Must-read Books in Recognition of Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month this February and throughout the year with these new and recent books about African American history, heritage and culture, available online or in print from the Drexel Libraries.

In print

• Affirming Black Students’ Lives & Literacies by Arlette Ingram Willis
• Black Built: History and Architecture in the Black Community by Paul Wellington
• Black Labor in Richmond, 1865-1890 by Peter J. Rachleff
• Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism by Jenn M. Jackson
• Equal Work, Unequal Careers: African Americans in the Workforce by Rochelle Parks-Yancy
• Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi
• A Legacy to Share, Volume 1 Edited by Angela Dowd-Burton, Adrienne Goodrich-Doctor, PhD, Geoffrey L. Howland & Betty Jean Wolfe
• NEW! A Legacy to Share, Volume 2 Edited by Angela Dowd-Burton, Geoffrey L. Howland & Brian. C. Weddington
• Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: An African American Anthology by Manning Marable
• Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 by Alice Faye Duncan
• Prosperity for All?: The Economic Boom and African Americans by Russell Sage Foundation
• Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture by Emma Dabiri
• Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men by John Rich

Read online

• Allow Me to Retort: (A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution) by Elie Mystal
• Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha Ray
• Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western by Mia Mask
• Building a Pro-Black World: Moving Beyond DE&I Work and Creating Spaces for Black People to Thrive by Cyndi Suarez
• The Dark Past: The U.S. Supreme Court and African Americans, 1800—2015 by William M. Wiecek
• Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America by Psyche A. Williams-Forson
• Higher Flight: Refocusing Black/Africana Studies for the 21st Century by James B. Stewart
• Lessons in Gratitude: A Memoir on Race, the Arts, and Mental Health by Aaron P. Dworkin
• Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project by Catherine A. Stewart
• Race and the American Story by Stephanie Shonekan and Adam Seagrave
• Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian by Ethelene Whitmire
• Teaching Black History to White People by Leonard Moore
• There Are No Deficits Here: Disrupting Anti-Blackness in Education by Lauren M. Wells

Other Featured Resources & Collections

Explore these selected databases of archival materials, newspapers, primary source materials and more to supplement your research on African American history.

• Black Women Writers Collection: presents 100,000 pages of literature and essays on feminist issues, written by authors from Africa and the African diaspora
• The Philadelphia Tribune: the oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the United States
• Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: features select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history
• Umbra Search African American History: brings together digitized pieces of African American history and culture from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the country.
• Ethnic NewsWatch: a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives