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"I believe there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives, through words."
— Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time 

From Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, through Fannie Lou Hamer and Dorothy Height, all the way up to Vice President Kamala Harris, Black women have been a dynamic force shaping our country. As we go forward in the fight for equality and the greater good, they continue to be at the forefront in many ways.

One of the best tools in that fight, known and well-utilized by leaders like journalist Ida B. Wells, poet Maya Angelou, novelist Toni Morrison, and so many others is, of course, words: speeches, articles, poems, stories, and books.

In honor of Black History Month, here are some recommended books by and about just a few such notable leaders, visionaries, and writers.

Stacey Abrams's influence on the 2021 election, and therefore on the shaping of our nation, is undeniable. That alone affords her a place on this list. But her books! Abrams's political writings are passionate, inspiring, and no-nonsense. Our Time Is Now is an essential book for folks interested in preserving the integrity of our democratic process. And if you don't know, Abrams is also a boss romance author. Check her out under the nom de plume Selena Montgomery. Is there anything that woman can't do?

Are any of you out there not still hit with a slug of joy when you hear the words Vice President with the name of a woman of color behind them? Of course, the election of Kamala Harris is more than just a first. Driven and pragmatic, Harris is a tireless advocate for women's rights, immigrants' rights, gun control, and swift action on climate change. No matter where you stand on Harris's politics, her book The Truths We Hold: An American Journey is a great window into the experiences, influences, and core beliefs that shaped our new second-in-command.

Long before women of color like Harris and Abrams were influencing American politics, there was Shirley Chisholm. She broke barriers in 1968 as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress — serving for seven terms and rising to party leadership as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus — and in 1972 she mounted a campaign for president, becoming the first African American major party candidate. When she retired from Congress, she continued community organizing while teaching at Mt. Holyoke College. Unbought and Unbossed is her story in her own frank and insightful words.

Political commentator, national press secretary to Senator Bernie Sanders during his 2016 campaign (the youngest in the history of the United States), and senior adviser to President Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Symone D. Sanders is a force. In her book No, You Shut Up, she chronicles her rise through the ranks despite the countless barriers to getting her voice out in the world, explaining why she has not shut up, why she will not shut up, and why you shouldn't either. Part pep talk (with advice sidebars to prove it), part memoir, part manifesto, Sanders's writings are provocative, unapologetic, and wholly inspirational.

Though she spent most of her time behind the political scenes, Ella Baker has been called the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. She played major roles in the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where she mentored such emerging human rights activists as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Baker wasn't content to simply fight for Blacks to have an equal voice. She wanted them placed in positions of power in order to actively change the hierarchy of control in the country. When she lobbied for these changes, when she expressed her views, she was called a radical. Highly researched and written with zeal, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement is an incisive look at this complex figure whose career spanned five decades and who influenced so many.

Sometimes when you stand up for your beliefs, they call you a radical. Sometimes they call you a terrorist. In the wake of the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer in 2013, after the countless other deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police and others, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, along with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, started the Black Lives Matter movement. In an era when racists have been emboldened to come out of the woodwork and feel comfortable and empowered in their racism, in a time when acquittal after acquittal has continued to erode the trust that people of color have in their safety in this society, the grassroots efforts of activists like Khan-Cullors are vital. Written with intensity and compassion, When They Call You a Terrorist is her story.

It was Alicia Garza's Facebook post, nearly eight years ago, that morphed into the hashtag that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement: "stop saying we are not surprised. that's a damn shame in itself. I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter. And I will continue that. stop giving up on black life. Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." In a book as authentic and genuine as that original post, Garza explores her own experiences as a social activist as well as the culture of community organizing — its challenges, rewards, biases, pitfalls. The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart is a potent guide to building effective leadership, sharing power, and making change.

This urgent work by the founding director of Black Youth Project 100 is a call to action, encouraging people not only to fight for social justice but to do it by reexamining their beliefs through the lens of Black queer feminism. In these pages, Carruthers examines grassroots methods of activism, including the Chicago model, and advocates strongly and effectively for reviving and reimagining the Black radical tradition. With calls for reparations and investments in the Black community, this handbook for organizing movements for social change is essential reading as part of the conversation surrounding racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, toxic masculinity, and white privilege.

Amanda Gorman's words during the Biden and Harris inauguration captured the nation. Clear and crystalline, beautiful in their simplicity, powerful in their urgency and in their optimism, they are the perfect words for where we are as a nation in this moment in history. "It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit," she tells us. "It's the past we step into, and how we repair it." I was excited to learn that Gorman has not one but two books coming out this fall: The Hill We Climb, which includes the inaugural poem of the same name, and Change Sings, a lovely and stirring picture book illustrated by Loren Long. Both are available now for preorder.

When I first heard the title of this book, I had the knee-jerk reaction that activism that's about pleasure is not authentic, that pleasure somehow voids the righteousness of the cause. But in Pleasure Activism, Adrienne Maree Brown invites us to imagine new ways to motivate ourselves to get the good work done. In a collection of stirring, sumptuous essays intermixed with insights by other feminist thinkers, Brown not only makes a case for pleasure activism but does so in a way that ignites our enthusiasm and leaves us feeling like we can take on the world. And when you feel like you can take on the world, maybe you can change it.

In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, public speaker, and community activist Feminista Jones illuminates the ways Black women are changing the cultural landscape using, in particular, social media. She argues that Twitter, her preferred platform, is "rooted in the African call-and-response tradition," enabling people to advance a message in a cooperative and concise way. She examines the use of hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and her own #YouOKSis, designed to inspire people to intervene in situations of street harassment by stepping in and speaking to the victim: "Hey, you OK, sis?" In a time when social media is enduring lots of criticism, it's refreshing to be reminded that it, as indeed any form of communication, can be a powerful positive tool. Smart, savvy, and funny, Reclaiming Our Space is a deep exploration of Black feminism and a wonderful resource for people who want to use their voices to inspire change.

When I was putting this list together, I came across the utterly charming Delany sisters. Bessie Delany was 101 and her sister Sadie 103 when their book, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, came out. Daughters of a father who was born into slavery, Sadie became the first Black woman to teach home economics in a New York high school, and Bessie was the second Black woman licensed as a dentist in the state. In their book the sisters muse on all sorts of subjects, from health ("Every morning, after our yoga, we each take a clove of garlic, chop it up, and swallow it whole.") to marriage ("When people ask me how we've lived past one hundred, I say, 'Honey, we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!'"), but the lion's share of these remembrances offer up an expansive and thoroughly enchantingly told oral history of their century of living — through Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, and beyond. What a wonderful way to learn about so many important events in our nation's history. And what wit and wisdom: "Why, colored folks built this country, and that is the truth. We were the laborers, honey! And even after we were freed, we were the backbone of this country." Perhaps they weren't politicians or famous community organizers, but this book reminded me that everyone who has something meaningful to say can be a leader and visionary in their own way.