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5 Nonfiction Reads Perfect for Black History Month (Or Any Time At All)
By Mary Kay McBrayer
If you’re looking to brush up on your history during Black History month, check out this short list of five recently released nonfiction books, perfect for reading during Black History Month… or any time at all.
One of the co-authors here, Joseph McGill, is a historic preservationist who founded the Slave Dwelling Project. He explores sleeping overnight in former slave dwellings that still stand across the country—in the South, of course, but also in the North and West where people are surprised to learn of their existence. This book is part memoir and part history, focusing on the key sites where he has stayed and the history behind each of them. It’s a unique immersion into the ignored and unacknowledged aspects of an enslaved life.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around June 6, 2023. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Tyler Merritt’s cancer diagnosis changed his perspective on his life. Even after making it through a highly invasive surgery, he learned that there was no question of whether the cancer would return: rather, it was a question of when. With this realization of his mortality came the realization too that no one has time for anger or grudges. This memoir chronicles his new outlook on life and imparts the truth that none of us has any time to waste.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 14, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
There’s never been a more epic party than the one that actress and singer Diahann Carroll hosted for Shirley Chisolm when she ran for president as the first Black woman to do so, in 1972. MSNBC political analyst Juanita Tolliver moves through the Beverly Hills home, profiling a different guest among the crowd of movie stars, media moguls, music execs, and activists in each chapter. It’s a dip into the margins of history that demonstrates the opportunity all of us have to improve our nation and give power back to the people.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 14, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
In her moving collection of essays, NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe assembles an arrangement of HBCU experiences. Contributors include many familiar names who attended historically Black colleges and universities, including Oprah Winfrey and Stacey Abrams. It’s a perfect book for anyone who’s nostalgic for their HBCU years, contemplating attending an HBCU, or merely curious about the experience.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 30, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Let me start by saying this book won the Pulitzer Prize in History. Although Massachusetts—Boston, specifically—was famed as the States’ hub for radical abolitionism, it fell short of equality in practice… by a lot. Historian Jacqueline Jones highlights how the rhetoric of egalitarianism came easily, but justice in the workplace was a different story: all around the Civil War era, white abolitionists and Republicans would not secure equal employment opportunities. While that left many in poverty, there were surely some Black entrepreneurs who created space for themselves. This book examines the entire spectrum.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 10, 2023. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
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Mary Kay McBrayer is the author of Madame Queen: The Life and Crimes of Harlem’s Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair and America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. You can find her short works on history, true crime, and horror at Oxford American,Narratively, Mental Floss, and FANGORIA, among other publications. She hosts the podcast about women in true crime who are not just victims, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. Follow Mary Kay McBrayer on Instagram and Twitter, or check out her author site here.
