February is Black History Month, so we have put together a list of just a few of our non-fiction books about historical Black figures for you to read all year round. Books featured on this list are from our juvenile and adult non-fiction collections.
Juvenile
Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly and Winifred Conklin, illustrated by Laura Freeman
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J 510.9252 Sh59”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA’s African American women mathematicians to America’s space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them despite their groundbreaking successes.
Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix by Gary Golio, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J B H385go”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: Jimi Hendrix was many things: a superstar, a rebel, a hero, an innovator. But first, he was a boy named Jimmy who loved to draw and paint and listen to records. This a story of a talented child who learns to see, hear, and interpret the world around him.
Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by Christian Robinson
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J B B174p”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: In exuberant verse and stirring pictures, Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson create an extraordinary portrait of the passionate performer and civil rights advocate Josephine Baker, the woman who worked her way from the slums of St. Louis to the grandest stages in the world. Meticulously researched by both author and artist, Josephine’s powerful story of struggle and triumph is an inspiration and a spectacle, just like the legend herself.
Jump at the Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston by Alicia D. Williams, illustrated by Jacqueline Alcántara
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J B H946w”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: The Newbery Honor-winning author of Genesis Begins Again offers a picture book rendering of Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood to illuminate the rich natural-world and cultural experiences that shaped her education and career as a storyteller.
Nina: A Story of Nina Simone by Traci N. Todd, illustrated by Christian Robinson
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J B Si56t”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: A biography of Nina Simone, an acclaimed singer whose music gave voice to the struggle for racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement.
Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe
- Where to find it: Juvenile Caldecott under “J Caldecott 709.2 St45 2017”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: Jean-Michael Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocked to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art work had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe’s vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat’s own introduce young readers to the powerful message and art doesn’t always have to be neat or clean–and definitely not inside the lines–to be beautiful.
Rise!: From Caged Bird to Poet of the People, Maya Angelou by Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Tonya Engel
- Where to find it: Juvenile non-fiction under “J B An43h”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: A biography of African American writer, performer, and activist Maya Angelou, who turned a childhood of trauma and emotional pain to become one of the most inspiring voices of our lifetime. Includes afterword, author’s note, and sources.
Adult
Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation by John Lewis and Kabir Sehgel
- Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “328.73 L587”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: The final reflections, words, and wisdom of esteemed civil rights champion and late Congressman John Lewis, who continued to offer inspiration and hope to millions even while he battled the cancer that ultimately ended his life.
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker 1965-2000, edited by Valerie Boyd
- Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “B W151” (also available in Large Print and audiobook)
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: For the first time, the edited journals of Alice Walker are gathered together to reflect the complex, passionate, talented, and acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winner of The Color Purple. She intimately explores her thoughts and feelings as a woman, a writer, an African-American, a wife, a daughter, a mother, a lover, a sister, a friend, a citizen of the world. In an unvarnished and singular voice, she explores an astonishing array of events: marching in Mississippi with other foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.; her marriage to a Jewish lawyer, defying laws that barred interracial marriage in the 1960s South; an early miscarriage; writing her first novel; the trials and triumphs of the Women’s Movement; erotic encounters and enduring relationships; the ancestral visits that led her to write The Color Purple; winning the Pulitzer Prize; being admired and maligned, sometimes in equal measure, for her work and her activism; and burying her mother. A powerful blend of Walker’s personal life with political events, this revealing collection offers rare insight into a literary legend.
Just As I Am: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson
- Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “791.43 T988”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: The Academy, Tony, and Emmy Award-winning actor and trailblazer tells her stunning story, looking back at her life and six-decade career.
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye
- Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “796.357 T969”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from the publisher: Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in the Negro Leagues. Through dogged detective work, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher, interviewing more than two hundred Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers, talking to family and friends who had never told their stories before, and retracing Paige’s steps across the continent. Here is the stirring account of the child born to an Alabama washerwoman with twelve young mouths to feed, the boy who earned the nickname “Satchel” from his enterprising work as a railroad porter, the young man who took up baseball on the streets and in reform school, inventing his trademark hesitation pitch while throwing bricks at rival gang members.
Tye shows Paige barnstorming across America and growing into the superstar hurler of the Negro Leagues, a marvel who set records so eye-popping they seemed like misprints, spent as much money as he made, and left tickets for “Mrs. Paige” that were picked up by a different woman at each game. In unprecedented detail, Tye reveals how Paige, hurt and angry when Jackie Robinson beat him to the Majors, emerged at the age of forty-two to help propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series. He threw his last pitch from a big-league mound at an improbable fifty-nine. (“Age is a case of mind over matter,” he said. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”)
More than a fascinating account of a baseball odyssey, Satchel rewrites our history of the integration of the sport, with Satchel Paige in a starring role. This is a powerful portrait of an American hero who employed a shuffling stereotype to disarm critics and racists, floated comical legends about himself–including about his own age–to deflect inquiry and remain elusive, and in the process methodically built his own myth. “Don’t look back,” he famously said. “Something might be gaining on you.” Separating the truth from the legend, Satchel is a remarkable accomplishment, as large as this larger-than-life man.
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs
- Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “306.8743 T79”
- View it on our catalog
Summary from our catalog: In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America’s most pivotal heroes: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin’s son James, about Alberta King’s son Martin Luther, and Louise Little’s son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them, who were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. Berdis, Alberta, and Louise passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning-from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced. These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America’s racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families’ safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers. These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.
Sincerely, Cornelius 