LIST: 10 Memoirs Everyone Should Read for Black History Month
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Solomon Northrop
Professor Kimberly Fain of Texas Southern University has compiled a list of 10 memoirs everyone should read for Black History Month. Fain, who writes about race, gender, and class, is the author of the books African American Literature Anthology: Slavery, Liberation, and Resistance, Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies and Colson Whitehead: The Postracial Voice of Contemporary Literature.
Twelve Years a Slave (1853), Solomon Northrup
Originally published in 1853, this memoir and slave narrative is the story of a free Black man living in upstate New York, earning his living as a violinist and carpenter, who was tricked by two white men, kidnapped, and made a slave in the South. Northrup’s account demonstrates the resilience of a man determined to reunite with his family, bring his kidnappers to justice, and live the rest of his life, once again, as a free Black man.
Colored People: A Memoir (1994), Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Dr. Gates is a legendary Harvard professor, author, and filmmaker who has devoted his career to educating the world about the African Diaspora. In this memoir, he reflects on his own childhood in West Virginia during the 1950s and 1960s. This beautiful account of Gates’s life reflects the richness and strength of Black culture, despite the confines imposed by segregation.
Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995), Barack Obama
As the son of a black African father and white American mother, Obama speaks of a divided inheritance. Dreams From My Father begins when he learns that he has lost his father in an automobile accident. In Obama’s journey of reconciling both his identity and estrangement from his father, the reader witnesses the struggles and strength of a man on his way to becoming America’s first Black president.
Men We Reaped (2013), Jesmyn Ward
Growing up in poor, rural Mississippi, Ward was painfully aware of the hardship of Black life. Through suicide, drugs, and accidents, during a period of five years, she lost five young men close to her. With her powerful words, Ward makes her readers aware that the problematic relationship between racism and poverty accounts for the precarious nature of Black life in America.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014), Bryan Stevenson
In this true coming of age story, Stevenson is an idealistic young attorney fighting to free people who have been wrongly convicted. As a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, he founded the Equal Justice Initiative for the purpose of ending mass incarceration under an unequal legal system. In observing him defending his clients, the reader sees how racism and the criminal justice system affect both the Black family and the quality of life in America.
Prof. Kimberly Fain
Negroland: A Memoir (2016), Margo Jefferson
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jefferson writes of her childhood among Chicago’s Black social elite. Negroland’s upper-crust society dates back to antebellum free blacks, a social stratum in which connections and education were as significant as skin tone and hair texture. Negroland provides an insider’s view into a world in which, despite its social elevation, privilege and discrimination still coexist.
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017), Roxane Gay
New York Times bestselling writer Gay writes this story of the complex relationship between food, bodies, appearance, and health. She examines her life from childhood to adulthood, and evaluates the impact of a terrible act of violence that changed her life forever. With this memoir, Gay tells a story of invisibility in the midst of a society that too often judges a person’s worth based on his or her size.
Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), Kiese Laymon
In this collection of essays, Laymon writes of his upbringing in Jackson, Mississippi, sharing his struggles with anorexia, obesity, sex, and gambling. Eventually, he overcomes many adversities, including a suspension from college, on his road to becoming a college professor.
When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (2018), Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
Black Lives Matter co-founder Khan-Cullors wrote her story with poet Bandele, providing a powerful first-hand account of activism and protest. The leaders of Black Lives Matter have been called “terrorists,” as the title takes note of, but Khan-Cullors has written a memoir of courageous leadership in the midst of one of the most significant movements of this century.
Becoming (2018), Michelle Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, reflects in her bestselling memoir on the events and people that influenced her journey. Following her life from her career as an attorney, to her early relationship with her husband, to her commitment to young women and girls’ social causes while living in the White House, the reader gains insight from examining a life amazingly well-lived.
