AALBC Update: I’m upgrading our website—please pardon any minor “bumps” along the way.

395 Books in the BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / African American & Black Category

View as List

Echoes of Cabrini-Green: Letters to My Mother The Microphone Journeyman: The Journey Continues Everybody’s Fly: A Life of Art, Music, and Changing the Culture We Deserve to Heal: Black Women on the Perils and Promises of Friendship with White Women Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love Too Precious to Lose: A Memoir of Family, Community, and Possibility The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family Never Can Say Goodbye: The Life of a Death Doula and the Art of a Peaceful End Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America How We Heal: A Journey Toward Truth, Racial Healing, and Community Transformation from the Inside Out The Flower Bearers Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much How I Know White People are Crazy and Other Stories: Notes from a Frustrated Black Psychologist Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life Finding Home: A Memoir Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore A Golden Legacy: Faith, Family, and a Life of Purpose—A Memoir My Pisces Heart: A Black Immigrant’s Search for Home Across Four Continents Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power Let Me Be Real with You: Inspiring Lessons on Living a Life of Service Tenderheaded: A Memoir Andre Leon Talley: Grand Gestures How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons Waterbearers: My Mother, My Grandmother, and the Women Who Carried Me A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America Nobody Can Give You Freedom: The Political Life of Malcolm X Full of Myself: Black Womanhood and the Journey to Self-Possession Baldwin: A Love Story Mounted: On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation Augustine the African Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler And Then Came the Blues: My Story of Survival on Both Sides of the Badge The Broken King Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence Punished for Dreaming (paperback): How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal Between the World and Me (paperback) Memoirs of Robert and Mabel Williams: African American Freedom, Armed Resistance, and International Solidarity Black Capitalists: A Blueprint for What Is Possible My Father’s House: An Ode to America’s Longest-Serving Black Congressman This Leaves Me Okay: Race, Legacy, and Letters From My Grandmother Veracity and Verse: A Preacher’s Reflections and Poems on Faith and Truth Matriarch: A Memoir Get Honest or Die Lying (paperback): Why Small Talk Sucks How Black History Can Save Your Life: From the Talk to George Floyd, Everything You Need to Know to Deescalate a Racist Situation Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir Firstborn Girls: A Memoir Who Better Than You?: The Art of Healthy Arrogance & Dreaming Big Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History How to Become a Black Writer: Creating and Honoring Black Stories That Matter (the Power of Black Stories, Inspiration for Black Storytellers) The Pretty Victory: 100-Day Guide to Recenter Yourself and Find Your Purpose Mainline Mama: A Memoir When You’re Ready: A Love Story Fearless and Free: A Memoir Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry with the Golden Rule, from Soul Train to Wall Street Harriet Tubman: Military Scout and Tenacious Visionary: From Her Roots in Ghana to Her Legacy on the Eastern Shore Pure Innocent Fun: Essays My Bully, My Aunt, and Her Final Gift Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging Legacy (paperback): A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine Son of Birmingham: A Memoir The Promise of Language: A Memoir Make Your Own History: Timeless Truths from Black American Trailblazers Growing Up Urkel Justice for Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative Stand in My Window: Meditations on Home and How We Make It The Chronicles of Doom: Unraveling Rap’s Masked Iconoclast Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me By God’s Grace Where the Black Designers Are: A Life in Advocacy Our South: Black Food Through My Lens The Book of (More) Delights: Essays Inciting Joy: Essays Jessica Huntley’s Pan-African Life: The Decolonizing Work of a Radical Black Activist The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America Salvage: Readings from the Wreck The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi The Road Is Good: How a Mother’s Strength Became a Daughter’s Purpose Remember, You Are a Wiley Rage: On Being Queer, Black, Brilliant … and Completely Over It Angel of War: Spiritual Recollections of an Insurrectionist, Osborne Perry Anderson Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System—And Pocketed $40 Million Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?: Adventures in Boyhood A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Findswork: Introduction by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Grant Me Vision: A Journey of Family, Faith, and Forgiveness Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative I Curse You with Joy The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America Undefeated: Changing the Rules and Winning on My Own Terms We Refuse to Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men The Dow Twins’ Legacy: 50 Years of Disco Reflections Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist I Finally Bought Some Jordans: Essays You Get What You Pay for: Essays American Negra: A Memoir Lifting as They Climb: Black Women Buddhists and Collective Liberation What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life Nina Simone in Comics! Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration Black Voices: Inspiring & Empowering Quotes from Global Thought Leaders Black TV: Five Decades of Groundbreaking Television from Soul Train to Black-Ish and Beyond Stepping Out: The Unapologetic Style of African Americans Over Fifty To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines Troubling the Water: The Urgent Work of Radical Belonging Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History Delights: Book 2: Essays How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal Up Home: One Girl’s Journey Autumn Song: Essays on Absence Don’t Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Her Own Words Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping All God’s Children: How Confronting Buried History Can Build Racial Solidarity Sixty-One: Life Lessons from Papa, on and Off the Court The Talk Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, Fixed Fights, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered about the White Mother He Never Knew Angela Davis (paperback): An Autobiography Where the Children Take Us: How One Family Achieved the Unimaginable My Sunday Best: Pearls of Wisdom, Wit, Grace, and Style Belonging: A Daughter’s Search for Identity Through Loss and Love Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman Bet on Black: The Good News about Being Black in America Today Now Let Me Fly: A Portrait of Eugene Bullard Emma’s Postcard Album: Black Lives in the Early Twentieth Century Grocery Shopping with My Mother Reclamation (paperback): Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson The Good Fight Unbought and Unbossed My Pinup Inciting Joy: Essays Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen In the Blink of an Eye: An Autobiography Black Women Will Save the World Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised (paperback): A Memoir of Survival and Hope Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin From Enslavement to Belovedness: for the Dignity of my People Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions That Grew Me Up America Made Me a Black Man: A Memoir Now I Am Known: How a Street Kid Turned Foster Dad Found Acceptance and True Worth We Got By: A Black Family’s Journey in the Heartland Bright: A Memoir United Stated of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story You Mean It or You Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere. Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir Finding Marshalls: A Genealogy Trip with a Black and White Twist Lift Every Voice: A Celebration of Black Lives Where the Children Take Us Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island Shine Bright: A Personal History of Black Women in Pop The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor The Devil’s Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South’s Most Notorious Slave Jail Grief Is Love: Living with Loss Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir Blend In or Fade Out Dream Journal: The Words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Many Lives of Andrew Young Unbossed: How Black Girls Are Leading the Way From Gold Teeth to Gold Jacket: My Life in Football and Business Own the Arena: Getting Ahead, Making a Difference, and Succeeding as the Only One Letters to the Sons of Society Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough Righteous Troublemakers: Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement in America Vanguard:  How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All Seven Sisters And A Brother (paperback): Friendship, Resistance, and Untold Truths Behind Black Student Activism in the 1960s Being Somebody and Black Besides: An Untold Memoir of Midcentury Black Life The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy The Pursuit of Porsha: How My Journey to Happiness Can Help You Find Yours Girl Gurl Grrrl: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America Trailblazers, Black Women Who Helped Make America Great, 1: American Firsts/American Icons, Volume 1 Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War The Strong Black Woman: How a Myth Endangers the Physical and Mental Health of Black Women Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City Vice President Kamala Harris: Her Path to the White House Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend Afropessimism Keep On Moving: My Journey in the Fourth Quarter Keep On Moving (paperback): My Journey in the Fourth Quarter I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America You Got Anything Stronger?: Stories Black Nerd Problems: Essays Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics The Marshall Legacy in Black and White Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be Aftershocks After Dark: Birth of the Disco Dance Party Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem Beginnings, Endings, and Salt: Essays Between Freedom and Equality: The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC Cack-Handed: A Memoir Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir The Victory of Greenwood Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir Notes on Grief On Juneteenth Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump We Are Bridges: A Memoir A Journey Through Grace (paperback) A Journey Through Grace Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay The Marathon Don’t Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hussle Becoming Black Boy Out of Time: A Memoir Own the Arena: Getting Ahead, Making a