African American History Reading List

  1. The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landownership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929 by David A. Chang
  2. Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
  3. American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow by Jerrold M. Packard
  4. Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
  5. Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement by Kevin M. Kruse (Editor), Stephen Tuck (Editor)
  6. Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived It by Herb Boyd
  7. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans by Albert J. Raboteau
  8. Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present by Nell Irvin Painter
  9. African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness by Milton C. Sernett
  10. Major Problems in African American History, Vol. 1: 1619-1877 by Thomas C. Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown
  11. Major Problems in African American History, Vol. 2: 1865-1990s by Thomas C. Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown
  12. African American Urban History since World War II by Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter
  13. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom by Heather Andrea Williams
  14. The African American Experience during World War II by Neil A. Wynn
  15. The New Negro : Voices of the Harlem Renaissance by Alain Locke (Editor)
  16. The Harlem Renaissance: A Brief History With Documents by Jeffrey B. Ferguson
  17. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 by Grace Elizabeth Hale
  18. Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low by C. Riley Snorton
  19. Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008 by Henry Louis Gates
  20. The Shaping of Black America: The Struggles and Triumphs of African-Americans, 1619-1990s by Lerone Bennett
  21. The African-American Atlas: Black History and Culture–An Illustrated Reference by Mark T. Mattson and Molefi K. Asante
  22. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 by Juan Williams and Julian Bond
  23. Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift by Jacqueline M. Moore
  24. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents by David Howard-Pitney
  25. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade by Harvard Sitkoff
  26. King: A Biography by David Levering Lewis
  27. Martin Luther King Jr. (3 volumes) by Taylor Branch
  28. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
  29. The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
  30. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
  31. Frederick Douglass by William S. McFeely
  32. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights by Robin Bernstein
  33. The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms by James E. Westheider
  34. The Black West: A Documentary and Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States by William Katz
  35. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
  36. Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930 by Koritha Mitchell
  37. Enjoy the Same Liberty: Black Americans and the Revolutionary Era by Edward Countryman
  38. Those Pullman Blues: An Oral History of the African-American Railroad Attendant by David Perata
  39. Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970 by Luther Adams
  40. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster
  41. Loyalty in Time of Trial: The African American Experience During World War I by Nina Mjagkij
  42. Soul Patrol by Ed Emanuel
  43. Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph
  44. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
  45. To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans to 1880 by Robin D. G. Kelley (Editor), Earl Lewis (Editor)
  46. Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, And The Black Working Class by Robin Kelley
  47. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
  48. The Strange Career of Jim Crow C. Vann Woodward
  49. Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream by Christina M. Greer
  50. Afro-Caribbean Immigrants and the Politics of Incorporation: Ethnicity, Exception, or Exit by Reuel R. Rogers
  51. Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin
  52. The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald Yacovone
  53. The Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya
  54. Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing by Deirdre Mullane (Editor)
  55. Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing by Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr.
  56. Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
  57. African-American Art by Sharon F. Patton
  58. Women’s Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: by Kathryn Kish Sklar
  59. Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White
  60. The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South by Catherine Clinton
  61. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
  62. The Souls of White Folk: African American Writers Theorize Whiteness by Veronica T. Watson
  63. Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
  64. A Shining Thread of Hope by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson
  65. Faith in Their Own Color: Black Episcopalians in Antebellum New York City by Craig D. Townsend
  66. Crafting Lives: African American Artisans in New Bern, North Carolina, 1770-1900 by Catherine W. Bishir
  67. Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920 by Gerald Horne
  68. L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present by Josh Sides
  69. African Americans in Los Angeles by Karin L. Stanford – California State University Northridge Institute for Arts and Media
  70. The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre by Harvey Young
  71. Black Unionism in the Industrial South by Ernest Obadele-Starks
  72. Other Reading Lists and Bibliographies
  73. Readings in African American History – Rutgers University
  74. Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade – Rutgers University

