Since 2002, the mission of Center for Black Literature has been—and continues still—to expand, broaden, and enrich the public’s knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the value of Black literature. In keeping with its mission, the staff at CBL began compiling a reading list of titles that we and our colleagues turn to for fortitude, inspiration, and uplift. These titles provide impactful narratives that reflect the rich, wide ranging literary genres in which Black writers use their voices to express their experiences and to center on the political and social consciousness that represents varied Black experiences, in America, the Caribbean, and abroad.

PLEASE NOTE: The Center’s listing only scratches the surface of an ever-growing literary landscape of Black writers; thus, we invite recommendations from our colleagues, friends, and supporters. Kindly feel free to send your recommendations and suggestions for consideration to us at info@centerforblackliterature.org. For information on some of these and additional titles, please visit the African American Literature Book Club at AALBC.com.

Nonfiction

1. Black on Black: On our Resilience and Brilliance in America-A Collection of Essays on Black Resilience and Survival, 2023 
2. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot, 2023 
3. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi, 2021 
4. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith, 2021 
5. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones, 2021 
6. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., 2020 
7. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon, 2020 
8. A Promised Land by Barack Obama, 2020 
9. Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad, 2020 
10. My Vanishing Country: A Memoir by Bakari Sellers, 2020 
11. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, 2020 
12. The Black Book with Forward and Preface by Toni Morrison by Middleton Harris, with Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith, 2019 (1974) 
13. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, 2019 
14. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison, 2019 
15. We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989 by Joshua M. Myers, 2019 
16. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, 2019 
17. Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry, 2019 
18. What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues by Clifford Thompson, 2019 
19. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, 2018 
20. Becoming by Michele Obama, 2018 
21. Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry, 2018 
22. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr., 2017 
23. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, 2016 
24. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson, 2016 
25. Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., 2016 
26. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi, 2016 
27. Born a Crime: Stories of a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, 2016 
28. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, 2016 
29. Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader by Greg Tate, 2016 
30. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, 2016 
31. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015 
32. Pre-Post-Racial America: Spiritual Stories from the Front Lines by Sandhya Rani Jha, 2015 
33. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, 2014 
34. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, 2013 
35. The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues by Angela Y. Davis and Robin D. G. Kelley, 2012 
36. Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change by John Lewis, 2012 
37. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, 2010 
38. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, 2010 
39. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010 
40. Open Letters to America: Essays by Kevin Powell, 2009 
41. The Souls of Black Folk: Introduction by John Edgar Wideman by W. E. B. Du Bois, Library of America, 2009 
42. Be a Father to Your Child: Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love, and Fatherhood, edited by April R. Silver, 2008 
43. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series) by Audre Lorde and Cheryl Clarke, 2007 
44. We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker, 2006 
45. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, 2005 (1963) 
46. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life As a Hip-Hop Feminist by Joan Morgan, 1999 
47. James Baldwin: Collected Essays by James Baldwin, Library of America, 1998 
48. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison, 1992 
49. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown, 1993 
50. Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks, 1981

Fiction

1. Youngblood (1954); And Then We Heard the Thunder (1962); Sippi (1967); Slaves (1969); The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd (1971); A Man Ain't Nothin' But a Man: The Adventures of John Henry (1975); The Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin (1989); The Minister Primarily (2021), posthumously published novel -- all by JOHN OLIVER KILLENS
2. Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver, 2024 
3. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, 2022 
4. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, 2022 
5. My Monticello: Fiction by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, 2021 
6. You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981–2018 by John Edgar Wideman, 2021 
7. Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson, 2021 
8. Passing by Nella Larsen, 2021 (1929) 
9. The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright, Library of America, 2021 
10. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, 2020 
11. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories by Octavia E. Butler, Library of America, 2020 
12. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2019 
13. Ann Petry: The Street, The Narrows, Edited by Farah Jasmine Griffin, Library of America, 2019 
14. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, 2019 
15. The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, 2019 
16. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, 2018 
17. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, 2018 
18. The Wide Circumference of Love by Marita Golden, 2017 
19. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, 2017 
20. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, 2017 
21. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, 2016 
22. The Sellout by Paul Beatty, 2015 
23. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, 2013 (1974) 
24. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, 2013 
25. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2013 
26. Perfect Peace by Daniel Black, 2011 
27. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, 2010 
28. The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips, 2004 
29. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. 1970 
30. Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall, 1959 
31. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952 
32. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, 1937 
33. The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, 1934 
34. There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset, 1924

