 
 
Do you have any DE&I book recommendations? Mention us on Twitter @FrontlineEdu!