Thoughts & Things

Black History Month Reading List: Arts & Entertainment

As I post this final reading list for Black History Month 2018 (and I do hope to share a new series of reading lists in February of 2019 for Black History Month), the month is rolling over into March. That's okay. Black history is overlooked by most of the general public, and by many education systems. We take the shortest month of the year to acknowledge the history of millions of people, of millions of lives. February is a great opportunity to learn more about Black history, to learn things you might not otherwise learn. But if you are interested, if you care, you always have the option to read these books after February, or before February. So here is my final list for the month, running a little late, but as relevant as it was just minutes ago when it was still February.

This reading list will include books about the arts communities. Music, film, visual art, comic books, photography, dance are all things that I have included. Additionally, the books included here might lead you to other media where people of colour are underrepresented. I hope that you find something here that interests you, and that you end up enjoying.

Black Magic by Langston Hughes

Encyclopedia of Black Comics by Sheena C. Howard

African Canvas: the Art of West African Women with photographs and text by Margaret Courtney-Clarke; foreword by Maya Angelou

Art of the South African Townships by Gavin Younge; foreword by Desmond M. Tutu

African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis

Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell ; essays by David C. Driskell, David Levering Lewis, and Deborah Willis Ryan

Blues legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis

Blind Tom, the Black Pianist-Composer (1849-1908) by Geneva Handy Southall

Kill 'em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride

A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism by Paul Youngquist

Black Music by LeRoi Jones

Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music by Frank Kofsky

Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: a Memoir by Darryl "DMC" McDaniels with Darrell Dawsey

The Devil Finds Work: An Essay by James Baldwin

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle

Alone With Me: A New Autobiography by Eartha Kitt

True South: Henry Hampton and Eyes on the Prize, the Landmark Television Series That Reframed the Civil Rights Movement by Jon Else

Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe

In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present presented by the Guggenheim Museum, with contributions from Clare Bell, Okwui Enwezor, Olu Oguibe, Octavio Zaya

Josephine Baker art by Catel Muller; written by José-Louis Bocquet

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina: My Story of Adversity and Grace by Misty Copeland, with Charisse Jones

Dancing spirit: An Autobiography by Judith Jamison, with Howard Kaplan


Previous posts available here:
"A Black History Month Reading List: Introduction" 
"Black History Month Reading List: Poetry" 
"Black History Month Reading List: Children's Books" 
"Black History Month Read List: Middle Grade Books" 
"Black History Month Read List: YA Books" 
"Black History Month Reading List: The Canadian Edition" 
"Black History Month Reading List: Adult Fiction"