Voices of change for Black History Month [reading list]
Voices of change for Black History Month [reading list]
In honor of Black History Month, we celebrate the powerful voices that have shaped history and continue to inspire change in America and around the world. This reading list features eight books that amplify the diverse experiences and contributions of Black individuals. Eight unique stories of resistance, perseverance, empowerment, and transformation that deserve their place in the American narrative. From the riveting biographies of iconic musicians to a radical exploration of Black Twitter, and the final untold story of the civil rights movement, these books offer deep insights and celebrate the enduring legacy of Black excellence and resilience. Let these voices of change inspire you.
1. We Tried to Tell Y’All by Meredith D. Clark
Black Twitter carved out a vital space for commentary on Black life in America, shaping over a decade of discourse and giving voice to hundreds of thousands of Americans who felt shut out and misrepresented by the mainstream press. We Tried to Tell Y’All by Meredith D. Clark—a former journalist NPR calls “the go-to person about Black Twitter”—explains how Black social media users subverted the digital divide to confront centuries of erasure, omission, and mischaracterization of Black life in the media.
2. The Power of Black Excellence by Deondra Rose
From their founding, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educated as many as 90% of Black college students in the United States. Although many are aware of the significance of HBCUs in expanding Black Americans’ educational opportunities, much less attention has been paid to the vital role that they have played in enhancing American democracy. Deondra Rose provides a powerful and revealing history of how HBCUs have been essential for empowering Black citizens in the ongoing fight for democracy in the United States.
3. Soon & Very Soon by Robert F. Darden and Stephen M. Newby
There are few voices in twentieth century gospel that are more recognizable or influential than Andrea Crouch. In the very first biography of the legendary artist, authors Robert Darden and Stephen Newby celebrate the countless ways that Crouch changed the course of gospel and popular music; not least among them was Crouch’s progressive pursuit to address the sociopolitical issues of his time, including AIDS, prejudice, abuse, housing insecurity, and addiction. The book is brought to life through interviews with his collaborators, friends, and family.
4. Bloody Tuesday by John M. Giggie
The people of Tuscaloosa have been searching for decades for someone to tell their story. On Tuesday, 9 June 1964, police attacked more than 600 Black men, women, and children inside First African Baptist Church, where Reverend Martin Luther King had launched the Tuscaloosa campaign for integration three months earlier. As the group gathered to march, they faced over seventy law enforcement officers and hundreds more deputized white citizens and Klansmen eager to end their protests for good. Police smashed the historic church’s stained-glass windows with water hoses and fired rounds of tear gas inside. As demonstrators streamed from the church, many choking and soaked, the white mob beat them with nightsticks, cattle prods, and axe handles, arrested nearly a hundred, and sent over thirty to the hospital. Drawing on over 150 unpublished interviews, Bloody Tuesday tells one of the last great untold stories of the civil rights movement.
5. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” by Tom Jenks
Tom Jenks’s reading of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” follows a scene-by-scene, sometimes line-by-line, discussion of the pattern by which Baldwin indelibly writes “Sonny’s Blues” into the consciousness of readers. Drawing on Baldwin’s book-length essay The Fire Next Time, which Baldwin published six years after “Sonny’s Blues,” Jenks offers insight on some of the sources in Baldwin’s life and the logic and passion by which life may be meaningfully transformed into art.
6. Stomp Off, Let’s Go by Ricky Riccardi
Grammy winning historian Ricky Riccardi looks at the early years of Louis Armstrong’s life to tell the story of the iconic trumpeter’s meteoric rise to fame. While this period of Armstrong’s life is perhaps more familiar than others, Riccardi enriches the existing narratives with recently unearthed archival materials, including a rare draft of pianist, composer, and Armstrong’s second wife Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong’s autobiography.
7. COMBEE by Edda L. Fields-Black
Edda Fields-Black is a direct descendent of one of the hundreds of formerly enslaved men who liberated themselves and joined the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers to fight in the Combahee River Raid along with Harriet Tubman, and in COMBEE she tells the story of her own ancestors. COMBEE is the first detailed account of one of the most dramatic episodes of the Civil War and the role Harriet Tubman played in it. The New Yorker and Bloomberg named the book one of their highly recommended books for 2024.
8. Mutiny on the Black Prince by James H. Sweet
In 1768, the British slave ship Black Prince, departed the port of Bristol, bound for West Africa. It never arrived. Before reaching Old Calabar, the crew mutinied, murdering the captain and his officers. The mutineers renamed the ship Liberty, elected new officers, and set out for Brazil. By the time the ship arrived there, the crew had disintegrated into a violent mob and fired into the port city. After the Black Prince wrecked off the coast of Hispaniola, the rebels fled to outposts around the Atlantic world. An eight-year manhunt ensued. Mutiny on the Black Prince tells the dramatic story of the events onboard the ship as well as the way that British slavery shaped the industrializing Atlantic economy of the eighteenth century.
Featured image created in Canva; photograph by Ryandeberardinsisphotos.