February is Black History Month. This month, we at the UW Tacoma Library are highlighting resources that acknowledge, honor, and celebrate the lasting legacies of Black creators. The works below highlight many — but not all — of the struggles faced by Black people throughout the history of the U.S., as well as the triumphs that arise at the intersections of identity. 

We not only want to shed light on history, but also look toward the future. We acknowledge that we should not only look at these resources now, but throughout our personal, educational and professional lives.

This week we have compiled a list of resources — databases, websites, streaming services, and books both fiction and non-fiction — that can help us as we begin celebrating Black History Month. All of the foundational texts and new creative releases included in our short selection are accessible through the UW Libraries catalog and online.

Books

Historical Nonfiction:

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2012) by Michelle Alexander

• The Warmth of Other Suns (2010) by Isabel Wilkerson

• The Fire Next Time (1963; 1993 edition) by James Baldwin

Fiction:

• Kindred by Octavia Butler (2003) (Sci Fi)

  • Audiobook

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (2017) 

  • Audiobook

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016) (Historical Fiction)

  • Audiobook

• Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987) (Fiction)

  • Audiobook 

Poetry:

• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014) 

  • Audiobook

• The Tradition by Jericho Brown (2019) 

• I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood by Tiana Clark (2018) 

• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (2007 ed.) by Audre Lorde

  • Audiobook

• theamandagorman.com — While the UW awaits Gorman’s 2021 releases, watch her space for more. 

Looking Ahead:

• Black Futures (2020) ed. Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham

• Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire (2020) by GerShun Avilez

• The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race (2016) ed. Jesmyn Ward

Online Resources

Databases/Websites:

• Blackpast.org 

  • “BlackPast is dedicated to providing a global audience with reliable and accurate information on the history of African America and of people of African ancestry around the world.”

• King Online Encyclopedia

  • The Martin Luther King Jr. Encyclopedia “has over 280 articles on civil rights movement figures, events, and organizations. It also offers a detailed day-to-day chronology of King’s life, drawn from the volumes.”

• Oxford African American Studies Center  

  • “The Oxford African American Studies Center… [is] the most comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.”

• Black Thought and Culture 

  • “Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders”

Streaming Services:

• Black Studies in Video by Alexander Street Press

  • “Black Studies in Video is an award-winning black studies portfolio that brings together seminal documentaries, powerful interviews, and previously unavailable archival footage surveying the black experience.”

• Kanopy

  • “Titles range from small educational documentaries to narrative art-house cinema, organized by subject into categories such as Film & Popular and Global Studies & Languages. The collection includes over 8,000 titles.”

Blog post co-written and resources compiled by Elexa Moore and Sierra Jorgensen-Bartlett.