Audiobooks for Black History Month and Beyond

Nikole Hannah-Jones, herself a persuasive narrator, has brought together a remarkable mosaic of voices, stories, and poems that tell the story of America through the lens of slavery. So much inspired writing and outstanding narrating in this audiobook make it difficult to select only a few to single out. The chapters by Bryan Stevenson, Ibram X. Kendi, Jamelle Bouie, and... Read More

Poet and narrator Nikole Hannah-Jones recounts the history and consequences of enslavement for Black Americans in this audiobook. With soothing and unobtrusive sound effects, she details the culture and traditions of West Africans before they were enslaved. Her narration is joyful while celebrating the origins of Black Americans and the resilient people they descend from. Her... Read More

This history of black culture performed by a talented ensemble of eight voices is a listening treasure. Cleverly presented in 29 short episodes, the verse and soundscape elucidate a chronological account of events and people who played small and monumental roles in the history of black America—black astronauts, political leaders, business entrepreneurs. Listeners can enjoy the... Read More

Karen Murray's smooth narration soars as she tells the stories of the pivotal men and women whose actions broke the race barrier for Black pilots during the first half of the twentieth century. While the work is extensively researched, both the authors and Murray emphasize individual stories that make the historical figures relatable. Murray recounts, for example, how Cornelius... Read More

"Antiracist Baby is bred, not born. / Antiracist Baby is raised to make society transform." So begins the picture book written by the author of HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST to help explain racism to his young daughter. Shayna Small's narration takes listeners through nine steps "to make equity a reality." Her tone is authoritative, the strength of her voice made more powerful by the... Read More

Laurence Fishburne expertly modulates his tone and suits his cadence to the scenes and dialogue in this audiobook. His voice becomes a tuned instrument emulating the street talk of the ghetto, the lilting patois of a West Indian hustler, and the genteel speech of African leaders. But the most outstanding part of his performance comes when Malcolm X evolves from convict to... Read More

Zora Neale Hurston’s previously unreleased work offers a rare glimpse of the experiences of the last surviving person to have been taken from Africa, brought to the United States as a slave, and then freed. Capturing the dialect, accent, and intonation of Cudjo Lewis, then living in Alabama, presents a challenging task for narrator Robin Miles, who must deliver one of the... Read More

A good performer makes you feel like you're privy to something memorable--a great one beckons you into his world and welcomes you as a necessary part of the work's success. Ta-Nehisi Coates's delivery of his own book is so memorable because the material is charged with emotion and a tone of self-disclosure. There's also a highly personal sense of connection between himself and... Read More

Brandy Colbert, award-winning African-American children's novelist, delivers the moving foreword to her first nonfiction work. Kristyl Dawn Tift vividly narrates the truth of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a tragic event often omitted from history books. With all the dramatic tension and horror that years of racism wrought, this contextual account explains connections such as... Read More

What makes Dominic Hoffman such a fine narrator is the clarity of his delivery and his vocal agility. He sounds like he is inside Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s, brilliant mind, and he moves adroitly from the author’s knowing perspective to “signifying” in the style of African American folklore. His voice is conversational and his tone thoughtful as he takes the listener from the... Read More

Jacqueline Woodson’s linked poems weave scenes of political change while growing up amid the Civil Rights movement and scenes of personal upheaval upon moving from her grandparents’ peaceful South Carolina home to Brooklyn. Her voice is wistful and dreamy as she savors rich sensory memories like crickets, “who seem to know their song is our lullaby,” and sitting beside her... Read More

Robin Miles’s powerhouse performance and Isabel Wilkerson’s excellent writing are perfectly matched in this stunning examination of the egregious effects of caste systems in India, the United States, and Nazi Germany. The Pulitzer Prize-winning NEW YORK TIMES journalist combines research into the development of caste systems, their societal role, and their connection with... Read More

Narrator Karen Chilton channels the energy and passion of Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman appointed to the federal court. The young Motley was the first in her family to go to college. Later, her law career unfolded seamlessly. Chilton's calm, powerful delivery captures the courageous Motley's defense of James Meredith, the first Black man to enroll in the... Read More

This 2009 National Book Award winner introduces listeners to forgotten Civil Rights heroine Claudette Colvin, who (nine months before Rosa Parks) refused to give up her own Birmingham bus seat. Channie Waites superbly narrates a text that offers both cogent explanations of history, including especially informative sidebars, and first-person accounts of those who witnessed the... Read More

With confidence and clarity, narrator Adam Grupper describes discriminatory laws governing the actions of the Federal Housing Administration, Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, and other government agencies that have shaped African-Americans' ability to gain wealth, health, education, and voting power, not merely in the past but in the present day. Author... Read More

An outstanding cast brings these essays and poems vividly to life. Of the many incandescent narrators, JD Jackson (“Upon Arrival”), Kevin R. Free (“Cotton”), January LaVoy (“Sally Hemmings”), and Robin Miles (“Maroons and Marronage”) are masterful. But at least two dozen more could be mentioned. Ninety entries, including 10 poems, encapsulate the African-American experience... Read More

