Black History Month: Our Reading Recommendations
The US has commemorated Black History Month since 1976 (though W.E.B. DuBois inaugurated a week-long equivalent in February 1926). Black writers, readers, and thinkers had been changing the world since long before 1976. Still, it’s encouraging that for almost fifty years, the nation has set aside a month dedicated to celebrating their accomplishments, however belated that recognition may be (and however inadequate the nation’s response may be). And as readers, we can celebrate Black writers by engaging with their work this month.
As members of an English department, we have more opportunity than most to read thoughtfully. Black History Month is a great chance to read books that help us celebrate the amazing contributions of Black authors to American literature. Yet it can be paralyzingly hard to choose who to read. Where do we even start?
If that’s where you find yourself, we have some recommendations for you! Here are the books we’re reading for Black History Month 2023 (the theme: “resistance”). We’re excited about all of them, and you are most welcome to read along with us during this Black History Month.
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne. Les Payne (d. 2018) spent 30 years researching Malcolm X’s life, and his daughter Tamara Payne published his book in 2020 (with additional essays she wrote to frame his work). The Dead Are Arising won the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Les Payne was a legendary investigative journalist and a provocative columnist, and his account of Malcolm X’s life proves his reputation as a powerful writer and an insightful student of people.
The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. Jemisin won the Hugo Award for this novel, the first in her Broken Earth trilogy (the other two books in the trilogy also won Hugo awards). Jemisin’s vivid sci-fi world-building frames her riveting treatment of the dynamics of power, oppression, and revolution in the Stillness, a land that’s never still.
Un-American, by Hafizah Augustus Geter. Geter’s stunning debut poetry collection was a finalist for several awards, including the 2021 PEN Open Book and the 2021 NAACP Image Award. Geter’s poetry moves fluently through lyric and narrative to trace the story of a Black family of mixed citizenship as they navigate the complexities of belonging, grief, conflict, and love.
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, by Dr. Monique Couvson (formerly Monique W. Morris). Dr. Couvson writes about social justice and is the president and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color. In Pushout, she studies the growing plight of Black girls and women who are pushed out of schools and into the justice system. She moves through particular stories to illustrate her larger point: our schools must change to help Black girls flourish.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. This classic novel from Hurston has been a staple of high school and college classrooms for years, but it’s always worth a read (or a re-read). Hurston’s prose is vivid and flexible, and she has a particular flair for memorable descriptions. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.”
Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Another classic, Morrison’s 1987 novel is still gripping hearts and changing minds decades later. Morrison tells the story of Sethe, a woman who escaped from slavery, in post-Civil War Ohio. This novel won a Pulitzer Prize (Morrison, who died in 2019, also won the Nobel Prize in Literature).
All About Love: New Visions, by bell hooks. This short book on love (appropriate to read around Valentine’s Day, too) considers love as an intrinsic part of the human experience that’s also profoundly shaped by our cultural norms. hooks develops a framework for understanding and growing in love, which she sees as essential for justice-making efforts.
