Six books to deepen your appreciation of Black history

by Karen Singletary

February is Black History Month in the United States! We hope this curated reading list about African-American history and experience helps you learn something new, and inspires you at work and beyond.

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1. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. Published in 2010, this critically acclaimed non-fiction work tells the story of the Great Migration, the northward movement of African Americans out of the American South in the 20th century, through the lives of three individuals.
2. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. A work of historical fiction published in 2022, Take My Hand follows a young Black nurse in post-segregation Montgomery, Alabama, who sounds the alarm about unspeakable harm done to her patients at a family planning clinic.
3. Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Gardner Hines. The biography of leading Black entrepreneur A.G. Gaston, told by his niece and grand-neice, Black Titan sheds a light on wealth, class, and race in 20th century America. Gaston, who grew up in poverty, was an advocate for Black people finding greater power and influence through success in business–a position that was occasionally at odds with the Civil Rights movement of the time.
4. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Published in 2010, this New York Times bestseller exposes the chilling ways in which the U.S. criminal justice system, by disproportionately affecting Black Americans, replicates the disenfranchisement and exploitation once codified in the Jim Crow laws. Written by a legal scholar, The New Jim Crow placed the issue of mass incarceration at the heart of the ongoing racial justice movement.
5. Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration by Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts. Lewis-Giggetts first wrote about “Black joy” in a June 2020 article for the Washington Post, and the concept resonated widely in the wake of the George Floyd protests. In this collection of essays, she further explores the notion of joy as a radical form of resistance in a hostile world.
6. Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum. Grounded in research, this bestseller written by an expert on the psychology of racism argues for the value of straightforward conversations about racial and ethnic identity as the best way to build connection and understanding, and presents readers with an entry point into productive and helpful dialogues about race.

Each month, MeaningSphere deep dives into a key aspect of meaningful work — in February we’re looking at belonging at work. Check out and download our free calendar for daily activities to help you explore belonging in your work.