To commemorate Black History Month 2023 we present a selection of new releases, and older books newly added, that have landed on our shelves since last year's list. These books explore the depth and breadth of the immeasurable contributions made by Black Americans to the history and culture of the United States. This is just a very small fraction of what is in the Library's collection, so be sure to click subject links in our catalog records to explore other relevant books. For more, see our lists from previous years: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.  Also check this bibliography of books in our stacks related to the Library's 2021-2022 exhibition, Black Literature Matters.

Jump to: HISTORY | BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS | RACE RELATIONS, CIVIL RIGHTS, ACTIVISM & PROTEST | WOMEN'S STUDIES | LITERATURE - CRITICISM, HISTORY & ANTHOLOGIES | FINE & PERFORMING ARTS | HISTORICAL FICTION / NEWLY ACQUIRED OLDER FICTION | YOUNG ADULT | CHILDREN'S

HISTORY

• Davis, Allison - Deep South: a social anthropological study of caste and class (with Burleigh B. Gardner, Mary R. Gardner;  new foreword by Isabel Wilkerson) (new edition of 1941 classic)
• Davis, Thulani - The emancipation circuit: Black activism forging a culture of freedom (Reconstruction)
• Delmont, Matthew F. - Half American: the epic story of African Americans fighting World War II at home and abroad
• Dray, Philip - A lynching at Port Jervis: race and reckoning in the Gilded Age
• Du Bois, W. E. B. - Black reconstruction: an essay toward a history of the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880, & other writings (New Library of America edition)
• Fischer, David Hackett - African founders: how enslaved people expanded American ideals
• Hartman, Saidiya V. - Scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century America (foreword by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor) (revised and updated 2022 edition)
• Hirshman, Linda R. - The color of abolition: how a printer, a prophet, and a contessa moved a nation
• Krauthamer, Barbara - Black slaves, Indian masters: slavery, emancipation, and citizenship in the Native American south
• Larson, Edward J. - American inheritance: liberty and slavery in the birth of a nation, 1765-1795
• Lemire, Elise Virginia - Black Walden: slavery and its aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts
• Lewis, Damien - Agent Josephine: American beauty, French hero, British spy
• Merlis, Brian - Historic Black Brooklyn: 400 years of struggle and hope
• Mosterman, Andrea C. - Spaces of enslavement: a history of slavery and resistance in Dutch New York
• A movement in every direction: a Great Migration critical reader (Jessica Bell Brown, Ryan N. Dennis, eds.)
• Raines, Ben - The last slave ship: the true story of how Clotilda was found, her descendants, and an extraordinary reckoning
• Slavery and the university: histories and legacies (Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell & Alfred L. Brophy, eds.)
• Williams, Kidada E. -  I saw death coming: a history of terror and survival in the war against Reconstruction
• Woo, Ilyon - Master slave husband wife: an epic journey from slavery to freedom

BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS

• Baime, A. J. - White lies: the double life of Walter F. White and America's darkest secret
• Chase-Riboud, Barbara - I always knew: a memoir
• De Veaux, Alexis - Warrior poet: a biography of Audre Lorde
• Drayton, Tiffanie - Black American refugee: escaping the narcissism of the American Dream
• Farah, Boyah J. - America made me a Black man: a memoir
• Green, Tara T. - Love, activism, and the respectable life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson
• Hunter-Gault, Charlayne - My people: five decades of writing about Black lives
• Jarrett, Gene Andrew - Paul Laurence Dunbar: the life and times of a caged bird
• Jefferson, Margo - Constructing a nervous system: a memoir (ebook available)
• Nobles, Gregory H. - The education of Betsey Stockton: an odyssey of slavery and freedom
• Obama, Michelle - The light we carry: overcoming in uncertain times (ebook available)
• Oluseyi, Hakeem M. - A quantum life: my unlikely journey from the street to the stars
• Rappaport, Helen - In search of Mary Seacole: the making of a Black cultural icon and humanitarian
• Shakur, Prince - When they tell you to be good: a memoir
• White, Gayle Jessup - Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a descendant's search for her family's lasting legacy

