
Black History Month, which had its origins in Chicago during the summer of 1915, According to the Black History Month founding organization, Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, “the 2025 Black History Month theme, African Americans, and Labor, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people.”
Here are some online blog posts and articles about the history of Black History Month, as well as listings of events centered upon Black History Month.
- Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (This is the website of the organization that founded Black History Month)
- Binghamton University Black History Month Events
- History Channel on Black History Month 2025: Facts, Theme & Origins
- Hoopla’s Black History Month Collection
- Library of Congress- History and Overview - Black History Month: A Commemorative Observances Legal Research Guide This article contains a list of citations of various laws and past Presidential proclamations in support of Black History Month
- NAACP Black History Month Online Events
- New York Heritage Digital Collections: African American Community of Broome County
- NPR Black History Month Article Archive
- PBS Unveils 2025 Black History Month Lineup
- PressConnects.com 2024 Listing of Black-Owned Businesses
- Smithsonian Black History Month Events
- SUNY Broome Black History Events
Black History, Excellence and Influence Books at BCPL
If you’d like more titles similar to ones of interest, look up the title of interest in the library catalog, click on the title, scroll down to the Subject Term section, and click on the subjects of interest. Don’t forget to take advantage of the limiter options that come up on the left side of the screen!
Black Excellence and Influence on American Culture
Black Activists, Economists, and Politicians
- The civil rights reader : American literature from Jim Crow to reconciliation- Armstrong, Julie Buckner 810.808 CIVIL
- The fire next time- Baldwin, James 305.896 BALDWIN
- A master class on being human : a Black Christian and a Black secular humanist on religion, race, and justice- Braxton, Brad Ronnell and Pinn, Anthony B. 306.0973 PINN
- Unfollow me : essays on complicity- Busby, Jill Louise 305.8009 BUSBY
- The truths we hold : an American journey- Harris, Kamala 328.73 HARRIS
- Don't let it get you down : essays on race, gender, and the body- Nolan, Savala 305.4209 NOLAN
- A promised land- Obama, Barack 973.932 OBAMA
- Choosing family : a memoir of queer motherhood and Black resistance- Royster, Francesca T. 306.874 ROYSTER
- Maverick : a biography of Thomas Sowell- Riley, Jason (Jason L.) 330.092 SOWELL R
- The risk it takes to bloom : on life and liberation- Willis, Raquel 306.768 WILLIS
Black Actors, Artists, and Cooks
- The Talk- Bell, Darrin- GN 305.896 BELL
- Ghetto Gastro Black Power kitchen- Gray, Jon- Q641.5929 GRAY
- I take my coffee black : reflections on Tupac, musical theater, faith, and being black in America- Merritt, Tyler 791.43 MERRITT
- Chasing me to my grave : an artist's memoir of the Jim Crow South- Rembert, Winfred 759.13 REMBERT
- You'll never believe what happened to Lacey : crazy stories about racism- Ruffin, Amber 305.896 RUFFIN
- Black meme : a history of the images that make us- Russell, Legacy 302.226 RUSSELL
- Just as I am : a memoir- Tyson, Cicely 791.43 TYSON
- The swans of Harlem : five Black ballerinas, fifty years of sisterhood, and their reclamation of a groundbreaking history- Valby, Karen 792.8097 VALBY
- Praisesong for the kitchen ghosts : stories and recipes from five generations of Black country cooks- Wilkinson, Crystal 641.5975 WILKINSON
- Cracking up : black feminist comedy in the twentieth and twenty-first century United States- Wood, Katelyn Hale 792.76 WOOD
Black Athletes
- The book of James : the power, politics, and passion of LeBron- Babb, Valerie Melissa 796.323 JAMES B
- Running while Black : finding freedom in a sport that wasn't built for us- Désir, Alison Mariella 796.42 DESIR
- Rocket men : the Black quarterbacks who revolutionized pro football- Eisenberg, John 796.332 EISENBERG
- Our team : the epic story of four men and the World Series that changed baseball- Epplin, Luke 796.357 EPPLIN
- Althea : the life of tennis champion Althea Gibson- Jacobs, Sally H. 796.342 GIBSON J
- Far beyond gold : running from fear to faith- McLaughlin, Sydney 277.3092 MCLAUGHLIN
- Triumph : the untold story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics- Schaap, Jeremy 796.42 OWENS S
