February is Black History Month so we're highlighting some recent nonfiction titles that discuss various African American experiences. Most of these books have come out in the last year but we included a few other, favorite titles as well. All books can be found at Memorial Hall Library or via the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium. Click the titles to request or give the Reference Desk a call at 978-623-8430.
The Black Calhouns: from Civil War to civil rights, with one African American family - Gail Lumet Buckley - Buckley, the daughter of famed African American actress Lena Horne, traces her family from the slave-holding nephew of John C. Calhoun, through the Civil War, Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, drawing parallels about the state of our nation in the past and today.
Between the world and me - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Written as a letter to his son after multiple high profile murders of young Black men by police, Coates heartbreakingly explains how he is not safe in the racist world.
The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the politics of race in America - Michael Eric Dyson - Dyson, a Georgetown sociology professor and political analyst, takes a look at Barack Obama's presidency and what it meant for our American conversation about race.
Negroland: a memoir - Margo Jefferson - A series of vignettes about growing up in elite Black society in Chicago.
Stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi - Kendi traces the way that five influential Americans - Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis - have shaped our concept of race and racist ideas from colonial era to today.
March series - John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell - This award winning series of graphic novels, the third book recently winning not only the ALA's Printz award but the National Book award as well, tells the story of Congressmen John Lewis' work in the Civil Rights Movement, especially during the Freedom Summer and the Selma to Montgomery Marches.
Born bright: a young girl's journey from nothing to something in America - C. Nicole Mason - A memoir about growing up poor and finally escaping to the revered Howard University, Mason challenges views on poverty and mobility.
You can't touch my hair and other things I still have to explain - Phoebe Robinson - Comedian and podcaster of 2 Dope Queens fame, writes hilarious essays about race, gender, pop culture, and more.
Hidden Figures: the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race - Margot Lee Shetterly - Read the true story of the "human computers" who helped to put John Glenn in space and whose stories have often been overlooked because they were a group of Black women mathematicians.
The warmth of other suns: the epic story of America's great migration - Isabel Wilkerson - A not so recent, but incredibly moving and extraordinary work that follows three people who participated in the Great Migration of Black people from the south to urban, northern cities looking to escape crushing Jim Crow laws.
For more suggestions, see Boston Public Library’s “Black Is…” booklist published every year during February or the Teen Room's Black Lives Matter reading list.