Black History Resources for Children and Adults

January 26, 2022 in Carousel, News

In celebration of Black History Month, we’ve put together a list of books, music, movies, and other resources that you can find at the library or in our digital collections that feature important events and figures in the history of the African diaspora. In addition to the resources below, you can also check out the White Plains Library’s excellent African American Trailblazers collection, their #BlackJoy Picture Books collection, and of course, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards! (Have you read all the 2021 winners yet?)

At the Library

Children

What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad by David A. Adler
A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman by David A. Adler
A Picture Book of Sojourner Truth by David A. Adler
Martha and the Slave Catchers by Harriet Hyman Alonso
Counting on Catherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker
Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
Mae Jemison: the First African American Woman Astronaut by Liza N. Burby
W.E.B. Du Bois and Racial Relations by Seamus Cavan
Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Being Clem by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Words Set Me Free: the Story of Young Frederick Douglass by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Just a Lucky So and So: the Story of Louis Armstrong by Lesa Cline-Ransome
The Black Cowboys by Gina DeAngelis
Thurgood Marshall: Young Justice by Montrew Dunham
Jackie Robinson by Joeming W. Dunn
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad by Dan Elish
Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: the Story Behind an American Friendship by Russell Freedman
The Last Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles
Last Mirror on the Left by Lamar Giles
Martin Luther King Jr., and the March Toward Freedom by Rita Hakim
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
What You Don’t Know: a Story of Liberated Childhood by Anastasia Higginbotham
Jazz Tap: from African Drums to American Feet by Anne E. Johnson
Reaching for the Moon: the Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson by Katherine G. Johnson
Lift Every Voice and Sing: a Pictorial Tribute to the Negro National Anthem by James Weldon Johnson
The Life of George Washington Carver by Stephen Krensky
Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull
Escape North! The Story of Harriet Tubman by Monica Kulling
The Undefeated by Alexander Kwame
Harlem Hellfighters by J. Patrick Lewis
Harriet Tubman by Wil Mara
The Little Plant Doctor: a Story About George Washington Carver by Jean Marzollo
Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood ed. by Kwame Mbalia
Who Was Sojourner Truth? by Yona Seldis McDonough
Days of Jubilee: the End of Slavery in the United States by Pat McKissack
Martin Luther King by Rosemary Bray McNatt
As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Towards Freedom by Richard Michelson
The Proudest Blue: a Story of Hijab and Family by Ibtihaj Muhammad
Get Ella to the Apollo by Lisa Mullarkey
Frederick Douglass: the Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers
Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Who Was Frederick Douglass? by April Jones Prince
Frederick’s Journey: the Life of Frederick Douglass by Doreen Rappaport
The Negro Leagues by James A. Riley
Only Passing Through: the Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne F. Rockwell
Sojourner Truth by Peter Roop
When Marian Sang: the True Recital of Marian Anderson, the Voice of a Century by Pam Muñoz Ryan
A Kid’s Guide to African American History by Nancy I. Sanders
Dr. Charles Drew: Blood Bank Innovator by Anne E. Schraff
Hidden Figures: the True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Jackie Robinson and the Breaking of the Color Barrier by Russell Shorto
Sojourner Truth and the Voice of Freedom by Jane Shumate
Harriet Tubman, a Woman of Courage by Renee Skelton
A Computer Called Catherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America On the Moon by Suzanne Slade
Mae Jemison by Jennifer Strand
Harriet Tubman by George Sullivan
Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford
Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole Boston Weatherford
Play, Louis, Play! The True Story of a Boy and His Horn by Muriel Harris Weinstein
George Washington Carver by Jill C. Wheeler
Benjamin Banneker: Brilliant Surveyor, Mathematician, and Astronomer by Erika Wittekind
Madam C.J. Walker: Self-Made Businesswoman by Della A. Yannuzzi

Teens

The Beautiful Struggle: Adapted for Young Adults by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Up Close: Thurgood Marshall by Chris Crowe
In the Shadow of Liberty: the Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives by Kenneth C. Davis
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
Jackie Robinson by Harvey Frommer
A Stranger In My Own House: the Story of W.E.B. Du Bois by Bonnie Hinman
Thurgood Marshall: Champion of Civil Rights by Elisabeth Krug
We’ve Got a Job: the 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson
Black Hands, White Sails: the Story of African-American Whalers by Pat McKissack and Fredrick McKissack
There Comes a Time: the Struggle for Civil Rights by Milton Meltzer
A. Philip Randolph and the African American Labor Movement by Calvin Craig Miller
Hidden Figures: the Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly
Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-first Century by Linda Tarrant-Reid
Marching Toward Freedom, 1957-1965: From the Founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the Assassination of Malcom X by Robert Weisbrot