- Black ball : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the generation that saved the soul of the NBA- Runstedtler, Theresa 796.323 RUNSTEDTLER
- The race to be myself : a memoir- Semenya, Caster 796.42 SEMENYA
- It was always a choice : picking up the baton of athlete activism- Steele, David 796.092 STEELE
Black Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, and Mathematicians
- Legacy : a Black physician reckons with racism in medicine- Blackstock, Uché 610.92 BLACKSTOCK
- George Washington Carver : a life- Vella, Christina 630.92 CARVER V
- The pact : three young men make a promise and fulfill a dream- Davis, Sampson 610.92 DAVIS
- Sharks don't sink : adventures of a rogue shark scientist- Graham, Jasmin 597.3092 GRAHAM
- Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race- Lee Shetterly, Margot 510.925 LEE SHETTERLY
- A quantum life : my unlikely journey from the street to the stars- Oluseyi, Hakeem M. (523.01 OLUSEYI)
- Black man in a white coat : a doctor's reflections on race and medicine- Tweedy, Damon 610.92 TWEEDY
- To infinity and beyond : a journey of cosmic discovery- Tyson, Neil deGrasse 520 TYSON
- Mind and matter : a life in math and football- Urschel, John 796.332 URSCHEL
- Wild life : finding my purpose in an untamed world- Wynn-Grant, Rae 333.9541 WYNN-GRANT
Black Military and Freedom Fighters
- Carrying the colors : the life and legacy of Medal of Honor recipient Andrew Jackson Smith- Beckman, W. Robert 973.7415 SMITH B
- The Battle of Negro Fort : the rise and fall of a fugitive slave community- Clavin, Matthew J. 973.51 CLAVIN
- Half American : the epic story of African Americans fighting World War II at home and abroad - Delmont, Matthew F. 940.5403 DELMONT
- Thunder at the gates : the black Civil War regiments that redeemed America- Egerton, Douglas R 973.741 EGERTON
- Searching for black Confederates : the Civil War's most persistent myth- Levin, Kevin M. 973.7415 LEVIN
- Freedom flyers : the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II- Moye, J. Todd. 940.5449 MOYE
- Waging a good war : a military history of the civil rights movement, 1954-1968- Ricks, Thomas E. 323.119 RICKS
- The wounded world : W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War- Williams, Chad Louis 940.3089 WILLIAMS
Black Musicians
- Freedom moves : hip hop knowledges, pedagogies, and futures- Alim, H. Samy, editor. 306.4842 ALIM
- Nephew : a memoir in 4-part harmony- Asante, MK 362.8808 ASANTE
- Musical landscapes in color : conversations with Black American composers- Banfield, William C 780.8996 BANFIELD
- Aretha : from these roots- Franklin, Aretha 782.4164 FRANKLIN
- Rise of a Killah- Ghostface Killah 782.4216 GHOSTFACE
- All the white friends I couldn't keep : hope--and hard pills to swallow--about fighting for black lives- Henry, Andre 305.8 HENRY
- Hip-hop is history- Questlove 782.4216 QUESTLOVE
- My Black Country : a journey through Country music's Black past, present and future- Randall, Alice 781.642 RANDALL
- Tupac Shakur : the authorized biography- Robinson, Staci 782.4216 SHAKUR R
- The jazzmen : how Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie transformed America- Tye, Larry 781.6509 TYE
Black Writers and Journalists
- This is the honey : an anthology of contemporary Black poets- Edited by Alexander, Kwame 811.6 THIS
- Better living through birding : notes from a Black man in the natural world- Cooper, Christian 598.0723 COOPER
- The Black box : writing the race- Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 908.996 GATES
- Call us what we carry : poems- Gorman, Amanda YA 811.6 GORMAN
- Lorraine Hansberry : the life behind A raisin in the sun- Shields, Charles J. 812.54 HANSBERRY
- A history of Afro-American literature- Jackson, Blyden 810.9 JACKSON V.1
- Constructing a nervous system : a memoir- Jefferson, Margo 305.896 JEFFERSON
- Mouths of rain : an anthology of Black lesbian thought- Jones, Briona Simone 810.8089 JONES
- From these roots : my fight with Harvard to reclaim my legacy- Lanier, Tamara 344.744 LANIER
- I once was lost : my search for God in America- Lemon, Don 070.92 LEMON
Black History
General Black History
- Rooted : the American legacy of land theft and the modern movement for Black land ownership- Baker, Brea 333.335 BAKER
- A Black women's history of the United States- Berry, Daina Ramey 305.4889 BERRY
- Julian Bond's time to teach : a history of the southern civil rights movement- Bond, Julian 323.0975 BOND
