It's Juneteenth weekend, and while we believe you should be reading books by Black authors all year long, the three-day weekend is the perfect time to crack open an unputdownable work of Black history.
Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were informed of their freedom—nearly two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation—marking the official end of slavery in the United States. Though June 19, 1865 marks a significant victory, it is also a stark reminder of how those in power can manipulate the truth to maintain the status quo. Alongside the celebrations, you can honor the legacy of this day by spending time with stories by Black authors about Black American life and history.
Whether you’re looking to read a buzzy new book or check out that classic you’ve never gotten around to, the list below features fiction and nonfiction books that cover a wide range of Black American experiences from 1915 through the 1990s.
This sweeping work of narrative nonfiction is storytelling at its very best. There is a reason it was the No. 2 book on The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. It tells the story of the Great Migration, when 6 million Black people fled the South between 1915 and 1970 in search of a better life in the North and West. The Warmth of Other Suns explores the intimate experiences of three people who were part of this migration and tells a larger story of Black life in 20th-century America.
Tayari Jones wowed readers with her last novel, An American Marriage, and with Kin she shows us once again why she is one of our undisputed greats. Annie and Vernice are two motherless girls in the 1950s who forge an unbreakable childhood bond that holds strong as they each set out to find the belonging they’ve desperately wanted. This book is a friendship novel at its very best, filled with tenderness, humor, and prose that cuts straight to the heart.
This short novel from 1929 is breathtaking. It's about two friends, Clare and Irene, who lost touch after Clare begins passing as white. Playing out somewhat like a psychological thriller and full of propulsive scenes, this novel clocks in at just over 120 pages, which means you can devour it in one sitting, or surely over the course of the long weekend. Trust us, this book is as good as everyone says it is.
Wil Haygood, the author of The Butler (adapted into a film starring Forest Whitaker), is back with a book about the Vietnam War. Haygood profiles soldiers, doctors, journalists, and more whose lives illustrate the tension Black Americans felt between the war in Vietnam and the fight for justice at home. This is a vivid and engaging exploration of Black history that helps us understand how we got to our present moment.
Lavish parties, a wealthy neighbor, and a healthy dose of obsession. Sound familiar? That’s because The Great Mann is a retelling of The Great Gatsby set in 1945 in West Adams Heights, a historically Black neighborhood in L.A. This book perfectly blends real events and people with a fictional world that questions the ideal of the American Dream.
If you believe pop culture deserves a place in the history books, you will love Shine Bright. Danyel Smith, a veteran music journalist, mixes memoir, cultural criticism, and history to spotlight the Black women whose music has shaped the nation.
Who said history can’t be exciting? Certainly not De’Shawn Charles Winslow, whose latest book, The Fervent Whites, is a thriller set in a small town in upstate New York in the 1980s. In this book, the mostly Black town of Fervent is rocked when a white couple, the Whites, are exonerated for the murder of one of their neighbors and return home. The town isn’t ready for the instability they bring and the secrets that are about to be unearthed.