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES SUGGESTED READING

  1. The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies – by Betty Wood
  2. American Slavery, American Freedom. by Edmund Morgan
  3. The Slave Ship. by Marcus Rediker
  4. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack
  5. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
  6. Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph 
  7. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa. by Stephanie Smallwood
  8. Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802 by Douglas R. Egerton
  9. Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790-1860 by Richard Newman and Patrick Rael
  10. Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire by Abigail L. Swingen
  11. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean by Herbert S. Klein and Ben Vinson
  12. Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807 by Gregory E. O’Malley
  13. Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands by James F. Brooks
  14. The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 by Alan Gallay
  15. White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh
  16. European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850 by Richard B. Allen
  17. The Underground Railroad: Authentic Narratives and First-Hand Accounts by William Still and Ian Finseth
  18. New Studies in the History of American Slavery by Edward E. Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp
  19. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 by John Thornton
  20. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin
  21. Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740 by Anthony S. Parent Jr.
  22. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 by Allan Kulikoff
  23. Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 by Betty Wood
  24. Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America by Peter H. Wood
  25. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
  26. In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
  27. Bringers of War: The Portugese in Africa during the Age of Gunpowder & Sail from the 15th to 18th Century by John Laband
  28. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 by Hugh Thomas
  29. Transformations in Slavery by Paul Lovejoy
  30. The Diligent: Worlds Of The Slave Trade by Robert Harms
  31. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 by Richard S. Dunn
  32. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster
  33. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism By Edward E. Baptist
  34. Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia by Daina Berry
  35. Traces Of A Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women by Jaqueline Jones Royster
  36. Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 By James Oakes
  37. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery By Eric Foner
  38. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World By David Brion Davis
  39. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II By Douglas A. Blackmon
  40. Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America By Evan Carton
  41. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 By Alan Taylor
  42. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
  43. Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers By James F. Simon
  44. Border War: Fighting Over Slavery Before the Civil War By Stanley Harrold
  45. Women’s Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: by Kathryn Kish Sklar
  46. The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom By Marcus Rediker
  47. Slavery and Frontier Mississippi, 1720-1835 By David J. Libby
  48. Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner
  49. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom: A Comprehensive History by Wilbur H. Siebert
  50. Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification by David Waldstreicher
  51. The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War by Michael F. Holt
  52. The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina by Manisha Sinha
  53. Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
  54. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr.
  55. Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities by Craig Steven Wilder
  56. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Narrative by Mary Prince
  57. An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821–1865 by Randolph B. Campbell
  58. Gleanings of Freedom: Free and Slave Labor along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860 by Max Grivno
  59. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
  60. Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830-1870 by Dana Elizabeth Weiner
  61. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South by Albert J. Raboteau
  62. African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness by Milton C. Sernett
  63. The Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya
  64. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans by Albert J. Raboteau
  65. Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History by Milton C. Sernett
  66. Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion by Larry Murphy
  67. The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828-1856 by William J. Cooper
  68. Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World by Michael Guasco
  69. River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom by Walter Johnson
  70. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
  71. Freedom’s Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672-1752 by William A. Pettigrew
  72. Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854 by Jonathan H. Earle
  73. Where the Negroes Are Masters: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade by Randy J. Sparks
  74. A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic by Simon P. Newman
  75. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar
  76. Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War 1862-1865 by Noah Andre Trudeau
  77. The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 by Dudley Taylor Cornish
  78. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs
  79. A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
  80. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson
  81. The Negro’s Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union by James M. McPherson
  82. Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867 by William A. Dobak
  83. Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era by John David Smith
  84. In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
  85. Caribbean Exchanges: Slavery and the Transformation of English Society, 1640-1700 by Susan Dwyer Amussen
  86. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean by Herbert S. Klein and Ben Vinson
  87. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States by Laird Bergad
  88. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century by Barbara Jeanne Fields
  89. More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas by David Barry Gaspar (Editor), Darlene Clark Hine (Editor)
  90. Freedom’s Soldiers: The Black Military Experience in the Civil War by Ira Berlin, Joseph Patrick Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland

OTHER READING LISTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES