The world feels terribly heavy right now. Let’s read a book to lighten the load.

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The Significance of Juneteenth

Juneteenth—celebrated on June 19—marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally received word of their freedom, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Books offer one of the most intimate and impactful ways to explore the themes surrounding Juneteenth. When delving into history, savoring poetry, or focusing on stories that center Black joy, literature deepens our understanding of the past and inspires hope for the future (fingers crossed).

To help us all capitalize on the power of literature, we compiled a list of 15 books to read as Juneteenth approaches, spanning various genres, age groups, and perspectives. Most of these are on my shelves. Some of them I have yet to read. Let’s rectify that.

Adults: Nonfiction & Memoir

1. Four Hundred Souls Edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain

“Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain have assembled ninety brilliant writers, eighty of whom take on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span with ten lyrical interludes from poets. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people, through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith—instead, it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.”

Excerpt from: ibramxkendi.com/400-souls 

2. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

“In this modern classic of narrative nonfiction, three young people set out on a perilous journey out of the Jim Crow South to the North and West in search of what the novelist Richard Wright called “the warmth of other suns.”

Ida Mae Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster are among the six million African-Americans who fled the South during what would become known as the Great Migration, a watershed in American history.

Warmth interweaves their stories and those of others who made the journey with the larger forces and inner motivations that compelled them to seek refuge and with the challenges they confronted upon arrival in the New World.

The Warmth of Other Suns became an instant New York Times bestseller and has reappeared multiple times since its release. It has been named to the New York Times Magazine’s Best Nonfiction of All Time.”

Excerpt from: warmth.isabelwilkerson.com

3. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Make sure to check out the Equal Justice Initiative website—it’s beautifully done.

“An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America — from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI’s first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn’t commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching — a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.”

Excerpt from: https://justmercy.eji.org/

4. Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

“Some Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America — it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.

In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.

As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched racist policies and the nation’s racial inequities.

In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.”

Excerpt from: ibramxkendi.com/stamped

5. On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

“On Juneteenth weaves American history, family chronicle, and memoir to provide a historian’s view of the long road to Juneteenth. Annette Gordon-Reed, a Texas native and descendant of enslaved people, explores the origins of Juneteenth in Texas and the hardships African Americans have endured since Reconstruction. She combines personal anecdotes with historical facts to highlight the integral role of African Americans in Texas history. Reworking the traditional “Alamo” narrative, Gordon-Reed demonstrates how the slave- and race-based economy shaped Texas and influenced major historical events. This eloquent and concise work revises conventional views of Texas and national history, underscoring the ongoing fight for equality as the nation moves toward recognizing June 19 as a national holiday.”

Excerpt from: annettegordonreed.com

6. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

“Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

In Colson Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.”

Excerpt from: Penguin Random House

7. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

“One of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.”

Excerpt from: Penguin Random House

8. Beloved by Toni Morrison

“Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later, she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.”

Excerpt from: Penguin Random House

9. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage–and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child–but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn’t understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram’s private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind–but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss.

This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author’s bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America’s oldest struggle–the struggle to tell the truth–from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers.”

Excerpt from: ta-nehisicoates.com/books/the-water-dancer

Teens & Young Adults

10. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

“Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins are two young men, one black and one white, whose lives are forever changed by an act of extreme police brutality. Rashad wakes up in a hospital. Quinn saw how he got there. And so did the video camera that taped the cop beating Rashad senseless into the pavement. Thus begins All American Boys, written in tandem by two of our great literary talents, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The story is told in Rashad and Quinn’s alternating perspectives as they grapple with the complications that spin out of this violent moment and reverberate in their families, school, and town. Over the course of one week, Rashad tries to find the strength to accept his role as the symbolic figure of the community’s response to police brutality, and Quinn tries to decide where he belongs in a town bitterly divided by racial tension.  Ultimately, the two narratives weave back together in the moment in which the two boys, now changed, can actually see each other—the first step for healing and understanding in a country still deeply sick with racial injustice. Reynolds pens the voice of Rashad, and Kiely has taken the voice of Quinn.”

Excerpt from: brendankiely.com/all-american-boys

11. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

“Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.”

Excerpt from: angiethomas.com/the-hate-u-give

12. Black Birds in the Sky by Brandy Colbert

“In the early morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob marched across the train tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and into its predominantly Black Greenwood District—a thriving, affluent neighborhood known as America’s Black Wall Street. They brought with them firearms, gasoline, and explosives. In a few short hours, they’d razed thirty-five square blocks to the ground, leaving hundreds dead. The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. But how did it come to pass? What exactly happened? And why are the events unknown to so many of us today?

These are the questions that award-winning author Brandy Colbert seeks to answer in this unflinching nonfiction account of the Tulsa Race Massacre. In examining the tension that was brought to a boil by many factors—white resentment of Black economic and political advancement, the resurgence of white supremacist groups, the tone and perspective of the media, and more—a portrait is drawn of an event singular in its devastation, but not in its kind. It is part of a legacy of white violence that can be traced from our country’s earliest days through Reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement in the mid-twentieth century, and the fight for justice and accountability Black Americans still face today.

The Tulsa Race Massacre has long failed to fit into the story Americans like to tell themselves about the history of their country. This book, ambitious and intimate in turn, explores the ways in which the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre is the story of America—and by showing us who we are, points to a way forward.”

Excerpt from: brandycolbert.com/black-birds-in-the-sky

Younger Readers

13. Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

“Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history. The day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth.”

Excerpt from: floydcooper.net/books

14. Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free by Alice Faye Duncan and Keturah A. Bobo

“Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic—a drumming, dancing,  delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak’s stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation  Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865—over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn’t always see freedom in her Texas town. Then, one Juneteenth day, when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home. This wasn’t freedom at all. She had to do something! But could one person’s voice make a difference? Could Opal bring about national recognition of Juneteenth?  Follow Opal Lee as she fights to improve the future by honoring the past.”

Excerpt from: alicefayeduncan.com/opal-lee

15. Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

“This poetic picture book shares a beautifully written history of Louisiana slaves counted down the days until Sunday, the day to meet in New Orleans’ Congo Square after a long week of work. An afternoon in Congo Square meant setting up open markets, singing, dancing, and playing music. Slaves rejoiced, cheered, and lived in freedom’s heart.

Freddi Williams Evans, a historian and Congo Square expert, writes a rich and fascinating foreword to introduce the story. This book also includes a glossary of terms with pronunciations and definitions.”

Excerpt from: rgregorychristie.com/freedom-congo

So Yeah, Let’s All Take a Break

As Juneteenth approaches, picking up the right book can be a connective and educational way to celebrate the day, especially if you are sharing the ritual with younger people in your life. There are many enriching and reflective ways to celebrate this important holiday, but reading can be a peaceful and meaningful starting point. So grab one of the books above and take some time for yourself or with your loved ones—we could all use a break right now.