Featured Black Authors & Books - Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month with essays and interviews by guest authors, book lists and store displays by Powell's booksellers, and reading recommendations that explore and honor the past, present, and future of Black life.

Find more reading lists, interviews, and resources on our Black Lives Matter landing page

2023 Store Displays.

Featured

Celebrate Black History Month: New Fiction and Nonfiction

"We’re celebrating Black History Month in our favorite way: with books! Here, we're highlighting recent releases by Black authors that are all about Black voices, Black history, and Black lives."

16 New Books for Kids and Teens to Celebrate Black History Month

"With stories of history, imagination, struggle, perseverance, celebration, and joy, we hope you’ll agree this is a great list of books to read all year through. "

Black History Month 2021 Leaders and Visionaries

Leaders and Visionaries: Celebrating the Work of Black Women

"From Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, through Fanny Lou Hamer and Dorothy Height, all the way up to Vice President Kamala Harris, Black women have been a dynamic force shaping our country."

Kim Johnson: 8 Memoirs and Essay Collections on Black Freedom and Liberation

"In a world filled with darkness, I have always looked for the helpers. Through my work with young people and service in the community, I’m rejuvenated in my philosophy of optimism."

Black Visual Artists and Scholars

"Through mixed media, quilting, portraiture, folk art, photography, and more, the Black women scholars and artists in our list explore history, mythology, religion, racism, politics, and the Black female body in arresting, perspective-shifting compositions."

Q&A With Ibram X. Kendi

"For all those people who say, 'I am not racist,' what is a not-racist? There's no such thing as a not-racist; there are only racists and antiracists."

Rethinking the Classics

"Explore how Black writers are using themes and characters drawn from Western, African, and Afro-Caribbean texts and traditions to explore modern issues."

Authors of the Pacific Northwest

"From Newbery and Caldecott medalist Renée Watson to Whiting and Ernst J. Gains Award winner Mitchell S. Jackson, the writers below often examine Black life in the Pacific Northwest, and their words are central to our evolving, collective sense of place and identity."