Adults

On the Pulse of Morning by Maya Angelou. Find more by Maya Angelou!
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. Find Go Tell It On the Mountain and more by James Baldwin!
He Calls Me By Lightning: the Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty by S. Jonathan Bass
The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamu Bell: Tales of a 6’4” African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-up Comedian by W. Kamau Bell
The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Benett
Mary Wells: the Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar by Peter Benjaminson
Louis Armstrong: an Extravagant Life by Laurence Bergreen
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
African American Art: the Long Struggle by Crystal Britton
The Black Calhouns: from Civil War to Civil Rights With One African American Family by Gail Lumet Buckley
Harriet Tubman: the Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
We Were Eight Years In Power: an American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Water Dancer: a Novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream by Joseph Dorinson
She Came to Slay: the Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves: an Anthology by Glory Edim
George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol by Linda McMurry Edwards
Ali: a Life by Jonathan Eig
Aretha: From These Roots by Aretha Franklin
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Roots: the Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer
The Birth of Black America: the First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown by Tim Hashaw
Black Music in America: a History Through Its People by James Haskins
Black Dance in America: a History Through Its People by James Haskins
Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America by Wil Haygood
The Panther & the Lash: Poems of Our Times by Langston Hughes. Find more by Langston Hughes!
Harriet Tubman: the Life and Stories by Jean McMahon Humez
How Long ‘til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin
Panther Baby: a Life of Rebellion and Reinvention by Jamal Joseph
Four Hundred Souls: a Community History of African America, 1619-2019 ed. By Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Ella Fitzgerald by Bud Kliment
Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis by Preston Lauterbach
The Black History of the White House by Clarence Lusane
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America: from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama by Ethan Michaeli
Soul food: the Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time by Adrian Miller
Girl in Black and White: the Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement by Jessie Morgan-Owens
Beloved by Toni Morrison. Find Paradise, Jazz, Sula, and many more by Toni Morrison!
Sojourner Truth: a Life, a Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
Gordon Parks: a Poet and His Camera by Gordon Parks
Black Gotham: a Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City by Carla L. Peterson
James Baldwin by Louis H. Pratt
“The Hills” in the Mid-nineteenth Century: the History of a Rural Afro-American Community in Westchester County, New York by Edythe Ann Quinn
Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: the Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph
Blood Brothers: the Fatal Friendship of Muhammad Ali and Malcom X by Randy Roberts
James Baldwin by Lisa Rosset
The Color of Law: a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Go and Tell Pharaoh: the Autobiography of the Reverend Al Sharpton by Al Sharpton
Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
Picturing Frederick Douglass: an Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American by John Stauffer
The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
The Black Cabinet: the Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt by Jill Watts
Smoketown: the Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance by Mark Whitaker
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Readings On Maya Angelou by Mary E. Williams
Black Fortunes: the Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires by Shomari Wills
Two Trains Running by August Wilson
Harlem Speaks: a Living History of the Harlem Renaissance by Cary D. Wintz

Movies

Borrow Online

Overdrive

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown (available as ebook)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (available as ebook or audiobook)
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (available as ebook or audiobook)
Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks (available as audiobook.) Find more by bell hooks!
The Talk by Wade Hudson (available as ebook)
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston (available as ebook and audiobook)
Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (available as ebook or audiobook)
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne (available as ebook or audiobook)
Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall (available as ebook)
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (available as ebook or audiobook; find the Young Reader’s and Picture Book version too!)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (available as ebook or audiobook)
Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills (available as ebook)

Hoopla

Black History For Beginners by Denise Dennis (available as ebook or audiobook)
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston (available as ebook and audiobook)
Henrietta Lacks: The Untold Story by Ron Lacks (available as ebook)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe by J.P. Miller (available as ebook.) Find music by Sister Rosetta Tharpe!
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne (available as audiobook)
Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall (available as ebook or audiobook)
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (available as ebook or audiobook; find the Young Reader’s and Picture Book version too!)
Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills (available as ebook or audiobook)