African American biographies and memoirs are critical components of our history lessons. In my book A PLACE TO BELONG, I write, “Biographies help us explore specific people’s concrete comings and goings as we glance inside the thoughts of well-known leaders and everyday people. This is an accessible way to add incredible amounts of diversity. You can dial up or down any voices based on what your children need to hear more of.” Be sure to check out the video at the bottom for a peek inside each of these book recommendations.
A note about age recommendations: I hesitate to add ages to some of these books because many of them are quite interchangeable, but I’ll go ahead and let you know who I’ve chosen each book for in case it helps you plan. Older students can definitely enjoy the selections that I’m assigning to my younger students, and the younger ones can slide up if the density of the text works for their reading level (or if you’re reading it aloud). Consideration should also be given to maturity due to the nature of the tough content in some cases.
Please note: I’ve shared about the 1900s in a previous post, and you can find additional biography options pictured there: Infusing Black History into a Traditional Charlotte Mason Homeschool
Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.
Carter G. Woodson
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African American Biographies and Memoirs
Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace by Ashley Bryan – From celebrated author and illustrator Ashley Bryan comes a deeply moving picture book memoir about serving in the segregated army during World War II, and how love and the pursuit of art sustained him. (10 year old)
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman – Drawing on Anderson’s own writings and other contemporary accounts, readers meet a singer who pursued her art despite the social constraints that limited the careers of black performers in the 1920s and 1930s. Anderson gave her landmark 1939 performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which signaled the end of segregation in the arts. (10 and 12-year-olds)
Langston Hughes by Milton Meltzer – This illustrated large-format chapter book tells the story of a leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s who devoted his life to writing about the Black experience in America. Meltzer knew Langston Hughes personally, as he co-authored Meltzer’s first book, A Pictorial History of the Negro American. (12-year-old)
This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce – SJ – In 1956, one year before federal troops escorted the Little Rock 9 into Central High School, fourteen-year-old Jo Ann Allen was one of twelve African-American students who broke the color barrier and integrated Clinton High School in Tennessee. This is the heartbreaking and relatable story of her four months thrust into the national spotlight. (12-year-old)
Just Mercy: A True Story of the Fight for Justice (Adapted for Young Adults) by Bryan Stevenson – Acclaimed lawyer and social justice advocate Bryan Stevenson offers a glimpse into the lives of the wrongfully imprisoned and his efforts to fight for their freedom. Stevenson’s story is one of working to protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society–the poor, the wrongly convicted, and those whose lives have been marked by discrimination and marginalization. (12 and 14-year-olds) Here is a wonderful Just Mercy Discussion Guide that can help you go through this book with your child(ren). My husband and I previewed the entire Just Mercy movie, and we’re going to watch it again with our two oldest kids once they finish reading it. Please preview and decide what’s best for your family.
Augusta Savage: The Shape of a Sculptor’s Life by Marilyn Nelson (wrote Carver) – A powerful biography in poems about a trailblazing artist and a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance. Augusta Savage was a gifted sculptor and arguably the most influential American artist of the 1930s. This is the same author as Carver: A Life in Poems, the biography-in-verse that I recommended in the 1800s booklist. We loved that book, and I’m excited for my daughter to read this one. (14-year-old)
How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson – Looking back on her childhood in the 1950s, Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Marilyn Nelson tells the story of her development as an artist and young woman through fifty eye-opening poems. Readers are given an intimate portrait of her growing self-awareness and artistic inspiration along with a larger view of the world around her: racial tensions, the Cold War era, and the first stirrings of the feminist movement. Did you notice that she authored the Augusta Savage book above? I think it will be intriguing to read her work and then read about her artistic life. My creative artist daughter is going to eat this up. (14-year-old)
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black by Lorraine Hansberry – NJ – Assembled from plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, this memoir records the passionate engagement and spectacular accomplishment of the playwright of A Raisin in the Sun. It follows Lorraine Hansberry from her childhood in Chicago (where her family encountered vicious resistance when it moved into a white neighborhood), through her arrival in New York, where the triumph of A Raisin in the Sun made her famous virtually overnight, to her death at the tragically early age of thirty-four. I’m especially excited about this book because I took my daughters to see A Raisin in the Sun a few months ago after my oldest read the play. (14-year-old)
Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America by Sharon Robinson – A warm, intimate portrait of Jackie Robinson, America’s sports icon, told from the unique perspective of a unique insider: his only daughter. Sharon Robinson shares memories of her famous father in this warm loving biography of the man who broke the color barrier in baseball. Jackie Robinson was an outstanding athlete, a devoted family man, and a dedicated civil rights activist. (10-year-old)
The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks – GRAPHIC NOVEL – This is the riveting story of a highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment. In 1919, the 369th infantry regiment marched home triumphantly from World War I. They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations. Though they returned as heroes, this African American unit faced tremendous discrimination, even from their own government. (10-year-old) [This book frequently uses profanity with replaced letters like “s*@t.”]
The Black Panther Party by David F. Walker – GRAPHIC NOVEL – Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political organization that stood in defiant contrast to the mainstream civil rights movement. This gripping illustrated history explores the impact and significance of the Panthers, from their social, educational, and healthcare programs that were designed to uplift the Black community to their battle against police brutality through citizen patrols and frequent clashes with the FBI, which targeted the Party from its outset. (10, 12, and 14-year-olds)
March (Trilogy) by John Lewis – GRAPHIC NOVEL – March is a vivid first-hand account of Congressman John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book 2 and Book 3 are not pictured above, but they’ll read the entire trilogy (10, 12, and 14-year-olds)
An Inside Peek
How is it even possible that NONE of these African American biographies and memoirs have the “Look Inside” option on Amazon? I feel like pulling my hair out! Here is a bare bones video of me showing the inside of each book. It’s purely utilitarian, so don’t bother watching it unless you want to see the inside of one or more books.
You can find me on Instagram @heritagemomblog. I hope to see you there!
These recommendations are so helpful, thank you!! I’m excited to swap many of these in for my kids next year (similar ages, same time period). Your work is so valuable and appreciated!!
Wonderful! It’s fun to be in the same time period with so many families. It makes sharing ideas so easy.
We have the March graphic novel and some other books on the same people that you have here, but man, these ones look so good! (Just use books we have, just use books we have….)
I was thinking about doing Just Mercy with our older ones this year. We have it but haven’t read it yet, but my husband and I watched the movie a few years ago. I still remember that feeling afterwards of just being so sad and broken for the injustice, and though it’s a hard one to watch, I think it would be beneficial to watch with our kids as well.
There’s something incredibly sobering and jolting about watching and reading about atrocities and injustices that took place not very long ago.
(That isn’t to say that the injustices and atrocities from other, more “long ago” time periods are any less so, of course, just that sometimes the realization of how not long ago some of these things happened – and are still happening today in some form or another – is just a jolt.)
p.s. You may have figured this out already, but Amazon very annoyingly changed the way they do sample pages now, and you have to scroll down just a tiny bit and click on the “Read Sample” button underneath the book now. It’s really quite irritating and makes no sense, but if you do that, most of the books have sample pages of them, though a few don’t.