I want to use this blog post to highlight the voices of Black authors and characters. My three goals for this website have always been to advocate for mental health, express my faith, and share my love of reading. I love reading because it allows us to experience lives outside of our own and sparks compassion, empathy, and understanding.
As a white person, I know I will never fully understand the racism, discrimination, and prejudice my Black friends face every day. My promise is that I will never stop listening, learning, and supporting in any way I can. One way to simultaneously listen, learn, and support is to read books by Black authors and/or about Black characters.
This blog post will begin with a couple dozen books, plays, and collections of poetry, but I hope it keeps expanding. If your favorite book did not make this list, use the Contact link to send me an email or DM me @sara.j.eaton on Instagram. I want to include as many texts as possible!
Before I finally start the list, I also wanted to share an amazing resource I just found. If you click here, you will be taken to the African American Literature Book Club. The specific page I linked shows you independent Black-owned bookstores in the United States—how cool is that?!
Fiction
This list was compiled using Google and Goodreads
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Beloved by Toni Morison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel
Poetry
This list was compiled using Google and Goodreads
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes and edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks by Gwendolyn Brooks and edited by Elizabeth Alexander
My Soul’s High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen by Countee Cullen and edited by Gerald Early
Drama
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Fences by August Wilson
Nonfiction
This list was compiled using an infographic made by Jane Mount, an infographic from Good Good Good that was aided by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein, and an Instagram post by Mahogany Books.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Memoir
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Young Adult
Compiled using Epic Reads and Goodreads
With Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday by Natalie C. Anderson
Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham
Sparrow by Sarah Moon
Loving vs. Virginia by Patricia Hruby Powell
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
American Street by Ibi Zoobi
Black Enough: Stories of Being Young and Black in America by various authors and edited by Ibi Zoboi
Middle Grade
Compiled using Book Riot and Afoma Umesi’s blog (please check out the link to her blog, because her suggestions are great!).
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Blended by Sharon M. Draper
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
The Harlem Charade by Natasha Tarpley
Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams
Children’s
Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 by Edwidge Danticat
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History by Vashti Harrison
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Vast Wonder of the World by Mélina Mangal
Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 by Patricia McKissack
Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o
The Addy Walker American Girl Series by Connie Porter
Includes Meet Addy, Addy Learns a Lesson, Addy’s Surprise, Happy Birthday, Addy!, Addy Saves the Day, and Changes for Addy.
The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor