The Juneteenth Reading List

Rooted traces the experiences of Brea Baker’s family history of devastating land loss in Kentucky and North Carolina, identifying such violence as the root of persistent inequality in this country. Ultimately, her grandparents’ commitment to Black land ownership resulted in the Bakers Acres — a haven for the family where they are sustained by the land, surrounded by love, and wholly free. A testament to the Black farmers who dreamed of feeding, housing, and tending to their communities, Rooted bears witness to their commitment to freedom and reciprocal care for the land.

A heartwarming and unforgettable collection of love stories set at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, exploring hope, endurance, and what it means to leave a legacy, from some of today’s most prominent Black writers and edited by the acclaimed author of Love Radio.

Discover the sweeping story of how Indigenous, European, and African traditions intertwined to form an entirely new cuisine, with over 90 recipes for the modern home cook — from the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Famer and star of the Netflix docuseries High on the Hog. With recipes ranging from everyday meals to festive spreads, Braided Heritage offers a new, in-depth, delicious look at American culinary history.

The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter — a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

An electrifying collection of poems that tells a universal tale of survival and revolution through the lens of Black femininity. Tara M. Stringfellow embraces complexity, grappling with the sometimes painful, sometimes wonderful way two conflicting things can be true at the same time. How it’s possible to have a strong voice but also feel silenced. To be loyal to things and people that betray us. To burn as hot with rage as we do with love.

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion are shown in a radically new light. James is brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime.

Selina Boyce comes of age in 1940s New York as the daughter of two immigrants from Barbados: A free-spirited father she adores and who dreams of returning to his Caribbean island home, and a disciplined, hardworking mother she admires and who is determined to purchase their Brooklyn brownstone. When her father comes into an unexpected inheritance, Selina is torn between his nostalgia for the past and her mother’s ambition for the future, all while navigating racism, sexuality, Depression-era poverty, and the competing values of African Americans and her West Indian immigrant community.

Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of Black America — and changed American theater forever. The play’s title comes from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” which warns that a dream deferred might “dry up/like a raisin in the sun.”

The most beloved Southern cookbook of all time: A glorious celebration of seasonal eating that has shaped generations of home cooks, from “the first lady of Southern cooking” (NPR). An affirmation of a distinctly American way of eating, fifty years after its publication, The Taste of Country Cooking remains the definitive book on Southern food.

The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell — and the ones we don’t — shape our realities. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world — and our own souls — and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

A powerful new voice, telling the American story through three generations of Black mothers. The Waterbearers is a dazzling and transformative work of American storytelling that reimagines not just how we think of Black women, but how we think of ourselves — as individuals, parents, communities, and a country.

Joy is a weapon, not only for resistance, but also a means for healing — a powerful tool that is all-encompassing and necessary. Black Joy Playbook helps you mine your memories to discover what joy looks and feels like to you and then guides you to recreate it in your present-day life. Reclaim your joy with this beautifully designed and thoughtful playbook from the author of the NAACP Image Award winner Black Joy.

Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born, yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Tiya Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs.

With words that roast, ignite, and burn while connecting to and coalescing around a singular thesis, That’s How They Get You emphasizes how and why Black American humor is uniquely transfixing. This is a mixture of not just observational anxieties and stream-of-consciousness lucidities but also acute political clarity about America. Edited and with an introduction by Damon Young, the critically acclaimed author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, the collection features new material from an all-star roster of contributors, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, Kiese Laymon, Deesha Philyaw, Roy Wood Jr., and Nicola Yoon.

A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present — edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.

In this vulnerable exploration of personal identity, the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants women — and Black women in particular — to do anything but that. For Black women seeking to understand the true roots of their burnout, or for anyone wondering what it means to live joyfully in a hostile world, Full of Myself is a breath of fresh air and an invitation to full humanity.

From 1915 to 1970, the exodus of almost six million people who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life changed the face of America. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the Black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s. A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented and featuring a foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.

The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.

What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work — images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more — to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader.

“Tell me what happened while there’s still time,” demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss’s history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: How did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals? Brilliantly crafted, moving, wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.

A “dramatic [and] ingeniously crafted” (Los Angeles Times) memoir of family, community, and resilience, and an ode to the power of books to help us understand ourselves, from the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl. Gather Me is a glowing testament to how the power of representation in literature can gather the disparate parts that make us who we are and assemble them into a portrait of discovery.

In this stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, Bryant Terry captures the broad and divergent voices of the American Diaspora through the prism of food. With contributions from more than 100 Black cultural luminaries from around the globe, the book moves through chapters exploring parts of the Black experience, from Homeland to Migration, Spirituality to Black Future, offering delicious recipes, moving essays, and arresting artwork. Black Food is a visual and spiritual feast that will satisfy any soul.