Difference, and Succeeding as the Only One Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like Journey in the Title The Three Mothers (Hardcover) Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History Mining Diamonds Invisible Men: Black Artists of the Golden Age of Comics Girl Gurl Grrrl: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic Hubert Harrison The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927 Think Black: A Memoir A Promised Land (Deluxe Signed Edition) A Promised Land How to Make a Slave and Other Essays The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief Rise Up: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City Panorama: The Missing Chapter: From the Memoir Views from the Cockpit The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography Of Ida B. Wells Afropessimism I Don’t Want to Die Poor The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Fannie Lou Hamer: America’s Freedom Fighting Woman Black Boy The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever Golden Beauty Boss: The Story of Madame Sara Spencer Washington and the Apex Empire Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism Race Man: Selected Works, 1960-2015 Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo The Black Book (Anniversary) Seven Sisters And A Brother: Friendship, Resistance, and Untold Truths Behind Black Student Activism in the 1960s Solitary Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter Yes We Did: Photos and Behind-The-Scenes Stories Celebrating Our First African American President Breathe: A Letter to My Sons Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America Black Indian The Yellow House: A Memoir I Am Dance: Words and Images of the Black Dancer Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem: A Memoir More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life, Freedom, and Justice 400 Years of Witnessing When You Learn the Alphabet What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires Richard Wright: The Library of America Unexpurgated  (Boxed Set) Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali The Life of Frederick Douglass: A Graphic Narrative of a Slave’s Journey from Bondage to Freedom Becoming Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism Empire: The House That John H. Johnson Built (The Life & Legacy of Pioneering Publishing Magnate) Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster Proud: My Fight for an Unlikely American Dream The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row Daughter’s Exchange Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin The Colored Waiting Room: Empowering the Original and the New Civil Rights Movement Coretta: My Life, My Love, My Legacy Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography, From Stan Lee to Ta-Nehisi Coates The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir A Look Back in Time: Memoir of a Military Kid in the Fifties Vol. 2 Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances Obama: From Promise to Power Eye On the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge My Blue Yonder Kill ’Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul We Want Freedom Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families Who Share the Tomlinson Name - One White, One Black Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?: A Memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption Between The World And Me The Light Of The World: A Memoir Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption His Day Is Done: A Nelson Mandela Tribute The Diary of Malcolm X: 1964 Men We Reaped Mom & Me & Mom Inspiration: Profiles of Black Women Changing Our World Black Cool: One Thousand Streams Of Blackness Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-From South Central to Hollywood The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates Dust Tracks On A Road: An Autobiography Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates Letter to My Daughter Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings The Heart of a Woman (paperback) Gather Together In My Name I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, And An Unlikely Road To Manhood Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin That Mean Old Yesterday: A Memoir A Long Way Gone Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes Game Over: The Rise and Transformation of a Harlem Hustler An Illuminated Life: Bella da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege Cooked The Measure of a Man Acolytes: Poems The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1968-1998 A Song Flung Up to Heaven Growing Up X Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging Is It Nation Time?: Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Assata: An Autobiography Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary Jackie Robinson: A Biography Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood Trespassing: My Sojourn in the Halls of Privilege The Heart of a Woman The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now Days of Grace: A Memoir The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical The Big Sea: An Autobiography The Fire Next Time The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As told to Alex Haley) His Eye Is On The Sparrow: An Autobiography (Quality Paperbacks Series) The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley I Shall Not Be Moved Black Abolitionists (Revised) Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name - A Biomythography (Crossing Press Feminist Series) Long Way From Home I Lived to Tell the Story: A Memoir of Love, Legacy, and Resilience