2026 Black History Month Full Reading List
Adult Read-In List
Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair LM Kelley
Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Palmer Memorial Institute: What One Young African American Woman Could Do by Charles W. Wadelington and Richard F. Knapp
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh by Carmen Cauthen
Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina by Steve M. Miller & J. Timothy Allen
A voice From The South by Anna Julia Cooper
All the Songs We Sign: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Carolina Africa American Writers’ Collective by Lenard D. Moore
Black America Series: Greensboro, North Carolina by Otis Jairston Jr.
Black America Series: Durham’s Lincoln Hospital by P. Preston Reynolds M.D. Ph.D.
The North Carolina roots of African American literature: An anthology by William Andrews
The Black Bard of North Carolina: George Moses Horton and His Poetry by Joan Sherman
Black America Series: Sedalia and the Palmer Memorial Institute by Tracy Burns-Vann and Andre’ D. Vann
Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin
Freedom for Themselves North Carolina's Black Soldiers in the Civil War Era by Richard M. Reid
Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson
Upbuilding Black Durham by Leslie Brown
The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War by David S. Celeski
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs and Harriet Ann Child
Recollections of My Slavery Days by William Henry Singleton
From Enslavement to COVID-19: A History of African American Health and Labor by Joe William Trotter Jr.
The Memoirs of Robert and Mabel Williams: African American Freedom, Armed Resistance, and International Solidarity by Robert Williams and Mabel Williams
Becoming Lunsford Lane: The Lives of an American Aeneas by Craig Thompson Friend
Black Movement: African American Urban History since the Great Migration by Jeffrey Ogbar
Youth Read-In List
Pauli Murray's Revolutionary Life by Simki Kuznick
We Are the Scribes by Randi Pink
Lunch Counter Sit-ins: How Photographs Helped Foster Peaceful Civil Rights Protests by Danielle Smith-Llera
Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell
The Untold Story of Sarah Keys Evans Civil Rights Soldier by Dr. Artika R. Tyner
Children's Read-In List
Maya Angelou Finds her Voice by Connie Roop
Ellen’s Broom by Kelly Starling Lyons
Dream Builder by Kelly Starling Lyons
Sink or Swim: African-American Lifesavers of the Outer Banks by Carole B. Weatherford
How Do You Spell Unfair? by MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee
The Secret of Gumbo Grove by Eleanora E. Tate
A Pride Of African Tales by Donna L. Washington
Warrior on the Mound by Sandra W. Headen
The Little Plant Doctor by Jean Marzollo
That Is My Dream! by Langston Hughes and Daniel Miyares
Charlotte and the Nutcracker by Charlotte Nebres
The Light She Feels Inside by Gwendolyn Wallace
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick D. Barnes