With the passing of Mother Rosa Parks, it's important that we Americans never forget that for every Martin Luther King, Jr., there were hundreds of ordinary people who lived quietly within, but boldly worked to overthrow the segregated South. This mother-daughter duo have penned a riveting account of the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Within a format that has... Read More

In alternating chapters, five talented male voices portray 10 African-American men. This collection moves through American history from the colonial era to the present day. The diversity of voices and accents reflects the men's backgrounds with respect to places of origin and education. With fascinating accounts of familiar role models ranging from author Benjamin Banneker to... Read More

In the last moments of his life, George Floyd called out for his mother. Dion Graham narrates this passage with such knowing naturalism and compassion that it will just about break listeners’ hearts. With his ease with American regional accents and idioms, Graham follows Floyd’s life from North Carolina to coming of age in the tough Third Ward of Houston, Texas. Sensitive and... Read More

This stirring audiobook offers a memorable merging of author, subject, and narrator. JD Jackson voices John Lewis with an authentic and nuanced nod to his rural Alabama roots. He adroitly does the New England intonations of JFK and RFK and the drawls of LBJ and George Wallace. But it is the powerful retelling of John Lewis’s life’s work fighting to bring civil and voting rights... Read More

Poet and journalist Clint Smith's debut work of nonfiction captivates as he explores the ways that we Americans confront and reckon with the legacy of slavery in the United States. His resonant voice moves with a poet's rhythm as he takes listeners to former plantations, on historical tours, and to Angola Prison. Many sites are in the American South, though he also includes... Read More

With a delivery that is sometimes measured and deliberate, sometimes declaiming, author Kendi (National Book Award winner for STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING) drives home his thesis that the only way to ensure true equality for everyone of every race is to identify and dismantle racist policies and enact explicitly antiracist policies. He frames this thinking within his own... Read More

This is not a passive listen--narrator Jermaine Fowler commands the attention of his audience. His audiobook is a detailed consideration of Black history with a focus on how the American public has learned a deliberately curated story in order to promote a sanitized version. Listeners who only recently learned of the Tulsa Massacre and are wondering what else they haven't been... Read More

Through this audiobook, listeners will come to see Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis as a living bridge from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to President Barack Obama. The force behind the concept of "good trouble," Lewis was inspired to become a minister and to join the Civil Rights movement after hearing King preach over the radio. Lewis was just a boy at the time. His life,... Read More

After a deeply touching foreword by Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis and an introduction by the indomitable force that was Cicely Tyson (1924-2021)—narrator Robin Miles picks up the torch and delivers 16 riveting, thought-provoking hours on the life and times of the author. She was born in Harlem to parents who were West Indian immigrants. Her career in modeling and show... Read More

KING FOR KIDS is a misleading title; this recording could well be entitled KING FOR EVERYONE: AN ESSENTIAL INTRODUCTION TO MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. As one narrator remarks, for those who do not have personal memories of this man, this collection bears witness to the period and the person. Hearing each of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, speeches as one in a continuum calls attention... Read More

Dion Graham superbly narrates this riveting audiobook, emulating the majestic cadence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, speeches. He captures the Civil Rights leader’s deep, resonant tone; deliberate ministerial intonation; and, during offstage moments, his world-weariness. When portraying Coretta Scott King, Graham modulates his style, and he shifts into reportorial mode,... Read More

April 1963 found Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for his leadership role in a Civil Rights protest there. Eight local religious leaders publicly admonished him for his participation, saying that it was particularly unseemly for a clergyman. The eloquence of the response King wrote from his cell, in which he defended "nonviolent, direct action"... Read More

Antonia Hylton does a bang-up job narrating her own work, a searing account of Crownsville Hospital, a segregated mental institution in Maryland that served as a dumping ground for any Black person whom white authorities found inconvenient. Crownsville was, for much of its 93-year history, not a place of healing, despite the best efforts of some staff members. Instead, it was a... Read More

Narrator Karen Chilton echoes the determination of Civil Rights activists in Mississippi's often overlooked but hugely influential March against Fear in 1966. Its initiator, James Meredith, was shot early in the march, and his mission was adopted by a coalition of black leaders with sometimes competing agendas. As Martin Luther King, Jr., sought to temper more revolutionary... Read More

This remarkable box set of CDs can be cherished for its historic collection of Dr. King’s speeches and sermons but also because it's just a beautiful package, with photos and quotes on the slip jackets and discs. The discs also helpfully list details of the specific speeches and audiences. That's before we even get to the sound parts, for which this is eminently collectable.... Read More

Narrator Dion Graham mimics the raspy, gravelly voice of jazz great Miles Davis to perfection. Covering every aspect of Davis’s tumultuous life, Graham, at times, adds a light chuckle or a low growl to the story—especially as he leads the way through the murky and painful episodes. Most fascinating are the connections between Davis’s relationships and the development of his... Read More

Karen Chilton conveys both powerful joy and profound grief in her narration of Willie Mae Brown's stories about growing up in Selma, Alabama, during the Civil Rights movement. Chilton's voice is delightfully dynamic and expressive, evoking the style of an old-school preacher. She whispers, she thunders, she sings, and she weeps as Brown tries to make sense of the powerful... Read More

