Fiction

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride (historical fiction with mystery and heart)
• The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett (a powerful story about identity and race)
• Beloved – Toni Morrison (a haunting classic about the legacy of slavery)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (a beautifully written classic about love and independence)
• The Prophets – Robert Jones Jr. (a lyrical historical novel about love between enslaved men)

Nonfiction & Memoir

• The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson (about the Great Migration of Black Americans)
• Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates (a powerful letter to his son about race in America)
• Heavy: An American Memoir – Kiese Laymon (a deeply personal and poetic memoir)
• How We Fight for Our Lives – Saeed Jones (a moving coming-of-age memoir)
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown (about race, faith, and justice)

Poetry

• Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine (a blend of poetry and essays on race and identity)
• Black Girl, Call Home – Jasmine Mans (powerful poems on Black womanhood)
• The Hill We Climb – Amanda Gorman (inspirational poetry from the inaugural poet)

Spiritual & Theological Books

• The Cross and the Lynching Tree – James H. Cone (on Black liberation theology)
• Jesus and the Disinherited – Howard Thurman (a classic on Jesus and social justice)
• Psalms for Black Lives: Reflections for the Work of Liberation – Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes and Andrew Wilkes
• Black Liturgies – Cole Arthur Riley (a mix of prayers, meditations, and reflections)
• The Lightmaker’s Manifesto – Karen Walrond (on justice and faith-driven activism)