AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

Relive the moments when African Americans fought for equal rights, and made history.

Even though slavery had ended in the 1860s, African Americans were still suffering under the weight of segregation a hundred years later. They couldn’t go to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants, or even use the same bathrooms as…

Patricia Lakin (A) and Valerio Fabbretti (ILT) 

List Price: $16.99 (Hardcover – Heroes Of Civil War – 2017)

Get to know heroes of the Civil War in this fact-tastic, nonfiction Level 3 Ready-to-Read, part of a new series about the secrets of American History!

Secrets of American History is an action-packed nonfiction Level…

Tami Chalres (A) and Clare Almon (ILT) 

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover – African American Trailblazer / US Postal Carrier – 2018)

A little-known but fascinating and larger-than-life character, Mary Fields is one of the unsung, trailblazing African American women who helped settle the American West. A former slave, Fields became the first African…

John Lewis (A) and Andrew Aydin (A) and Nate Powell (ILT)

List Price: $19.99 (Paperback – Civil Rights Era / Leader / Congressman – 2016)

One of the Best Books of 2016” – Publishers Weekly

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling

MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon…

Carole Boston Weatherford (A) and Ekua Holmes (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Biography / Poetry / Freedom Fighter – 2015)

A 2016 Caldecott Honor Book
A 2016 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A 2016 John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award Winner

Stirring poems and stunning collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life…

Lisa Cline Ransome (A) and James E. Ransome (ILT)

List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Biography / Leader / Abolitionist / Orator – 2012)

The inspirational, true story of how Frederick Douglass found his way to freedom one word at a time.

This picture book biography chronicles the youth of Frederick Douglass, one of…

A powerful and accessible bilingual picture book that highlights “the power and impact of ordinary but dedicated citizens.

Every day, thousands of farm workers harvested the food that ended up on kitchen tables all over the country. But at the end of the day, when the workers sat down to eat, there were only beans…

Roberta Edwards (A), Nancy Harrison (ILT) and John O’Brien (ILT)

List Price: $5.99 (Paperback – Biography / Leader / President of the United States – 2009)

As the world now knows, Barack Obama has made history as our first African-American president. With black-and-white illustrations throughout, this biography is perfect for primary graders looking…

This collectible book by distinguished public historian Velma Maia Thomas offers an intimate look at black history in America with exclusive accounts, photographs, and interactive and removable artifacts.

Presented in three parts—Lest We Forget, Freedom’s Children, and We Shall Not Be Moved—the history comes to life…

Ntoshake Shange (A) and Rod Brown (ILT)

List Price: $16.99 (Hardcover – African History / Slavery to Jim Crow – 2009)

Jim Crow; Brown v. Board of Education; Bull Connor; KKK; Birmingham; the Lorraine Motel; Rosa; Martin; and Malcolm.

From slavery to the separation of colored and white and from horrifying oppression to…

“Ida B. Wells is featured in this picture-book biography for another one of her passionate causes: women’s suffrage.” —Booklist

“A tribute to a tireless African American journalist and crusader for social justice​.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Johnson writes with the conviction of Ida B. Wells and her inherent beliefs about right and…

 Beverly Danielle Tatum (A) 

List Price: $19.99 (Paperback – Race Dynamics / Conversations – 2017) 

The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism — now fully revised and updated

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is…

Carole Boston Weatherford (A) and Frank Morrison (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Soul Singer / Queen of Soul – 2020)

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustration Award! From a New York Times bestselling author and an acclaimed illustrator comes this vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin that pays her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T this…

Mildred D.Taylor (A)

List Price: $10.99 (Paperback – Logan Family Saga #3 – 2016)

A stunning repackage of a companion to Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, with cover art by two-time Caldecott Honor Award winner Kadir Nelson!

It is a frightening and turbulent time for the Logan family. First, their friend…

Barry Dennenberg (A)

List Price: $12.99 (Paperback – Biography / Sports / Boxing Champion – 2014)

The impressive life story of Muhammad Ali is interwoven with vital moments in American history in this visually stunning, full-color biography.

The story of famed boxing champion Muhammad Ali is more appealing and accessible than ever before…

The third picture book adaptation of one of Bob Marley’s beloved songs that has a timely message for children: To counter injustice, lift others up with kindness and courage.
A heartfelt and meaningful book that brings Bob Marley’s music to life in a new way: As a young girl goes on with her…

YOU are your ancestors’ wildest dreams. How will you express YOUR greatness? Perfect for fans of I Am Every Good Thing, Little Legends, and All Because You Matter.