Poetry

1. Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove, 2021 
2. The Tradition by Jericho Brown, 2020 
3. Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts by Nikky Finney, 2020 
4. We Want Our Black Bodies: Poems by jessica Care moore, 2020 
5. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes, 2018 
6. Voyage of the Sable Venus: And Other Poems by Robin Coste Lewis, 2017 
7. Olio by Tyehimba Jess, 2016 
8. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay, 2015 
9. The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, 2015 (reprint) 
10. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, 2014 
11. SOS: Poems, 1961-2013 by Amiri Baraka, 2014 
12. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965–2010 by Kevin Young and Michael Glaser, 2012 
13. Holding Company: Poems by Major Jackson, 2012 
14. Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney, 2011 
15. Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith, 2011 
16. Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Elizabeth Alexander, 2010 
17. Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, 2006 
18. The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1968-1998, 2003 
19. Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems by Sonia Sanchez, 2000 
20. Does Your House Have Lions? by Sonia Sanchez, 1997 
21. The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown by Sterling A. Brown, edited by Michael Harper, 1996 
22. The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, 1994 
23. Annie Allen: Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, 1949

Teen and Young Adult 

1. The Color of a Lie by Kim Johnson, 2024 
2. The Unboxing of a Black Girl by Angela Shante, 2024 
3. What She Missed by Liara Tamani, 2023 
4. Love Radio by Eboni LaDelle, 2022 
5. We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds, 2022 
6. A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia, 2021 
7. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, 2020 
8. Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America by Dhonielle Clayton, Ibi Zoboi, Coe Booth, Tracey Baptiste, Brandy Colbert, 2019 
9. Just Mercy (Adopeted for Young Adult): A True Story of the Fight for Justice, by Bryan Stevenson, 2018 
10. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Amandla Stenberg, 2017 
11. Dear Martin by Nic Stone, 2017 
12. Monster by Walter Dean Meyers, 2009

Children and Middle Grade 

1. Operation Sisterhood by Ougbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich 
2. Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice by Mahogany L. Brown, Elizabeth Acevedo, Olivia Gatewood, Theodore Taylor III, and Jason Reynolds, 2020 
3. Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, 2019 
4. The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watkins, 2021 
5. Virginia Hamilton: Five Novels, Library of America, 2021 
6. One Crazy Summer (2010);  
7. My life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi, 2019 
8. Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o and Vashti Harrison, 2019 
9. Mid-Air by Alicia D. Williams, 2024 
10. A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramee, 2019 
11. New Kid by Jerry Craft, 2019 
12. All the Blues in the Sky by Renee Watkins, 2025 
13. Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson, 2007 
14. Cornrows by Camille Yarbrough, 1979 
15. The Shimmershine Queens by Camille Yarbrough, 1996 

Works by Past Conference Participants 

1. Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray, 2025 
2. Daughters of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope, 2024 
3. Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John by Lesa Cline-Ransome, 2024 
4. Boy 2.0 by Tracey Baptiste, 2024 
5. Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi, 2923 
6. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, 2023 
7. Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker, 2023 
8. The Talk by Alicia D. Williams, 2022 
9. The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson, 2022 
10. Shallow Waters by Anita Kopacz, 2021 
11. Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature by Farah Jasmine Griffin, 2021 
12. 2020: The Year That Changed America, edited by Kevin Powell's Writing Workshop, 2021 
13. The Matter of Black Lives: Writings from The New Yorker, edited by Jelani Cobb and David Remnick, 2021   
14. She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power – 1619 to 1969 by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, 2020 
15. She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore, 2018 
16. Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia, 2017 
17. Black Detroit: A People's History of Self-Determination by Herb Boyd, 2017 
18. I Am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina, 2017 
19. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, 2016 
20. Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat, 2011 
21. SOS—Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader by John H. Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, and James Smethurst, 2014 
22. Another Brooklyn: A Novel by Jacqueline Woodson, 2016 
23. Stand Your Ground by Victoria Christopher Murray, 2015 
24. Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden, 2012

Works by Board Members and Staff of CBL 

1. Confessions in B-Flat by Donna Hill, 2020 
2. The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas by Brenda M. Greene, 2010 
3. Meditations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing by Brenda M. Greene, 2008