Biography
King of the Blues
Daniel de Visé
B. B. King’s life connects rural beginnings, touring labor, and the international reach of electric blues.
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138 books
Memoir
Life in Motion
Misty Copeland
Copeland recounts discovering ballet and finding her way through its demanding institutions.
Biography
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
Vashti Harrison
Brief illustrated profiles introduce Black women whose work changed science, arts, and public life.
Biography
Looking for Lorraine
Imani Perry
Perry connects Hansberry’s theatre work with her political thought, private life, and artistic networks.
Drama
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
August Wilson
A recording session brings musicians and industry power into collision as Ma Rainey insists on her terms.
Picture book
Mae Among the Stars
Roda Ahmed
A young Mae Jemison imagines herself in space with encouragement from her family.
Graphic memoir
March: Book One
John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
The first volume traces Lewis’s childhood and the organizing that led to the Nashville lunch-counter sit-ins.
Memoir
Men We Reaped
Jesmyn Ward
Ward links the deaths of five men she knew to the pressures shaping life in her Mississippi community.
Memoir
Miles
Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe
Davis recounts the bands, relationships, and musical changes that shaped his career.
Memoir
Mo' Meta Blues
Questlove, Ben Greenman
A musician and bandleader remembers a life shaped by records, influences, and collaborations.
Biography
Moanin' at Midnight
James Segrest, Mark Hoffman
Howlin’ Wolf’s biography follows his path from Mississippi to the Chicago electric blues scene.
Memoir
Mom & Me & Mom
Maya Angelou
Angelou looks back on the complicated reunion and enduring bond with her mother, Vivian Baxter.
Folklore
Mules and Men
Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston collects folktales and practices from Florida and New Orleans, listening to the people who keep them alive.
Essays
Music Is History
Questlove
Questlove uses records and listening memories to consider how music registers public change.
Memoir
Music Is My Mistress
Duke Ellington
Ellington remembers the musicians, places, and collaborations behind his work as a bandleader.
Memoir
My Bondage and My Freedom
Frederick Douglass
Douglass revisits the details of his enslavement and expands on his life in the abolitionist movement.
Picture book
My People
Langston Hughes
Hughes’s short poem becomes the basis of a photographic celebration of Black faces and lives.
Memoir
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Douglass describes enslavement, his pursuit of literacy, and his emergence as an abolitionist.
Memoir
Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave
William Wells Brown
Brown describes enslavement and escape, illuminating a life that began near Lexington and led into abolitionism.
Graphic novel
New Kid
Jerry Craft
A young cartoonist navigates a new private school and the assumptions classmates and adults make about him.
Memoir
Nina Simone's Gum
Warren Ellis
A small object saved after a Nina Simone performance becomes a meditation on musical memory.
Essays
Notes of a Native Son
James Baldwin
Baldwin brings personal grief and cultural criticism into conversation across these early essays.
Speculative fiction
Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler
Lauren Olamina responds to social collapse by developing a belief system and seeking a community.
Fiction
Passing
Nella Larsen
A reunion between two childhood acquaintances unsettles the social boundaries each has learned to navigate.