“Affirming. . . . A joyful tribute.” —<span…

Lesa Cline- Ransome (A) and James E. Ransome (ILT) 

List Price: $8.99 (Hardcover – Biography – African American Leader / Pioneer – 2019) 

Who was Harriet Tubman before she was Harriet?

Description: We know her today as Harriet Tubman, but in her lifetime she was called by many names. As General Tubman she…

Ijeoma Oluo (A)

List Price: $18.99 (Paperback – Race Relations / Social Justice – 2019)

In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America

Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy — from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans…

David F. Walker (A) and Marcus Kwame Anderson

List Price: $19.99  (Paperback – Graphic Novel – History of Black Panther Party – 2021)

A bold and fascinating graphic novel history of the revolutionary Black Panther Party.

Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political…

Charles Johnson (A)

List Price: $17.00 (Paperback – African American History / Middle Passage / Slave Trade – 1998)

A twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Charles Johnson’s National Book Award-winning masterpiece of a novel in the tradition of Billy Budd and Moby-Dick heroic in proportion to fiction that hooks the mind” (The New York…

Jonah Winter (A) and Bryan Collier (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Supreme  Court Justice / Brilliant Lawyer – 2019)  

Thurgood Marshall–the first black justice on the Supreme Court and a giant of the civil rights movement–jumps to life in this inspiring picture-book biography from an award-winning author and six-time Coretta Scott…

Keela Magoon (A)

List Price: $8.99 (Paperback – Teen Activism / Choices / Decision Making – 2013)

What means more, shared values or shared blood? Maxie’s choice changes everything in this acclaimed companion to The Rock and the River.

Bad things happen in the heat, they say.

Maxie knows all about how fire…

Vashti Harrison (A) and (ILT)

Helaine Becker (A) and Tiemdow Phumiruk (ILT)

List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Mathematician / NASA Genius – 2019)

The bold story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked for NASA during the space race and was depicted in the film Hidden Figures.

You’ve likely heard of the historic Apollo 13 moon landing. But do you know…

S. Pearl Sharp (A) and Beverly Hawkins Hall (ILT)

List Price: $15.95 (Paperback – History / Black Women – 2011)

Description: There are over 519 million Black Women on the planet Earth, give or take a dozen. There’s a Black Woman on each of the seven continents, in almost every country and in…

2024 Golden Poppy Award Winner

An intimate look at Juneteenth, this story is a warm exploration of a family and a community. 

Juneteenth is the smell of brisket filling the air. Juneteenth is the sounds of music, dancing, and cheering ringing from the parade outside. It is love. It is prayer. It is friends…

Kelly Starling Lyons (A) and Laura Freeman (ILT)

List Price $20.95 (Hardcover – Builder / Designer / Architect – 2021)

The Story of Architect Philip Freelon

You’ve seen the building. Now meet the man whose life went into it.

Philip Freelon’s grandfather was an acclaimed painter of the Harlem…

Edited By Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson + Many Creative Voices

List Price: $16.99 (Hardcover – Anthology of Black Life – 2021)

In the stunning follow-up to The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth, award-winning Black authors and artists come together to create a moving anthology collection celebrating Black love, Black creativity, Black resistance,…

Christine King Farris (A) and Chris K. Soentpiet (ILT) (A)

List Price: $19.95 (Hardcover – Martin Luther King / Family – 2005)

Long before he became a world-famous dreamer, Martin Luther King Jr. was a little boy who played practical jokes and made friends without any consideration to race. But growing…

Chris Crowe (A) and Tim Okamura (ILT)

List Price: $5.99 (Paperback – Fictionalized True Story / Emmett Till – 2002)

Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old black teenager from Chicago, was unused to the mores of the segregated South. While visiting his uncle in the summer of 1955, he allegedly made flirtatious remarks…

Ilyasah Shabazz (A) and Tiffany Jackson (A)

List Price: $17.99 (Hardcover –  The Life of A Great African American Leader – 2021)

The Awakening of Malcolm X is a powerful narrative account of the activist’s adolescent years in jail, written by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz along with 2019 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe award-winning…

Charles R. Smith Jr. (A) and Shane W. Evans (ILT)

List Price: $20.99 (Hardcover – History / 28 Important Days In History – 2015) 

Each day features a different influential figure in African-American history, from Crispus Attucks, the first man shot in the Boston Massacre, sparking the Revolutionary War, to Madame C. J. Walker, who…

Diane Z. Shore (A) and Jessica Alexander (A) James Ransome (ILT)

List Price: $9.99 (Paperback – History / Civil Rights / Racism / Segregation / Integration – 2005)

Our nation was founded on the belief that all men are created equal. Nearly two hundred years after the signing of the…

Bryan Stevenson (A)

List Price: $10.99 (Racism  and Social Justice -2019)

The young adult adaptation of the acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestseller Just Mercy–now a major motion picture starring Michael B. Jordan, Jaime Foxx, and Brie Larson and the subject of an HBO documentary feature!