Known as the Queen of Folk during the 1950s-60s, the mononymous singer and guitarist Odetta was also an important Civil Rights activist. A newcomer to audiobook narration, Rosa Howard turns out to be outstanding in her narration of this first full-length biography of an influential but enigmatic figure. Howard is comfortable with Zack’s narrative; she makes his interviews and... Read More

Peabody Award-winning journalist Michele Norris and a full cast deliver a must-listen performance of Norris’s riveting examination of race in America. Based on 12 years of submissions to Norris’s Race Card Project—six words about race from over half-a-million people—the audiobook shifts between Norris’s clear, warm, thoughtful commentary and participants’ contributions, all... Read More

President Obama’s distinctively deliberate delivery, singular cadence, and love of words are all fully on display in this, the first volume of his monumental memoir. (Another volume is projected.) The sound of his voice—sometimes professorial, sometimes storytelling, occasionally intimate—is well known around the planet. The audiobook is packed with anecdotes and political... Read More

Leading a cast of well-established, award-winning African American voice talents, Tamika Katon-Donegal gives a voice full of bright sensitivity, intelligence, and hope to Rachel, a young early-twentieth-century Black woman who is coming of age and looking to the future. When Rachel runs headlong into the real-life horrors of American racism, she doubts whether she can follow... Read More

This is the thirtieth anniversary of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Presenting the life of the captured and enslaved African Kunte Kinte and his American descendants as representative ancestors for contemporary African-Americans, Haley initiated a dialogue on race in America not experienced since the writing of UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. Those audiophiles who have heard Avery... Read More

In this intricate, insightful, and deeply moving work of nonfiction, author/narrator Imani Perry meanders through the South, from New Orleans and DC to the Georgia coast and the West Virginia hills. With a blend of history and personal stories, she explores the South—its culture, language, geography, food, politics—and the crucial role it has played in American history and... Read More

Jason Reynolds wrote and now narrates a vital and compelling young reader’s remix of Kendi’s STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING. Together, they have created essential listening for younger listeners, those who are raising them, and their teachers. Kendi himself narrates the introduction, setting a serious tone and clearly explaining segregationist, assimilationist, and antiracist... Read More

How better to communicate this vital history of racism in America to its young audience than to have the audiobook narrated by a peer? Nine-year-old Pe’Tehn Raighn-Kem Jackson hits it out of the park with her lively and engaging reading. Her voice and delivery are unmistakably those of a kid—and she's an inspired casting choice. Short chapters, ideal for listening to one at a... Read More

In this inspiring anthology of more than 250 poems from the 1920s high-water mark of the Harlem Renaissance, narrator Ron Butler accentuates the classical tones and themes of Countee Cullen. Robin Miles finds the warmth and intelligence in Georgia Douglas Johnson's best work. And Kevin Kenerly captures Langston Hughes's distinct groundbreaking jazz rhythms. Quick, focused,... Read More

Using an understated conversational style, narrator January LaVoy performs journalist Gilliam’s memoir, which covers both the trajectory of her professional life and the story of a country experiencing the turmoil of change. Gilliam’s journey from pastor’s daughter with a narrow future to first black female reporter and columnist for the WASHINGTON POST spanned the Civil Rights... Read More

Music and sound effects accentuate the moods in this nonfiction picture book about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. January LaVoy narrates with a range of emotions. She opens cheerfully, detailing the thriving Black community's prosperity, reading the repeated refrains: "Once upon a time in Greenwood . . ." and "Once upon a time on Black Wall Street . . ." City sounds and... Read More

Opening with the film-like sounds of a gathering storm at sea and a group of captive African women staging a desperate battle for their freedom, this combined memoir/audio play/graphic novel bursts with energy, inspiration, and little-known historical facts throughout. Based on Rebecca Hall’s pioneering research into women-led slave revolts, the story becomes personal when... Read More

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s extraordinary history of the twentieth-century migration of Southern black citizens to Northern and Western cities is narrated in standard American English by Robin Miles. But this is a book rich in dialogue. In the melted-butter drawls of rural Southern sharecroppers and in the crisp accents of Northern factory workers, Miles... Read More

Robin Miles narrates this audiobook with empathy and a sure sense of Hurston’s literary voice. She arranges her pace and adapts her tone in ways that give listeners access to the author’s idiosyncratic brilliance. Capturing Hurston’s intonations and invigorating her varied essays with an understanding of the author’s intentions help reveal her meanings and bring Hurston’s world... Read More

This audiobook perfectly captures the extraordinary Project C, the ten- week campaign to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, which was crucial to the subsequent success of the 1963 March on Washington. Jaime Lincoln-Smith's performance is exceptional. He complements the book's historical precision with his delivery of the memorable voice of Martin Luther King, Jr., while... Read More

Narrator Bahni Turpin engages the listener with this complex dual biography of writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. While both are known as luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, this audiobook explores the lesser known aspects of their friendship and collaboration throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, which ended in a bitter split. Turpin keeps the pace of the work flowing... Read More