top of page
Search

Lexual's Library: Black History

Updated: 1 day ago

Happy Black History Month! Here are some of my absolute favorite reads that have informed my ongoing work on Black History. There are hundreds more sources on my Patreon, but these 52 selections are a good place to start your research on Black History (or supplement it).



A History of Black Parties



Black Life In The 70s





Black Life In The 80s




A History of Black Style




A History of Black Food



Black Life In the 90s




Selling fast
Lexual Does The 90s Deluxe Set
From$45.00
Buy Now


A Black History of Pimp Culture





A Black Women’s History of Hoodoo, Conjure, & Witchcraft





Primary Sources and Encyclopedias



  1. The Black Book is an artistic collection of primary sources that tells the story of Black America from the 17th century to the 1940s. It contains enslaved documents, newspaper articles, song lyrics, photography, and more.


  2. The African-American Archive: The History of the Black Experience Through Documents (Edited by Kai Wright) is a thiiick encyclopedia of primary sources that has speeches, newspaper articles, letters, and song lyrics from Negro Spirituals to Blues to Hip Hop. I love this book because of how organized and thorough it is. There are approximately 300 sources, including those from Fannie Lou Hamer, Bobby Seale, Elizabeth Keckley, and Michelle Wallace. There are also explanatory introduction notes for each entry.


  3. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (Edited by Gerna Lerner) contains a wealth of words by Black American women on their circumstances from the 1800s to 1971. It's organized by theme, like Slavery, Teaching The Freedmen, Woman's Lot: Black Women Are Sex Objects for White Men, Survival Is A Form of Resistance, Making a Living, and Black Women Speak on Womanhood. While there are helpful biographies of well-known subjects, there are also documents from regular Black women as well, making it richer in detail.


  4. Harlem On My Mind - Cultural Capital Of Black America, 1900-1968 (Edited by Allon Schoener) is a rare but fascinating look at Harlem's contributions to Pop Culture, it's politics, and ripple effects on Black America at large. It includes photos and news articles in a pleasing format, capturing Alle.n Schoener's intent to reach a wider audience with aesthetic history. I was lucky enough to find this at a thrift bookstore for $3!


  5. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History (Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart) is a fascinating and easy-to-understand Black History Bible! It features short entries on important people, events, and inventions, complete with healthy doses of photos and art. It's great for any age, but if you want to get a younger person into Black History, this is a cool place to start.


  6. Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-first Century (Monique Couvson) used data and number-crunching to capture the realities and complexities of Black Americans in the 2000s and early 2010s by focusing on crucial aspects of identity like class, region, religion, sexuality, and more.


General History Texts


  1. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas (Ibram X. Kendi) in America exposes how racist ideas about Black people have been woven into the fabric of America. It is part-biography, as Kendi explores the lives of figures like Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, and Angela Davis.


  2. Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class (Lawrence Otis Graham) is a lush expose on the lives, prejudices, and power structure of the Black elite. It also dives into their regional divisions and examines the fragile nuances between the Black elite and their white peers (and their Black brethren).


  3. The Warmth of Other Suns (Isabel Wilkerson) is a narrative history of the everyday people who left the South during The Great Migration. Wilkerson's wealth of interviews really showcased the precarious line between 'luck' and 'misfortune' that awaited every migrant. Would they find good jobs? Housing? Classism? Misery? Opportunity? I love all the juicy tidbits about food and style.


  4. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (Edward E. Baptist) tells the story of how American capitalism was built on the chattel enslavement of Black people and how they resisted every step of the way. White people broke laws to keep slavery, they built towns and legacies with slavery, and they established longstanding business practices with the guidance of slavery.


  5. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Khalil Gibran Muhammad) explains how Black Americans have been turned into the face of crime because of exploitative journalism, inflated crime statistics, and Law and Order dog whistle politics.


  6. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America – A History of the Struggle for Suffrage and Civil Rights (Paula Giddings) lays out how Black American women have experienced misogynoir in political and social circles and highlights little-known events and Black women who resisted white supremacy by becoming community leaders. Nobody can read this and argue that Black women have not always been conscious shapers of their political identities.

Comments

bottom of page