In this very personal work–adapted from the original #1 bestseller, which the New…

Yona Zeldis McDonough (A) and Jim Eldridge (ILT)

List Price: $5.99 (Paperback – Biography / Evangelist / Feminist – 2015)

Almost 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, Sojourner Truth was mistreated by a streetcar conductor. She took him to court–and won! Before she was Sojourner Truth, she…

Vashti Harrison (A and ILT) 

From the author of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History comes the highly anticipated follow-up, a beautifully illustrated collectible detailing the lives of women creators around the world.

Featuring the true…

Herb Boyd (A) and Lance Tooks (ILT)

List Price: $15.95 (Paperback – African American History / Black Panthers / Civil Rights Era 2015)

A crowd of onlookers gawked from the sidewalk as four young black men dressed in black leather jackets and berets leaped from a Volkswagen, each of them wielding shotguns with…

Jacqueline Woodson (A) Hudson Talbott (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – Family History / Slavery to Freedom – 2005)

Soonies great-grandma was just seven years old when she was sold to a big plantation without her ma and pa, and with only some fabric and needles to call her own. She…

Breanna J. McDaniel (A) and Shane Evans (ILT)

List Price: $18.99 (Hardcover – From Hands Up to Protest – 2019)

This triumphant picture book recasts a charged phrase as part of a black girl’s everyday life–hands up for a hug, hands up in class, hands up for a high five–before culminating in a moment…

Nic Stone (A) 

List Price: $19.99 (Hardcover – Fiction / Social Justice / Racism – 2017)

“Powerful, wrenching.” – JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down

“Raw and gripping.” –JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys

“A must-read!” –ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give

Raw, captivating,…

Ibram X. Kendi (A) and Ashley Lukashevsky IILT) 

List Price: $10.99 (Hardcover -AntiRacist Baby – 2020)

From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist comes a fresh new board book that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves.

Take your first steps with Antiracist…

Tonya Bolden (A) and Ansel Pitcairin (ILT)

List Price: $13.99 (Paperback – African American History / Heroes -2005)

This is a stunningly beautiful book consisting of portraits-in pictures and words-of twenty outstanding African-Americans. The individuals range from historical to contemporary figures, such as the dancer Judith Jamison, and represent diverse…

Joel Christian (A and ILT) Henry Louis Gates (FRWD)

List Price: $23.95 (Paperback – Graphic Novel –  True Stories – 2014)

Strange Fruit Volume I is a collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity. Each of the nine illustrated chapters chronicles…

Nikki Giovanni (A) and Bryan Collier (ILT)

List Price: $9.99 (Paperback – Civil Rights Leader – 2007)

Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This tribute to…

From New York Times bestselling author Jemar Tisby, I Am the Spirit of Justice uses lyrical text and moving illustrations to take children on a journey through the history of the United States of America, highlighting the ways people have been fighting for justice from the very beginning.

The fight for civil rights in America…

Barbara Kramer (A) and Who HQ and Dede Putra (ILT) 

List Price: $5.99 (Paperback –  Biography  – Entertainer /  Movie Mogul Extraordinaire – 2019) 

The story of how a young Southern girl who was raised on a pig farm became one of the most influential and inspiring people in the world.

We all know Oprah…

Linda Williams Jackson (A)

List Price: $9.99 (Paperback – Social Injustice  – 2017)

It’s Mississippi in the summer of 1955, and Rose Lee Carter can’t wait to move north. For now, she’s living with her sharecropper grandparents on a white man’s cotton plantation. Then, one town over, an African American boy, Emmett Till, is…

Mary Kay Carson (A)

List Price: $19.99 (Paperback – African American History and Activity Book- 2008)

An Inspiring story of brave people and their lives

The heroic struggles of the thousands of slaves who sought freedom through the Underground Railroad are vividly portrayed in this powerful activity book, as are the abolitionists, free blacks, and…