Black History Month 2025

This year Black History Month focuses on the various and profound ways that work of all kinds intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Work is very much at the center of Black history and culture. These book selections celebrate Black past, present and futures.  


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All We Were Promised

When Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. But even in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American liberty, she’s locked away as a servant to her white-passing father as they both attempt to hide their identities from slave-catchers.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, and in eAudio on Libby. 


The American Daughters

When Adebimpe is ten, she is sold with her mother, Sanite, to plantation owner John du Marche. He soon renames her Ady but Sanite never lets her daughter forget who she really is: a person who can read and write and understand numbers.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, and in eAudio on Libby. 



Crazy as Hell

Crazy as hell’ explores the site of America’s greatest contradictions. The notables of this book are the runaways and the rebels, the baadass and funky, the activists and the inmates–from Harriet Tubman, Nina Simone, and Muhammad Ali to B’rer Rabbit, Single Mamas, and Wakandans–but are they crazy as hell, or do they simply defy the expectations designated for being Black in America? 


The First Ladies

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, and in eAudio on Libby. 


Flipping Boxcars

The first novel from one of the original Kings of Comedy, Cedric “The Entertainer,” an engaging and entertaining crime caper that is a valentine to close-knit black families and tightly woven communities struggling to get by during the Depression and World War II.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, eBook on Hoopla, in eAudio on Libby, in eAudio on Hoopla.  


God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer

After a deployment in the Iraq War with an all-male army unit, Joseph would like to find his footing and, perhaps even more so, bask in the former glory of the lightly chilled chocolate chip Otis Spunkmeyer muffins once doled out en masse to hungry soldiers desperate for that luxurious mouthfeel.

This title is also available for checkout as eAudio on Libby. 


Great Expectations

When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator’s idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he’ll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States’s first Black president.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby,  and in eAudio on Libby. 





Women of the Post

Inspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.

This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Hoopla, and in eAudio on Hoopla.