RACE RELATIONS, CIVIL RIGHTS, PROTEST & ACTIVISM

• Abrams, Dan - Alabama v. King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the criminal trial that launched the Civil Rights Movement
• Alexander, Elizabeth - The Trayvon generation
• Allan, Hawa - Insurrection: rebellion, civil rights, and the paradoxical state of Black citizenship
• Boggs, James - Racism and the class struggle: further pages from a black worker's notebook
• Brown-Nagin, Tomiko - Civil rights queen: Constance Baker Motley and the struggle for equality
• Burnham, Margaret A. - By hands now known: Jim Crow's legal executioners
• Geter, Hafizah - The Black period: on personhood, race, and origin 
• Hayes, Robin J. - Love for liberation: African independence, Black Power, and a diaspora underground
• Henning, Kristin - The rage of innocence: how America criminalizes Black youth
• Joseph, Peniel E. - The third reconstruction: America's struggle for racial justice in the twenty-first century
• Kendi, Ibram X. - How to raise an antiracist
• Mystal, Elie - Allow me to retort: a black guy's guide to the Constitution
• Perrusquia, Marc - A spy in Canaan: how the FBI used a famous photographer to infiltrate the civil rights movement
• Ricks, Thomas E. - Waging a good war: a military history of the civil rights movement, 1954-1968
• Rogers, Steven - A letter to my white friends and colleagues: what you can do right now to help the Black community
• Samuels, Robert - His name is George Floyd: one man's life and the struggle for racial justice
• Steinberg, Stephen - Counterrevolution: the crusade to roll back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement
• Villarosa, Linda - Under the skin: the hidden toll of racism on American lives and the health of our nation

WOMEN'S STUDIES

• Davis, Dána-Ain - Reproductive injustice: racism, pregnancy, and premature birth
• Griffith, Elisabeth - Formidable: American women and the fight for equality, 1920-2020
• hooks, bell - Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism
• hooks, bell- Salvation: Black people and love
• Roberts, Dorothy E. - Killing the black body: race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty
• Shames, Stephen - Comrade sisters: women of the Black Panther party

LITERATURE - CRITICISM, HISTORY & ANTHOLOGIES

• Best, Wallace D. - Langston's salvation: American religion and the bard of Harlem
• Christian, Shawn Anthony - The Harlem Renaissance: and the idea of a New Negro reader
• Douglass, Frederick - Speeches & writings (Library of America, ed.)
• James, Winston - Claude McKay: the making of a Black Bolshevik
• Kenan, Randall - Black folk could fly: selected writings
• Verdelle, A. J. - Miss Chloe: a memoir of a literary friendship with Toni Morrison
• Walker, Alice - Gathering blossoms under fire: the journals of Alice Walker 1965-2000

FINE & PERFORMING ARTS

• Afro-Atlantic histories (Adriano Pedrosa, Tomás Toledo, eds.)
• Als, Hilton - My pinup: a paean to Prince
• Black designers in American fashion (Elizabeth Way, ed.)
• Brathwaite, Kwame - Black is beautful (Deborah Willis; Tanisha C. Ford) (really nice photography book)
• Childress, Alice - Selected plays
• Chilton, Karen - Hazel Scott: the pioneering journey of a jazz pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC
• Copeland, Misty - The wind at my back: resilience, grace, and other gifts from my mentor, Raven Wilkinson (Copeland was the first African-American principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre)
• Davis, Viola - Finding me
• Horowitz, Joseph - Dvořák's prophecy: and the vexed fate of Black classical music
• Hudson, Karen E. - Paul R. Williams: classic Hollywood style
• Jenkins, Earnestine - Black artists in America: from the Great Depression to civil rights
• Just Above Midtown: changing spaces (MoMA; Thomas (T.) Jean Lax and Lilia Rocio, eds.)
• Klaess, John - Breaks in the air: the birth of rap radio in New York City
• Levy, Aidan - Saxophone colossus: the life and music of Sonny Rollins
• Powell, Richard J. - Black art: a cultural history
• Ringgold, Faith - Faith Ringgold: politics power
• Rose, Tricia - Black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary America
• Smokehouse associates (The Studio Museum in Harlem; edited by Eric Booker, ed.)
• The Soul of a nation reader: writings by and about Black American artists, 1960-1980 (Mark Godfrey and Allie Biswas, eds.)
• Spector, Ronnie - Be my baby: a memoir
• Thomas, Alma - Alma W. Thomas: everything is beautiful

