Ten Nonfiction Books Written By and About African Americans

Ellen WernerBooks, Inside WITS

Nonfiction books by and about African Americans

In honor of Black History Month, here are ten nonfiction books by and about African Americans, recommended by the WITS staff.

Practice What We Preach

The WITS team encourages RLTA teachers, students, and mentors to form communities of readers, and we practice what we preach! WITS staff members are always talking about books and borrowing books from each other. We even have a small lending library of adult titles so that we can regularly share our favorite books with the whole staff.

Our Staff Favorites

The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotismby Howard Bryant.

“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coats

“Bad Feminist” Roxane Gay

“We are Never Meeting in Real Life” by Samantha Irby

citizen an american lyric“The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation” by Natalie Moore

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

“Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” by Barack Obama

“Becoming” by Michelle Obama

“Citizen: an American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine

“The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South” by Michael W. Twitty