Ten Must-Read Books
Celebrating Juneteenth & Black Liberation
- A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lines by Dick Gregory
- Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
- On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
- South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
- The 1619 Project edited by Nicole Hannah-Jones
- The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward
- Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain
- We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love
Note: Links here will open in a new window and go to Overdrive, a collection of e-books and audiobooks made available to the CMU community and to Mesa County Public Libraries cardholders. Find a title you're interested in? Use the free Libby app to read or listen. (Not sure how? See the information below!)
Want more? See a more extensive list below, and Overdrive's (even longer!) African American Nonfiction list here.
- A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross
- Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
- An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays
- Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family by Rachel Jamison Webster
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt
- Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
- Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry
- Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert
- Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lines by Dick Gregory
- Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
- Girl, Gurl, GRRRL: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic by Kenya Hunt
- I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt
- Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness by Laura Coates
- Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
- Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
- Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe
- Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
- Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
- Officer Clemmons: A Memoir by Dr. François C. Clemmons
- On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
- Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir by Brian Broome
- Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry by Soyica Diggs Colbert
- Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson by Ashley Brown
- Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics by Anastasia C. Curwood
- Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
- South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
- Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson by Gary Scott Smith
- The 1619 Project edited by Nicole Hannah-Jones
- The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
- The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne
- The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America by Nicholas Buccola
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward
- The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
- The Talk by Darrin Bell
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
- Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain
- Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman
- We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love
- What the Children Told Us: The Untold Story of the Famous “Doll Test” and the Black Psychologists Who Changed the World by Tim Spofford
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
- With Her Fist Raised: Dorothy Pitman Hughes and the Transformative Power of Black Community Activism by Laura L. Lovett
- You Don’t Know Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston
If you want to read any of these titles as ebooks, or listen to them as audio books, follow these steps to use your MavCard:
2. "Do you have a library card?" --> Yes!
3. "Search for library" by zipcode
4. "Marmot Library Network"
5. "Sign in with my card"
6. "Colorado Mesa University"
7. Use your MavZone login.
8. Enjoy!
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Want to access the book in print?
- Chat with Librarians at CMU--or Librarians at MCPLD--for help getting access to titles of interest in the format you prefer!