10 Books Selected by the RumbergerKirk Team

There is no question that books are powerful. Reading not only strengthens the mind, but also, according to the Scientific American, improves empathy and may affect how we relate to others. In honor of Black History Month, we asked everyone at RumbergerKirk to share their favorite books written by Black authors or that describe the many struggles of injustice and fight for civil liberties. Below is the resulting list of recommendations from a wide variety of attorneys and staff.

• The Personal Librarian: The remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict, and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

• The Broken Earth Trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky) from science fiction/fantasy author N.K. Jemisin. She was the first author to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel for her Broken Earth trilogy.  (Think winning three consecutive Oscars for best leading actor).  Her latest work, The City We Became, was recommended as one of the most imaginative works in the genre.

• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a powerful, fantastical story of slavery in Virginia on a tobacco plantation that seeks to illuminate the forgotten emotional tolls of slavery.

• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead:  In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

• Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. Two books rich with passion and struggle. One tells the life and struggle of one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century while the other is an account of the bestselling author’s family history where he tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an African sold into slavery in the United States where he and his descendants live through major historic events.

• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This 1937 classic of the Harlem Renaissance is Hurston’s best known work. She tells the epic tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life’s joys and sorrows, and come home to herself in peace.

• Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King. Winning the  2013 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, this offers a detailed chronicle of racial injustice in the Florida town of Groveland in 1949 involving four black men falsely accused of rape and drawing a civil rights crusader, and eventual Supreme Court justice, into the legal battle.

• If Beale Street Could Talk, the 1974 novel is a love story set in Harlem in the early 1970s and written James Baldwin, an essayist, playwright, novelist and voice of the American civil rights movement also known for Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, and Go Tell It on the Mountain.

• Chaos Seeds, a “LitRPG” genre series written by Dr. Aleron Kong. Fans of fantasy books and video games unite in the LitRGB genre.

• Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem by bell hooks takes an in-depth look at one of the most critical issues facing African Americans: a collective wounded self-esteem that has prevailed from slavery to the present day.

• Other highly recommended authors included Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes.