Celebrating Black History
February is Black History Month or African American History Month! Explore the resources on this page to learn and read more about black history, important figures, literature, and more!
*Check out the Library of Congress's dedicated site for African American History month which includes extensive lists of fascinating exhibits from the National Archives and other government institutions.*
New Books
Important Black Biographies
Augusta Savage by Call Number: PS3573.A4795 A94 2022ISBN: 9780316298025Publication Date: 2022-01-25This powerful biography in poems tells the life of Augusta Savage, the trailblazing artist and pillar of the Harlem Renaissance.
Search Hekman Library Primo to find more African American biographies in the collection like above and browse the following digital resources:
- Who2 List of Biographies for Black History MonthFrom the website Who2, a list of many historical and modern people celebrated during Black History Month. Click any name for more info or browse by profession (Activists, Actors, Astronauts, Athletes, etc.)
- Biography Reference Center (EBSCO)
Find more biographies on important figures of black history through the Biography Reference Center, an excellent scholarly database with short summaries on famous figures
Special Topics
A City Within a City by Call Number: F574.G7 R63 2013ISBN: 9781439909218Publication Date: 2012-12-14Learn about the black urban experience and struggle for freedom embedded in our local Grand Rapids history
The 1619 Project by Call Number: E441 .A15 2021ISBN: 9780593230572Publication Date: 2021-11-16The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance
Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated narratives from Black history by Call Number: GRAPHIC Novels E185.96 .G54 2014ISBN: 9781938486296Publication Date: 2014-05-01Unique graphic novel anthology with stories of unsung black heroes such as "Henry 'Box' Brown, who escaped from slavery by mailing himself to Philadelphia; Alexander Crummel and the Noyes Academy, the first integrated school in America, established in the 1830s; Marshall 'Major' Taylor, a.k.a. the Black Cyclone, the first Black champion in any sport; and Bass Reeves, the most successful lawman in the Old West"
March: Book One by Call Number: GRAPHIC Novels E840.8.L43 A3 2013ISBN: 9781603093002Publication Date: 2013-08-13Non-fiction graphic novel trilogy, "first-hand account of Congressman John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights"
The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's forgotten black pioneers & the struggle for equality by Call Number: E185.925 .C64 2018ISBN: 9781610398107Publication Date: 2018-06-12Ground-breaking historical work and lively story-telling, rediscovering the legacy of black settlers on the American frontier
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Call Number: E185.96 .H338 2017ISBN: 9780316475112Publication Date: 2017-12-05Delightful illustrations introduce important female figures in black history, a children's book for any age
How to Slay: Inspiration from the Queens and Kings of Black Style by Call Number: TT504.4 .W495 2018ISBN: 9780847861385Publication Date: 2018-02-06"One of the few surveys of Black style and fashion ever published, How to Slay offers a lavishly illustrated overview of African American style through the twentieth century, focusing on the last thirty-five years"
Among Others: Blackness at MoMA by Call Number: N8232 .E565 2019ISBN: 9781633450349Publication Date: 2019-08-20A tour of the Museum of Modern Arts focused on black artists and race-related subjects, the first substantial exploration of MoMA's uneven historical relationship with black artists, black audiences and the broader subject of racial blackness
The Hollywood Jim Crow by Call Number: PN1995.9.N4 E75 2019ISBN: 9781479886647Publication Date: 2019-02-05Examining the biases and inequal practices that limit the production and and circulation of movies made by minority directors, as well as other racial issues in Hollywood
A History of African American Poetry by Call Number: PS310.N4 R357 2019ISBN: 9781107035478Publication Date: 2019-03-21This book steps up to provide the literary cannon with a sweeping look at African American poetry, tracing its roots in slave songs to today's award-winning poets
Just Around Midnight: rock and roll and the racial imagination by Call Number: ML3534 .H336 2016ISBN: 9780674416598Publication Date: 2016-09-26Dive into the legacy of rock and roll in "An interracial counter-history of Sixties music"
Serena Williams by Call Number: GV994.W55 C67 2020ISBN: 9781538109663Publication Date: 2020-02-15The legacy of Serena Williams, "tennis champion, sports legend, and cultural heroine"
More Than a Game by Call Number: GV583 .W5455 2018ISBN: 9781442248960Publication Date: 2018-10-01The past and present of African American men and women in sports, how they fought to participate and how that participation has reflected or changed views of race over time
Breaking Barriers: A History of Integration in Professional Basketball by Call Number: GV885.5 .S73 2019ISBN: 9781442277533Publication Date: 2018-12-15Charting "the progress of integration from Bucky Lew--the first black professional basketball player in 1902--to the modern game played by athletes like Stephen Curry and LeBron James"
Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Call Number: GV939.B46 A3 2018ISBN: 9781608468935Publication Date: 2018-04-03"Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change maker. He's also one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, and he wants to make you uncomfortable. Bennett adds his unmistakable voice to discussions of racism and police violence, Black athletes and their relationship to powerful institutions like the NCAA and the NFL, the role of protest in history, and the responsibilities of athletes as role models to speak out against injustice"
A Spectacular Leap: black women athletes in twentieth-century America by Call Number: GV697.A1 L342 2014ISBN: 1557286582Publication Date: 2014-04-01Read more for inspiring stories about black women athletes breaking ground in sports in the twentieth century
The Color of Compromise by Call Number: E185.615 .T595 201ISBN: 9780310597261Publication Date: 2019-01-22Examining the Christian church's complicity in American racism and considering the cultural and institutional challenges we face to move toward reconciliation
Spiritual Care in an Age Of #BlackLivesMatter by Call Number: BV4012.2 .S668 2019ISBN: 9781532648083Publication Date: 2019-09-24A great resource for pastors, counselors, and others in the helping profession to understand the impact of Trump's violent America on African Americans
Wait--Is This Racist? A guide to becoming an anti-racist church by Call Number: BT734 .C59 2022 (MRC)ISBN: 9780664267506Publication Date: 2022-03-01Intentionally interactive, practical, and biblically based, Wait--Is This Racist?guides church leaders and staff through an examination of all aspects of church life, including leadership, preaching and liturgy, music, small groups, buildings and grounds, and more, to help churches create an action plan that will take them toward not only becoming anti-racist but also actually doing anti-racist work.
Revives My Soul Again: the spirituality of Martin Luther King Jr by Call Number: BX4827.K53 B35 2018ISBN: 9781506424705Publication Date: 2018-11-01Consider the spiritual life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "a deep, vital, engaging, balanced, and contagious spirituality" that translated into "a personal devotional life of prayer, meditation, and fasting... [as well as] a public ministry that involved the uplift and empowerment of humanity"
Black Is a Church by Call Number: EBOOKISBN: 9780190615130Publication Date: 2023-03-21In Black is a Church, Josef Sorett maps the ways in which black American culture and identity have been animated by a particular set of Protestant ideas and practices in order to chart the mutually reinforcing discourses of racial authenticity and religious orthodoxy that have made Christianity essential to the very notion of blackness. In doing so, Sorett reveals the ways that Christianity, white supremacy, and colonialism coalesced in the modern category of "religion" and became formative to the emergence of black identity in North America.
Jesus and the Disinherited by Call Number: BS2417.S7 T58 1996ISBN: 0807010294Publication Date: 1996-11-30Theologian and civil rights activist, Howard Thurman interprets the teachings of Jesus through the experience of the oppressed and discusses nonviolent responses to oppression
The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself by Call Number: EBOOKISBN: 9781517914547Publication Date: 2023-01-31From the country's founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, David Mura unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present.
Between the World and Me by Call Number: REC READ CoatesISBN: 9780812993547Publication Date: 2015-07-14In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis.
The Sum of Us by Call Number: E185.8 .M344 2021ISBN: 9780525509561Publication Date: 2021-02-16"McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm--the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others...But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can't do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message..."
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, white supremacy, and the rise of Jim Crow by Call Number: E185.61 .G253 2019ISBN: 9780525559535Publication Date: 2019-04-02To understand the roots of our modern systematic racism, this book examines American history after the Civil War, which saw the struggle for black freedom hindered by the growth of discriminatory legislation and on-going racial violence
The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotions in Politics by Call Number: E185.615 .P46 2020ISBN: 9781108485906Publication Date: 2019-12-26"Anger is a powerful mobilizing force in American politics on both sides of the political aisle, but does it motivate all groups equally? This book offers a new conceptualization of anger as a political resource that mobilizes black and white Americans differentially to exacerbate political inequality"
Ordinary Hazards by Call Number: PS3557.R489982 Z46 2019ISBN: 9781629798813Publication Date: 2019-10-08The moving memoir in verse tells the story of a young girl facing troubled parents, foster care, and painful betrayal and finding hope on the other side through her faith and writing
Illustrated Souls of Black Folk by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781317257851Publication Date: 2015-12-22Illustrated and annotated edition of the classic by WEB DuBois, Souls remains the most important treatment of African-American life and culture published in the twentieth century in this collection of sociological and philosophical essays
The Water Dancer by Call Number: PS3603.O17 W38 2019ISBN: 9780399590597Publication Date: 2019-09-24Striking historical fantasy about a young man born into slavery, struggling to find answers to the mysteries of his past, freedom through the Underground Railroad, and mastery of his own magical gift
James Baldwin: Collected Essays by Call Number: PS3552.A45 A16 1998ISBN: 1883011523Publication Date: 1998-02-01James Baldwin, novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist - this collection includes some of his most famous essays such as The Fire Next Time, reflecting on racial, sexual, social complexities of the twentieth century
Somebody's Daughter by Call Number: REC READ FordISBN: 9781250305978Publication Date: 2021-06-01One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father.
If Beale Street Could Talk by Call Number: PN1997 .I35 2019Publication Date: March 26, 2019Based on the novel by James Baldwin, this romantic drama tells the story of a young woman search for justice, proving her fiance's innocence after he is falsely imprisoned
Get Out by Call Number: PN1997 .G436 2017Publication Date: January 23, 2017First black winner for Best Original Screenplay, horror film in which "a young black man meets his white girlfriend's parents at their estate, only to find out that the situation is much more sinister than it appears"
Hidden Figures by Call Number: PN1997 .H454454 2017Publication Date: April 11, 2017Inspiring book turned movie about "the brilliant African-American women working at NASA who served as the brains behind the launch into orbit of astronaut John Glenn, a stunning achievement that turned around the Space Race"
Blackkklansman by Call Number: PN1997 .B623357 2018Publication Date: November 6, 2018Based on a true story taking place in the 1970s, detective Ron Stallworth sets out to infiltrate and expose the KKK in Colorado Springs
RootsCall Number: PN1992.77 .R66 2016Publication Date: 2016A miniseries following several generations in the lives of a slave family; Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton), a West African youth, is captured by slave raiders and shipped to America in the 1700s, and the family's saga is depicted up until the Civil War where Kunte Kinte's grandson gained emancipation.