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2020 Nonfiction Books By Black Americans

  1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
  2. Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good by Tina Turner
  3. Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor
  4. Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams
  5. Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins
  6. A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry
  7. Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
  8. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
  9. Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin
  10. This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope by Shayla Lawson
  11. Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like “Journey” in the Title by Leslie Gray Streeter
  12. The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. by Peniel E. Joseph
  13. We Are Called to Be a Movement by William J. Barber II
  14. Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll by Maureen Mahon
  15. Smokey Robinson: Grateful and Blessed, Words + Music by Smokey Robinson
  16. My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers
  17. The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family by Bettye Kearse
  18. The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne
  19. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask
  20. Reclaiming Her Time: The Power of Maxine Waters by Helena Andrews-Dyer
  21. Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities by Andre Perry
  22. Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne
  23. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
  24. The Underground Railroad Records: Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes, and Death Struggles of Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom by William Still
  25. The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American Family by Sylvia A. Harvey
  26. A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom by Brittany K. Barnett
  27. Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope by Jasmine L. Holmes
  28. Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues by Andrea Williams
  29. Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream by Mychal Denzel Smith
  30. Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
  31. Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the Twenty-First Century by Simone C. Drake (Editor)
  32. Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America by E. James West
  33. The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett
  34. How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Muse by Lamont Dozier
  35. African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song by Kevin Young (editor)
  36. The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide by Zerlina Maxwell
  37. The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper
  38. A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America by Calvin Baker
  39. Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage by Dianne M. Stewart
  40. Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit by Mary-Frances Winters
  41. No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America by Symone Sanders
  42. The Incredible Shrinking Woman by Athena Dixon
  43. Olympic Pride, American Prejudice: The Untold Story of 18 African Americans Who Defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to Compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Deborah Riley Draper
  44. Why Didn’t We Riot?: A Black Man in Trumpland by Issac J. Bailey
  45. F*ck Your Diet: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me by Chloé Hilliard
  46. GLORY: Magical Visions of Black Beauty by Kahran Bethencourt
  47. Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell by Alison M. Parker
  48. The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve by Rheeda Walker
  49. Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles by Robert L. Woodson Sr.
  50. Say It Louder!: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy by Tiffany Cross
  51. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
  52. Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
  53. Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes from My African American Kitchen by Alexander Smalls
  54. Road Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial by Jessica Ingram
  55. How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community by Mia Birdsong
  56. Relationship Goals: How to Win at Dating, Marriage, and Sex by Michael Todd
  57. Relationship Goals Study Guide by Michael Todd
  58. The Buck, the Black, and the Existential Hero: Refiguring the Black Male Literary Canon, 1850 to Present by James B. Haile
  59. Soul Care in African American Practice by Barbara L. Peacock
  60. African American Political Thought: A Collected History by Melvin L. Rogers (editor)
  61. Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry
  62. Living Lively: 80 Plant-Based Recipes to Activate Your Power and Feed Your Potential by Haile Thomas
  63. Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man by Joshua Bennett
  64. I Heart Soul Food: 100 Southern Comfort Food Favorites by Rosie Mayes
  65. Free the Land: The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State by Edward Onaci
  66. How to Make a Slave and Other Essays (21st Century Essays) by Jerald Walker
  67. The Last Children of Mill Creek by Vivian Gibson
  68. I Don’t Like the Blues: Race, Place, and the Backbeat of Black Life by B. Brian Foster
  69. Say It!: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition by Eric Redmond (Editor)
  70. Grand: A Grandparent’s Wisdom for a Happy Life by Charles R. Johnson
  71. The Good Life: What Jesus Teaches about Finding True Happiness by Derwin L. Gray
  72. Black Beauties: African American Pageant Queens in the Segregated South by Kimberly Brown Pellum
  73. Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon by Nyasha Junior
  74. The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power by Jared A. Ball
  75. Free at Last?: The Gospel in the African American Experience by Carl F. Ellis Jr.
  76. Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X by Michael Sawyer
  77. Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents by Margaret Kimberley
  78. Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest by Terrion L. Williamson (Editor)
  79. Racism in America: A Reader by Harvard University Press
  80. Wild Interiors: Beautiful plants in beautiful spaces, and how to look after them by Hilton Carter
  81. Carving Out a Humanity: Race, Rights, and Redemption by Janet Dewart Bell (Editor)
  82. Let’s Get Married & Do Everything Except Make It Last: A Heart-to-Heart with Men on Loving and Leading by Adrian N. Carter
  83. My Fashion Fairytale by Nichole Lynel
  84. A History of the Black Baptist Church: I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired by Wayne E. Croft
  85. The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire by Robert E. Weems Jr.
  86. Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience by Sheila Wise Rowe
  87. MilesStyle: The Fashion of Miles Davis by Michael Stradford
  88. Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art by Antwaun Sargent (editor)
  89. A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Arshay Cooper
  90. The Black Market: A guide to Art Collecting by Charles Moore
  91. Is Christianity the White Man’s Religion?: How the Bible Is Good News for People of Color by Antipas L. Harris
  92. Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement by Justin Giboney
  93. Street Culture by Seleen Saleh
  94. What We Know: Solutions from Our Experiences in the Justice System by Vivian Nixon (Editor)
  95. When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras by Claudrena N. Harold
  96. Madam C. J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy during Jim Crow (New Black Studies Series) by Tyrone McKinley Freeman
  97. You Look So Much Better in Person: True Stories of Absurdity and Success by Al Roker
  98. Pittsburgh and the Urban League Movement: A Century of Social Service and Activism by Joe William Trotter Jr.
  99. The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America by Marcus J. Moore
  100. Ain’t I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth
  101. I Can Make You Feel Good: Tyler Mitchell by Tyler Mitchell
  102. Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior by Ismail K. White
  103. Relational Intelligence: The People Skills You Need for the Life of Purpose You Want by Dharius Daniels
  104. The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century by Gerald Horne