HISTORICAL FICTION & NEWLY ACQUIRED OLDER FICTION

• Afia, Nekesa - Harlem sunset (latest in Afia's Harlem Renaissance Mystery series featuring Louise Lloyd; a young Black woman working in a speakeasy gets caught up in a series of murders)
• Anderson, Alston - All God's children (1965 novel by author of the collection Lover Man)
• Bland, Eleanor Taylor - Dead time (acclaimed 1992 mystery in the Marti MacAlister series)
• Chase-Riboud, Barbara - The great Mrs. Elias: a novel (fictional treatment of the life of Hannah Elias, a Black woman who became a millionaire in the early 20th-century)
• Demby, William - Beetlecreek: a novel (acclaimed 1950 novel about race relations in small West Virginia town)
• Henderson, George Wylie - Ollie Miss: a novel (reprint of a 1935 novel set in rural Alabama)
• Himes, Chester B. - The heat's on (Harlem Detetives series w/ Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones; originally published in 1966)
• Huguley, Piper - By her own design: a novel of Ann Lowe, fashion designer to the social register (fictional treatment of the life of Ann Lowe, 1920s-1960s)
• Lapierre, Alexandra - Belle Greene (based on the story of Belle da Costa Greene, librarian to J.P. Morgan)
• Mayr, Suzette - The sleeping car porter (award-winning novel about closeted gay Black man working as a railroad porter set in 1929)
• Morrison, Toni - Recitatif: a story (1983; Morrison's first and only published short story)
• Newson, Rasheed - My government means to kill me (novel about gay activists in 1980s Harlem)
• Perkins-Valdez, Dolen - Take my hand (set in the early 1970s; a nurse with a strong belief in reproductive rights works to help the Black community in rural Alabama)
• Pharr, Robert Deane - The book of numbers (reprint of classic 1969 crime novel set in 1930s Richmond, VA; for fans of Mosley & Himes)
• Phillips, Gary - One-shot Harry (set in Los Angeles, 1963; hard-boiled crime fiction. Protagonist is an African American Korean War veteran and photographer who investigates a murder)
• Pitts, Leonard - Freeman: a novel (2012 historical fiction set during Reconstruction)
• Pitts, Leonard - The last thing you surrender (2019 historical fiction set during WWII)
• Reed, Ishmael - The free-lance pallbearers (Reed's first novel; published in 1967)
• Shades of Black: crime and mystery stories by African-American authors (2004 collection; Eleanor Taylor Bland, ed.)
• Simmons, Herbert - Man walking on eggshells (1962 portrait of a jazz musician praised for its depth and authenticity; by author of cult noir classic, Corner Boy)
• Smith, William Gardner - South Street (1954 novel; author of Stone Face; set in 1950s Philadelphia)
• Wideman, John Edgar - A glance away (debut novel from a giant in American fiction; originally published in 1967)
• Williams, John A. - !Click song (1982 novel; winner of the American Book Award)
• Williams, John A. - One for New York (1975 novel about young Black man working in NYC publishing; author of The Man Who Cried I Am)
• Wright Faladé, David - Black cloud rising: a novel (Black soldiers during the Civil War, featuring real-life real-life sergeant Richard Etheridge & the African Brigade)

CHILDREN'S

• Alexander, Kwame - An American Story 
• Alexander, Kwame - The door of no return (e-audiobook available)
• Barnes, Derrick - The queen of kindergarten
• Bennett, Brit - Meet Claudie
• Bingham, Winsome - Soul food Sunday
• Charles, Tami - We Are Here
• Christmas, Johnnie - Swim team
• Duncan, Alice Faye - Yellow Dog blues
• Eady, Antwan - Nigel and the moon
• Elliott, Zetta - The dragon thief
• Ford, Bernette G. - Uncle John's city garden
• Grimes, Nikki - Playtime for restless rascals
• Henderson, Leah - Daddy speaks love
• Hurston, Zora Neale - Magnolia flower
• Isadora, Rachel - Peekaboo morning
• Johnson, Dinah - H is for Harlem
• Joy, Angela - Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement
• Kincaid-Rolle, Sojourner - Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem
• Pinkney, Andrea Davis - Because of you, John Lewis: the true story of a remarkable friendship
• Reynolds, Jason - Stuntboy, in the meantime (e-audiobook available)
• Roundtree, Dovey Johnson - We wait for the sun
• Tarpley, Natasha Anastasia - The me I choose to be
• Van der Linde, Laurel - Black swans
• Watson, Renée - Ways to grow love
• Woodson, Jacqueline - The year we learned to fly

YOUNG ADULT

• Bayron, Kalynn - This wicked fate
• Charaipotra, Sona & Clayton, Dhonielle - The rumor game
• Clayton, Dhonielle - Whiteout (e-audiobook available)
• Deonn, Tracy - Bloodmarked
• Ireland, Justina - Rust in the root
• Noxon, Christopher - Good trouble: lessons from the civil rights playbook
• Smith, Joy L. - Turning
• Smith, Tommie - Victory. Stand!: raising my fist for justice
• Tirado, Vincent- Burn down, rise up