- The humanity archive : recovering the soul of Black history from a whitewashed American myth- Fowler, Jermaine 973.049 FOWLER
- Black AF history : the un-whitewashed story of America- Harriot, Michael 973.049 HARRIOT
- A bound woman is a dangerous thing : the incarceration of African American women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland- Hill, DaMaris B. 305.4889 HILL
- Black folk : the roots of the Black working class- Kelley, Blair Murphy 331.6396 KELLEY
- Four hundred souls : a community history of African America, 1619-2019- Kendi, Ibram X. 973.0496 FOUR
- Illustrated Black history : honoring the iconic and the unseen- McCalman, George 305.896 MCCALMAN
- A long time coming : a lyrical biography of race in America from Ona Judge to Barack Obama- Shepard, Ray Anthony YA 305.8 SHEPARD
From the Colonial Era through the Civil War
- Vigilance : the life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad- Diemer, Andrew K. 973.7114 STILL D
- Suffrage : women's long battle for the vote- DuBois, Ellen Carol 324.623 DUBOIS
- The Grimkes : the legacy of slavery in an American family- Greenidge, Kerri K. 973.5092 GRIMKES G
- The 1619 Project : a new origin story- Hannah-Jones, Nikole 973 SIXTEEN
- The life and times of Hannah Crafts : the true story of The bondwoman's narrative- Hecimovich, Gregg A. 813.3 CRAFTS H
- The color of abolition : how a printer, a prophet, and a contessa moved a nation- Hirshman, Linda 973.7114 HIRSHMAN
- Sleeping with the ancestors : how I followed the footprints of slavery: McGill, Joseph, Jr. 306.362 MCGILL
- Flee north : a forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery's borderland- Shane, Scott 973.7115 SHANE
- Night flyer : Harriet Tubman and the faith dreams of a free people- Miles, Tiya 306.362 TUBMAN M
- Master slave husband wife : an epic journey from slavery to freedom- Woo, Ilyon 306.362 WOO
Post-Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement
- Our secret society : Mollie Moon and the glamour, money, and power behind the civil rights movement- Ford, Tanisha C. 323.1196 FORD
- Driving the Green Book : a road trip through the living history of Black resistance- Hall, Alvin D. 917.3049 HALL
- Built from the fire : the epic story of Tulsa's Greenwood district, America's Black Wall Street: one hundred years in the neighborhood that refused to be erased- Luckerson, Victor 976.686 LUCKERSON
- America's Black capital : how African Americans remade Atlanta in the shadow of the Confederacy- Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G. 975.8231 OGBAR
- A few days full of trouble : revelations on the journey to justice for my cousin and best friend, Emmett Till- Parker, Wheeler 364.134 PARKER
- Black radical : the life and times of William Monroe Trotter- Greenidge, Kerri 323.092 TROTTER G
- The Black Panther Party : a graphic novel history- Walker, David GN 322.42 WALKER
- Saying it loud : 1966 -- the year Black power challenged the civil rights movement- Whitaker, Mark 323.119 WHITAKER
- Run home if you don't want to be killed : the Detroit uprising of 1943- Williams, Rachel Marie-Crane GN 305.8009 WILLIAMS
- Click here for a list of additional titles about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement
1970 through the Present
- Say their names : how Black lives came to matter in America- Bunn, Curtis 323.1196 BUNN
- The matter of black lives : writing from the New Yorker- Cobb, Jelani 810 MATTER
- Hands up, don't shoot : why the protests in Ferguson and Baltimore matter, and how they changed America- Cobbina, Jennifer 363.232 COBBINA
- When they call you a terrorist : a story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world- Khan-Cullors, Patrisse YA 323.092 KHAN
- The Black guy dies first : Black horror cinema from fodder to Oscar- Means Coleman, Robin R. 791.4361 MEANS COLEMAN
- The bold world : a memoir of family and transformation- Patterson, Jodie 306.8743 PATTERSON
- Comeback season : my unlikely story of friendship with the greatest living Negro League baseball players- Perron, Cam 796.357 PERRON
- His name is George Floyd : one man's life and the struggle for racial justice- Samuels, Robert LP 305.896 FLOYD S
- When they tell you to be good- Shakur, Prince 305.896 SHAKUR
Black History Month Events at BCPL
- Black History Month Monday Matinee- Monday, February 10 at 2:30pm
- Black History Month Monday Matinee- Monday, February 24 at 2:30pm
- Adult Art Workshop: Celebrate Black History Month- February 26 at 6:00pm