The Best Black History Books of 2020
We asked editors and bloggers of Black Perspectives to select the best books published in 2020 on Black History, and they delivered! Check out this extraordinary list of great books from 2020 that offer varied historical perspectives on the Black experience in the United States and across the globe. From books on slavery in the Atlantic and Tacky’s Revolt to works on marriage, Malcolm X, Afro-German women, Ebony Magazine, and Hollywood, the diverse selections included in this list will enhance your reading list for the new year, and deepen your understanding of Black people’s ideas and experiences in every part of the globe.
- Ana Lucia Araujo, Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past (Bloomsbury)
- Erica Ball, Terri L. Snyder, and Tatiana Seijas, eds., As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas (Cambridge University Press)
- Alice Baumgartner, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War (Basic Books)
- Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross, A Black Women’s History of the United States (Beacon Press)
- Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Harvard University Press)
- Marcia Chatelain, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America (Liveright)
- Le’Trice D. Donaldson, Duty Beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870-1920 (Southern Illinois University Press)
- Erika Edwards, Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic (University of Alabama Press)
- Tiffany Florvil, Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement (University of Illinois Press)
- Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons For Our Own (Penguin Random House)
- Thavolia Glymph, The Women’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation (University of North Carolina Press)
- Justin Gomer, White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights (University of North Carolina Press)
- Aneeka Henderson, Veil and Vow: Marriage Matters in Contemporary African American Culture (University of North Carolina Press)
- Libra R. Hilde, Slavery, Fatherhood, and Paternal Duty in African American Communities Over the Long Nineteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press)
- Jessica Marie Johnson, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press)
- Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (Basic Books)
- Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel, Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020)
- Koritha Mitchell, From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture (University of Illinois Press)
- Robin Mitchell, Venus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (University of Georgia Press)
- Alison M. Parker, Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (University of North Carolina Press)
- Tyler D. Parry, Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual (University of North Carolina Press)
- Les Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X (W.W. Norton)
- Quito J. Swan, Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice (University of Florida Press)
- Candacy A. Taylor, Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (Abrams Books)
- David A. Varel, The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick’s Crusade for Black History and Black Power (University of North Carolina Press)
- E. James West, Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (University of Illinois Press)
- Frank B. Wilderson, III, Afropessimism (Liveright)