Essential Reading for Black History Month
We are well into Black History Month, so if you’re looking to stack your TBR full of books by Black authors, you’re in the right place. The list below covers ground from memoir to self-help, from Black history to social commentary, and there are even activity books below, for those who want to further educate themselves. With no further ado, let’s get this February reading goal started!
New York Times Bestseller
Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books of January
National Indie Bestseller
ELLE Magazine’s Best (and Most Anticipated) Nonfiction Books of 2024
Entertainment Weekly’s Best Books to Read 2024
In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, that the New York Times described as “fascinating…meticulous research” and bestselling author Clint Smith endorsed it as “a book that left me breathless.”
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. Hylton also grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations.
Fight back against misinformation and ignorance as New York Times bestselling author Keith Boykin debunks 25 of the most common claims used to refute America’s racist past and present.
The most toxic racial arguments share one of five traits. They try to erase Black history, prioritize white victimhood, deny Black oppression, promote myths of Black inferiority, or rebrand racism as something else entirely. They’re all designed to distract society from racial justice, but now we have the tools to debunk them.
With a mixture of personal experience, reportage, and extensive research, Keith Boykin takes a wrecking ball to twenty-five of the most widespread deceptions about race, and shows us how to refute lies, myths, and misinformation with history, knowledge, and truth.
Revelatory and thought-provoking, this highly illustrated, highly informative interactive workbook gives readers a unique, hands-on understanding of systemic racism—and how we can dismantle it.
Packed with activities, games, illustrations, comics, and eye-opening conversation, Do the Work! challenges readers to think critically and act effectively. Try the “Separate but Not Equal” crossword puzzle. Play “Bootstrapping, the Game” to understand the myth of meritocracy. Test your knowledge of racist laws by playing “Jim Crow or Jim Faux?”
Have hard conversations with your people (scripts and talking points included). Be open to new ideas and diversify your “feed” with a scavenger hunt. Team up with an accountability partner and find hundreds of ideas, resources, and opportunities to DO THE WORK!
Ready to get started?
Mary Kay McBrayer is the author of America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. You can find her short works at Oxford American, Narratively, Mental Floss, and FANGORIA, among other publications. She co-hosts Everything Trying to Kill You, the comedy podcast that analyzes your favorite horror movies from the perspectives of women of color. Follow Mary Kay McBrayer on Instagram and Twitter, or check out her author site here.