Memoir
The Big Sea
Langston Hughes
Hughes remembers childhood, travel, and the artists and arguments around the Harlem Renaissance.
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Search the shelves by title, writer, subject, period, or connection to the Lyric.
138 books
Fiction
The Birds of Opulence
Crystal Wilkinson
Generations of women in a Kentucky community live with losses and knowledge that are carried through families.
History
The Black Arts Movement
James Edward Smethurst
A study of the Black Arts Movement examines regional networks and the connection between artistic practice and political action.
Fiction
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
Pecola Breedlove’s longing for blue eyes makes a community’s hierarchies painfully visible.
Music history
The Chitlin' Circuit
Preston Lauterbach
Lauterbach follows the promoters, musicians, and venues that sustained Black touring circuits.
Poetry
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
An expansive collection follows Hughes across vernacular forms, music, and political imagination.
Fiction
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
Celie’s letters trace a life altered by sisterhood, creativity, and independence.
Poetry
The Crossover
Kwame Alexander
A novel in verse follows brothers whose closeness is tested on and off the basketball court.
Picture book
The Day You Begin
Jacqueline Woodson
Children find ways to speak about their differences and begin making connections in a classroom.
Picture book
The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes
Julia Finley Mosca
A picture-book biography follows physician and inventor Patricia Bath and her work in eye care.
History
The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935
James D. Anderson
A study of who built, financed, and contested Black education across the post-emancipation South.
Speculative fiction
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
In a world of recurring geological catastrophe, people who can control the earth face relentless persecution.
Essays
The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin
Two essays examine faith, racial power, and the obligations Americans owe one another.
Music history
The Gospel Sound
Anthony Heilbut
The history of gospel performance follows singers and ensembles from church settings to the road.
Essays
The Ground on Which I Stand
August Wilson
Wilson considers artistic control and the institutional conditions Black theatre needs to flourish.
History
The Half Has Never Been Told
Edward E. Baptist
A study of slavery’s expansion and the role coerced labor played in American economic growth.
Memoir
The Heart of a Woman
Maya Angelou
Angelou recalls work in the arts and civil rights organizing while raising her son.
Music history
The History of the Blues
Francis Davis
A critical history moves among regional blues scenes, recordings, and debates over musical authenticity.
Biography
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
The story of HeLa cells follows the collision of biomedical research, consent, and one family’s search for answers.
Reference
The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia
Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, John A. Hardin
A reference work brings together people, institutions, and events in Black Kentucky history.
Essays
The Mis-Education of the Negro
Carter G. Woodson
Woodson asks what schooling teaches Black students to believe about themselves and their history.
Fiction
The Mothers
Brit Bennett
A Southern California church community looks back on the choices and relationships that bound three young people together.
History
The Negro in the Making of America
Benjamin Quarles
Quarles traces African American participation in the making of American political and social institutions.
History
The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander
Alexander traces the legal and political machinery of mass incarceration and its consequences after sentencing.