Reading Black History: Faculty Perspectives Across Disciplines

Universities serve to examine ideas freely, thoroughly, and without preset conclusions. The exploration of Black history, culture, science, art, and intellect is rooted in scholarship across many disciplines. Black History Month has traditionally been a time for reflection, academic inquiry, and critical discussion of the histories, cultures, and ideas that have influenced the United States and beyond.

Faculty across disciplines at UW curated this list as part of their roles to teach, research, create, and serve, guided by the standards of their fields. The titles included here draw on primary sources, peer-reviewed scholarship, creative practice, and historical analysis. Together, they illustrate how knowledge is created, questioned, and improved through evidence, expertise, and critical inquiry.

The highlighted works span centuries, geographic regions, and methodologies. They cover literature, history, science, medicine, environmental knowledge, philosophy, public life, and the arts. Each contributes to a deeper understanding of the past and present and to preparing students to think carefully, communicate clearly, and engage responsibly in a complex world.

Contributing Departments & Units

This reading list was curated by faculty and staff from the following departments and units: English; American & Cultural Studies; History; Philosophy & Religious Studies; Visual Arts; Theatre & Dance; Social Work; Sociology; Human Development & Family Science; Modern & Classical Languages (Classics); Botany; Zoology & Physiology; Veterinary Sciences; Civil Engineering; College of Business; School of Politics, Public Affairs & International Studies; UW Libraries; Academic Affairs; UW Science Communication Initiative (WySCI); Public Humanities; Agricultural Extension; Research & Economic Development

Selected Titles from the Collection

Literature, Poetry, & Creative Writing

• The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos — Dionne Brand
• A Kind of Freedom — Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
• Waiting to Exhale — Terry McMillan
• Mama — Terry McMillan
• Invisible Man — Ralph Ellison
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Outlandish Blues — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Alive at the End of the World — Saeed Jones
• This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets — edited by Kwame Alexander
• The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward — Saeed Jones (creator), Maggie Smith (author)
• Real Life — Brandon Taylor
• Adas Raum — Sharon Dodua Otoo
• All American Boys — Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
• The Personal Librarian — Marie Benedict
• Tar Beach — Faith Ringgold
• The Fire Next Time — James Baldwin
• Disappearing Acts — Terry McMillan
•  The Vast Wonder of the World — Melina Mangal 

History & Historical Perspectives

• No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity — Sarah Haley
• Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom — Tiya Miles 
• Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point — Henry O. Flipper
• Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson — George Jackson
• We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 — Catherine Morris (editor)
• March — John Lewis and Andrew Aydin 
• A Nation's Undesirables: Mixed-Race Children and Whiteness in the Post-Nazi Era — Tracey Owens Patton
• The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave — Esteban Montejo; Edited by Miguel Barnet 
• Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out —  May Ayim, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz (editors)
• The Souls of Black Folk (eBook) — W.E.B. Du Bois
• Notes of a Native Son — James Baldwin
• A Black Woman's History of the United States — Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
• Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution — Laurent Dubois 
• The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave — Mary Prince
• Black Ranching Frontiers — Andrew Sluyter
• Moving Against the System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers — David Austin
• Tip of the Spear (eBook) — Orisanmi Burton

Critical Theory

• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment — Patricia Hill Collins
• The Racial Contract — Charles W. Mills 
• The Undercommons — Stefano Harney & Fred Moten
• The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers — Margo Natalie Crawford & C. Riley Snorton (editors)
• Black Bodies, White Gazes — George Yancy
• No Tea, No Shade — E. Patrick Johnson

Politics, Law, & Public Life

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — Michelle Alexander
• Abolition Now!: Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex — CR10 Publications Collective.
• Are Prisons Obsolete? — Angela Y. Davis
• Angela Davis: An Autobiography — Angela Y. Davis
• Black Is a Country — Nikhil Pal Singh
• Race for Profit — Keeanga-Ymahtta Taylor
• Remapping Black Germany: New Perspectives on Afro-German History, Politics, and Culture — Sara Lennox (editor)
• Feminism is for Everybody — bell hooks
• For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education — Tressie McMillan and William Darity (editors)
• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color — Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa

Philosophy, Religion, & Ethical Thought

• Black Lives and Sacred Humanity — Carol W. White
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Foundations of Nonviolence — James P. Hanigan
• For the Inward Journey — Howard Thurman
• All About Love — bell hooks

CuLTURAL Studies

• Art on My Mind — bell hooks
• Shine — Krista Thompson
• The Black Dancing Body — Brenda Dixon Gottschild
• Black Moves: New Research in Black Dance Studies (Journal) — Thomas F. DeFrantz, Tara Aisha Willis
• The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America (eBook) — Marcus Moore
• Hoo-doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos — Michael K. Johnson
• Dear Science and Other Stories — Katherine McKittrick
• Bodyminds Reimagined — Samantha Dawn Schalk
• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval — Saidiya Hartman

PERFORMANCE & VIsual Art

• We Flew Over the Bridge — Faith Ringgold
• Faith Ringgold: Die — Anne Monahan
• Encyclopedia of African American Artists — dele jegede
• Exhibiting Blackness — Bridget R. Cooks
• Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series — Carrie Mae Weems (artist), Sarah Elizabeth Lews and Adrienne Edwards (writers of added text)
• In the Shadow of Numbers: Charles Gaines — Charles Gaines
• Trenton Doyle Hancock: Mind of the Mound — Trenton Doyl Hancock (artist), Denise Markonish (editor/curator)
• Nick Cave: Epitome — Nick Cave (artist), Andrew Bolton, Elivra Dyangani Ose and Nato Thompson (contributors)
• Adrian Piper — Adrian Piper (artist), Begum Yasar (editor)
• Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions — Adrian Piper
• Betye Saar: Still Tickin’ — Betye Saar (author/artist), Sara Cochran (curator/interviewer)
• Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You Without Me — Mickalene Thomas
• Kehinde Wiley — Kehinde Wiley, Thelma Golden
• Rashid Johnson: Within Our Gates — Rashid Johnson, Kate Fowle
• Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey — Wangechi Mutu (artist/interviewee), Trevor Schoonmaker (editor/interviewer)
• The Theatre of August Wilson — Alan Nadel
• Gem of the Ocean — August Wilson
• Three Plays — August Wilson
• Dancing Revelations (eBook) — Thomas DeFrantz
• Senga Nengudi: Topologien=Topologies — Senga Nengudi

Film

• Daughters of the Dust (DVD)
• Glory (DVD)
• Hidden Figures (DVD)
• Paris Is Burning (DVD)
• The Watermelon Woman (DVD)

Architecture & the Built Environment

• When Diversity Lost the Beat (Journal) — Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta
• Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America (eBook) — Marcus Anthony Hunter
• Spatializing Blackness — Rashad, Shabazz
• Back of the Big House — John Michael Vlach
• The Planter’s Prospect — John Michael Vlach
• Race and Modern Architecture (eBook) — Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis, Mabel Wilson (editors)

Science, Medicine, & Environmental Knowledge

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot
• Out of the Dead House (contributor note: specifically the chapter on Rebecca Lee Crumpler) — Susan Wells 
• Black Man in a White Coat — Damon Tweedy
• The Disordered Cosmos — Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
• The Jazz of Physics — Stephon Alexander
• Black Women Scientists in the United States — Wini Warren
• Hidden Figures — Margot Lee Shetterly
• The Glass Universe — Dava Sobel
• Mae Among the Stars — Roda Ahmed
• The Girl with a Mind for Math — Julia Finley Mosca
• Understanding the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Gifted Education (eBook) - Nicole Joseph (editor)
• Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Audiobook) — Camille Dungy
• Black Nature — Camille Dungy
• Remembering Yellowstone’s First African American Explorers (Digital Magazine Article) — Michael Scott van Wagenen
• The Mismeasure of a Man — Stephen Jay Gould
• Black Faces, White Spaces — Carolyn Finney

Family, Childhood, and Community Life

• The African American Child: Development and Challenges —  Yvette R. Harris, James A. Graham
• A War-Born Family — Kori A. Graves
• Picturing Children — Marian Wright Edelman, Achebe Toldson

Classics and Early Texts

• Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) (eBook) 
• The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity — Thomas Heffernan
• The Comedies —  Terence